“I was married for twenty years, and for ten of those I was a punch bag,” said Luísa Barreto, the woman who disappeared after attending a doctors appointment in Santo Amaro on the 14th of September.
In a statement, the woman who is now living in the UK said “I left home on the 14th of September, I should have left long ago. I have not abandoned my children, whom I have already spoken to, nor am I missing. I have spoken to my mother, and I contacted my sister-in-law when I arrived in England. She went on to add that it is her husband who is preventing her from having any further contact with her children. Incidentally, her statement belies the comments made by her husband, Marco Barreto, who told local newspaper JM that she hadn’t tried to contact her children since her disappearance.