Ali Ammoun had been charming when they first met, and Tanya could not have foreseen he would savagely attack both her and her mother.
Mother-of-eight Tanya Ammoun runs her fingers along the scars crisscrossing her scalp to the disfiguring “mark of Zorro” along her face ? harrowing reminders of the night she was left for dead, choking on her own blood.
But while time has healed the physical wounds the Fremantle teacher’s aide suffered during a vicious stabbing frenzy, the chilling flashbacks remain.
“Sometimes I’m strapping the baby into the car seat, or supermarket shopping, when I’m back there and it’s happening all over again,” says Tanya, 38.
“It’s like some awful, surreal three-dimensional horror movie, where I hear the knife squelching into my flesh, and can smell and taste the blood again as I waited to die,” she says.
“Then I look at my children and remind myself how lucky I am to be here, and how my love for them kept me alive that night as I lay drowning in my own blood on my neighbour’s front porch.”
Tanya fled her abusive 13-year marriage to wealthy businessman Ali Ammoun in 2006, never dreaming his hatred would climax in such a hideous way.
Now, as Ammoun, 49, begins a 16-year jail sentence for his shocking crime, Tanya talks for the first time of the terrifying hours of violence.
If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, seek help. Call the national 24-hour Confidential Helpline on 1800 200 526.
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