CLUTCHING a pint of milk in her arm, Chantelle Griffiths was heading home to enjoy a cuppa before her son got home from school.
On her way, the 44-year-old bumped into her childhood friend, Michael Scully, 52, and was invited round to his flat for a brew.
But she could never have imagined the horror that an innocent cup of tea would bring.
Around four hours later, Chantelle went to leave to pick up her son, 11, but Scully refused to let her.
Scully instructed Chantelle to call her son and tell him to come round to the flat.
Chantelle, from Halifax, West Yorkshire, and her son were “trapped” that night and wouldn’t be able to escape until the next morning.
The mum was strangled, punched and verbally assaulted and was in and out of consciousnesses before she found a way to sneakily alert the police.
Chantelle said: “I thought I was going to die.
“If I didn’t get out of that flat, I don’t think I would be here today.
“I remember when he was hitting me, he said, ‘you’re going to die today’.
“He told my son that he was not going to have a mum; he is traumatised by all this.
“I nearly died; he wasn’t strangling me to keep me awake. He was doing it to murder me.”
Chantelle had known Scully since they were 11 years old. She said the pair had an on-and-off relationship but had always remained friends.
On July 15, 2025, Chantelle had gone to the shop to get a pint of milk when she bumped into Scully.
“I went in and saw Michael there in the shop,” Chantelle said.
“When I left, he asked if I wanted to go in for a brew – he said he wanted to talk to me.
“I went to his; I didn’t even have a brew, but I wanted to get it over with as we weren’t talking at the time.”
But a few hours later, when Chantelle tried to leave to pick up her son from school, Scully told her she couldn’t go.
Chantelle said Scully told her to ring her son and ask him to come to his flat.
“I was trying to leave; I told Michael that I needed to go and cook my son tea,” Chantelle said.
“He got a knife out and told me to tell my son to come to his house.
“I called my son, but he was asking me why I was there. The whole time, I was trying to get out.
“But he wouldn’t let me go; he took my phone and removed my SIM card so I couldn’t call anyone.
“He was living in a high-rise flat. I had nowhere to go.”
Chantelle said she kept bargaining with Scully to leave, but he wouldn’t let her.
At one point, Scully came up behind Chantelle and put his arm around her neck and strangled her – all while her son was in the room next door.
Chantelle said: “He had both arms wrapped around my neck; I could feel my body shutting down. When he let go of me, I was gasping for air; he then dragged me by my hair across the room and whacked my head off the wall.
“He kept telling me that I was going to die, and if the police came to his flat, I would be dead before they got here.”
Chantelle’s horror didn’t end there. She said she spent most of the night in and out of consciousness after Scully repeatedly hit her around the head.
The next morning came, and Chantelle tried to get Scully to let her go, but he wasn’t letting up. But Chantelle had a plan on how to alert people that something was wrong.
Speaking to Talk to the Press, she said: “I told Michael that I needed to use his phone to ring the school.
“I told them that my son had sickness and diarrhoea, then the school asked whose number I was calling from.
“I knew that calling from a different number would set alarm bells ringing.
“Then the police called that same number. I told the police that my son was getting his baby teeth out.
“I told them a different story so that they would work out something was wrong.”
Chantelle’s terrifying ordeal came to an end a few hours later when Scully was arrested by the police in an alleyway by his flat.
Following his arrest, Scully became agitated in a police station cell and subjected a custody inspector to racial abuse.
Chantelle said: “I remember walking down the stairs from Michael’s flat and I kept collapsing.
“Police then took me to the station, where they took photos of my injuries.
“I was then taken to the hospital where they did drug tests, and they told me I had a concussion.”
In September 2026, Scully pleaded guilty at Bradford Crown Court to intentional strangulation, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, assault on an emergency worker, and racially aggravated intentional harassment.
Scully was sentenced to three years and four months in prison and also given an indefinite restraining order to protect Chantelle.
Chantelle said: “When I was trapped in that flat, I thought I was going to die.
“I thought my son was going to grow up without a mum. Three years and four months is an insult – he should have got longer.
“I do not think that I have got justice.”
Speaking during the court case, the Judge said: “Inside she feels broken, frightened and overwhelmed.
“In short, the victim’s whole life has, to use her words, been destroyed by this incident.”