Rachel Shannon

she was terrified that he would make good on that threat.

So she wanted to make sure everything was taken care of in the event that she could no longer protect Luke.

As all of this was happening, Rosie had actually met a new man with whom she started a new relationship.

For the five years that she was in this relationship, the abuse from Greg took a pause.

He backed off and Rosie lived with Luke happily and safe.

Things were good.

But then,

This relationship with the new man ended, and as soon as that happened, Greg was back in her life, causing chaos and turmoil.

And by May of 2012, the violence made its way back into Rosie's life.

Greg flew into one of his rages, and this time he attacked Rosie, threatening to beat her with a vase.

This was all in front of Luke, who is now old enough to understand what was going on.

During the attack, Luke grabbed the phone to dial 000.

He reported what was happening to his mom but police took quite a while to arrive so the situation was still absolutely terrifying for Luke who would have been almost 10 at the time.

Luke would later tell the authorities that during the attack he tried pulling his father off of his mother but he was too little.

He wishes he could be bigger because maybe then he could have protected his mother.

Absolutely heartbreaking to hear.

After the assault, once police finally responded, Greg was arrested and charged with the assault.

The following day, a risk assessment was done on the family and it was determined that both Rosie and Luke should be identified as protected persons and that the probability of future harm was very likely.

That is when an order of protection was issued against Greg.

However, after the initial arrest, he was released, and the charges took several months to be authorized due to workload issues.