Her footballer fiancé Ched Evans was found guilty and then cleared of rape. Here, Natasha Massey opens up for the first time to Allison Pearson about why she has stood by him for the last five years

There are millons of women who have turned a blind eye to their husband's or boyfriend’s infidelity. There are millions more who have forgiven and forgotten though they felt humiliated and their hearts were broken. Even Hillary Clinton, the likely next leader of the free world, has suffered severe embarrassment because Bill was “a hard dog to keep on the porch”. The case of Natasha Massey is worse than that, though. Much worse. For, on the day Natasha found out that the man she planned on spending her life with had cheated on her, he also told her he’d been charged with rape.

“I threw up,” she says, “I was so shocked I was physically sick. I couldn’t stop crying and shaking. Blindly, she drove to a car park near the Massey family home on Alderley Edge. She couldn’t bear for her mum and dad to try and comfort her. “I’d been going to spend the rest of my life with this guy and, immediately, I said, I’m not going to be with him now.” She hurled her phone as far as she could and with it the voice on the end of the line who was pleading with her.