'He found strong, empathetic women - then destroyed us'

Convicted murderer and serial abuser Kieron Goodwin had a type when it came to women - hardworking, professional and above all, empathetic.

Goodwin was jailed for 35 years on Thursday for murdering his ex girlfriend Olivia Wood in July last year at his Somerset flat when she tried to leave him after months of abuse.

He was also jailed for a string of sexual offences between 2020 and 2024 against three former partners, who have told the BBC that Goodwin groomed and then "broke them".

One said she was left "not knowing which way was up and which was down" after being bullied into taking drugs and forced to have sex with other men for Goodwin's pleasure. Another gave him more than £85,000 of her savings and was left completely cut off from her friends and family.

Goodwin pleaded guilty to coercively controlling Ms Wood and the three other victims, but they say that when they were with him, they did not realise what was happening to them.

His relationships followed a pattern of "love bombing" his victims with adoration, before quickly turning abusive and controlling.

He would garner sympathy by warning them he was struggling with his mental health, and that he would kill himself if they left.

They handed over tens of thousands of pounds of their savings to support him, much of which was spent on his cocaine habit.

He would then leave them feeling "dirty and disgusting" by pressuring them to sleep with strangers or perform sex acts on camera, and such a deep sense of shame they were unable to tell anyone about it.

Kate, whose real identity the BBC is protecting, said: "To start with I thought he was the best person ever to exist - he was so lovely, he would do tiny little things to make me feel special all the time."

But if she ever returned to her own flat, he would tell her: "I can't be on my own, I'm really struggling. If you really cared you'd be here."

Jane, not her real name, believes Goodwin was quick to identify an empath who would do everything to help him if they believed his mental health was in crisis.

"I do believe he groomed people - based on my knowledge he liked strong, caring, empathetic women," she said.

She was in contact with Goodwin for seven years on social media before they met in person and began a relationship, and she believes he would keep women "in the wings" as future victims.

Sarah, not her real name, remembers Goodwin having panic attacks at night, and him telling her he "didn't feel loved".

"I just felt like I had to be there to protect him and make him feel loved," Sarah said.

He had a unique approach to isolating them from friends and family, by forcing them to narrate warped sexual fantasies involving loved ones if they received calls or messages from them.

Eventually all three victims had largely cut contact with their support network to avoid the ordeal.

Each described finally agreeing to Goodwin's demands to sleep with a stranger after relentless pressure and abuse from him.

"He kept telling me that I was weird and everyone else does this and I'm so boring and I'm so vanilla and just do it," Kate said.

When she finally gave in, she said: "I felt so dirty and disgusting. I was so ashamed I had done something even though I was made to do it."

It was the same experience for Sarah, who was told she was "frigid and boring".

"Your confidence just goes completely and when you don't feel good enough," she said.

"Over the first three months he'd worn me down so much I didn't know which way was up and which way was down. I didn't know myself anymore."

Jane would be verbally abused, ignored for days on end or compared to Goodwin's ex partners when she tried to resist his sexual demands.

"It never stopped and his wants got more extreme and his kinks got more extreme and I tried and I gave in so much to what he wanted me to do and it was never enough," Jane said.

"By the end of the relationship I didn't recognise myself any more. I didn't have an identity any more. I hated myself in the end."

Jane lost the entirety of the £85,000 she had saved for a deposit during her 18-month relationship with Goodwin and ended up in debt because she would give him cash or buy him things just to give herself a brief period of calm from his moods.

She now struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and is currently unable to work.

Despite everything, Jane still felt she loved Goodwin when she left him, and only went to the police when he began seeing Ms Wood because she feared for her safety.

Like her, Ms Wood was someone Goodwin had been talking to for several years online.

"I was so scared he was going to hurt this person," Jane said.

"I didn't understand how he could go from screaming and shouting and hitting me and being so violent and being so aggressive then suddenly being okay."

Scared someone else would suffer, she went to police in June - a month before Olivia was murdered.

"I just thought we had more time before it escalated that quickly, and that hurts a lot," she added.

All three retreated into themselves to try and protect themselves from what Goodwin was making them do.

"It was like I had separated myself into two people, so there was the real me that was still somewhere inside and there was the second me that was just trying to survive," Kate said.

Sarah said: "I just went numb. I just did what I needed to do to survive."

The law against coercive control came into force a decade ago, but neither Sarah or Jane were aware of it.

"I didn't even know the term gaslighting or narcissist, love bombing - certainly not coercive control," Sarah said.

"I didn't know it was an offence and if I did I can't say it would have changed anything."

Jane was aware, and had even researched the term, but at the time refused to believe Goodwin's behaviour was deliberate.

"I was trying to educate myself because I wanted to understand how I could navigate it because I didn't blame him," she said.

"There was always a reason or a justification or it was his mental health issues, I thought 'he doesn't mean to do this, he's not trying to hurt me'. But now that I'm out of it, I definitely think he knew what he was doing."

She continued: "At one point he convinced me I was a narcissist, that I was abusing him. The games abusers are playing with you all the time, you don't have the head space to think."

"He got so much in my head that he made me believe I was doing it, or I was making it up, or I was exaggerating, and I kind of just accepted that was my life and that's what I deserved."

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