Author, Caroline Lowbridge
Designation, East Midlands
Published 2 minutes ago
Reading Time: 9 minutes
"In my opinion, it was the best relationship of my life. Maybe until the day before he confessed to what he had done."
Adele Overton considered her former boyfriend Steven Uden to be a perfect partner. Both were in a relationship for 13 years.
Both of them met on the set of a zombie film. Both had similar interests in many things. Overton says Youden was very kind and loving. When Overton fell ill, Steven even left work to take care of her.
"He was brilliant. I loved him very much and I think I still do a little bit," says Overton, sitting on the sofa at her home in Derby.
Overton had full confidence in Uden. But this trust was broken when Uden admitted that he used to rape Overton.
"I immediately felt betrayed," says Overton. "I had never felt so secure in a relationship before."
Uden took care of Overton when she was being treated for breast cancer. But she later told police that Overton had raped her while she was under the influence of drugs.
"I thought I knew him," Overton says. "But now I don't know who he is. He seems like a stranger to me."
Skip to Most Read Skip to content
most read
finished
"He was living with me for 13 years. He also helped me raise my children."
"I thought I was safe, but I wasn't."
Uden is now in jail. Overton has decided to speak out about what happened. He hopes this will help others.
Overton and Uden met while filming a zombie film in Nottingham in 2009, when she was 29 and Uden was 27.
Uden did make-up and acting, and Overton was the artist. Both of them had their own relationships, but they remained in touch with each other as friends.
They finally became a couple on January 13, 2012, Overton remembers the date.
Overton said that living with Uden was a different experience than her previous relationships.
"He was cheerful and caring and I felt loved by him," she says.
They met in an unusual way, and their life together was also unusual. He worked as a professional zombie for a company that organized zombie survival horror experience days.
Overton had to be physically fit to play a zombie, but he ultimately had to leave the role in 2017 after being diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
After this, in the beginning of 2018, Uden started taking care of him.
"He did almost everything for me," she says.
But when Overton (whose nickname is Dale) looks back, she feels that Uden had started controlling her life.
She says, "He enjoyed telling everyone what I could do."
"If someone suggested doing something, he would cheerfully say, 'I don't think Dale can do it, let's think of something else'."
But Overton now knows that Uden's behavior was more horrific than she could have imagined.
She first suspected it when she was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer in 2020.
She says, "I don't know if there was restlessness in my body or what, but I woke up while he was doing this."
"He made a lot of excuses like, 'I thought you were awake, and you knew what was happening.'"
"I was thinking about all the stress we were going through, and him saying he did it by mistake."
So Overton ignored his fears.
She says, "Maybe it was easier to believe that lie, rather than wondering what the truth could be."
But Overton started having trouble sleeping.
"I think somewhere in my mind, I was feeling unsafe while sleeping," she says.
Overton says she also found it difficult to be intimate with Youden. Bad memories related to past sexual abuse started coming to his mind.
"At the time, I felt like I was linking it to my past trauma. I felt that because of my past trauma, I was being harsher towards him and what he did."
"I started feeling guilty and mentally blaming myself for this."
Euden's confession
Uden did not admit this until five years later, i.e. 2025. Finally, when he himself was suffering from intestinal cancer and was undergoing treatment, he confessed this.
"I think there must have been something going on in his mind, because now he was seeing things from a different perspective of what I was going through," Overton says.
"He started saying that he did not take proper care of me when I was undergoing treatment."
Upon hearing this, Overton remembered an incident from five years ago, when she woke up to find Uden having sex with her. "I pushed him," she says.
I asked him in 2025, 'What does this mean?' What do you mean you didn't take care of me? In what way?'
According to Overton, this conversation lasted for two days, during which time Youden called a friend and explained what he had done. Then he returned home and confessed his crime to Overton.
Overton felt betrayed and disgusted, but did not immediately end the relationship. She felt that she was dependent on Yuden and even loved him.
Overton was already receiving therapy to deal with trauma related to sexual abuse and she mentioned it in her session.
She says: "A therapist got me out of it, because I was completely devastated, I was sobbing and saying, 'What do I do? How do I stop him from doing this?'"
"And he said, 'You throw him out and call the police.' And later that day he said they had a meeting about security, and they were going to call the police on this whole thing, and at that point I kind of knew that this thing was out of my hands."
skip ahead podcast
Dinbhar: Same voice, new style
Big news from the country and the world that made headlines.
episode
finished
This case was handed over to Detective Sergeant Eleanor Kirton of Derbyshire Police, UK.
"I contacted Adele (Overton) first," she says.
"Naturally she was extremely distressed by what had happened."
After interviewing Overton, police arrested Youden.
"When I interviewed him, he immediately admitted what he had done," says Eleanor.
"He immediately admitted that he had raped Overton. It is very unusual for an investigation to take this direction so quickly."
Youden was charged with two counts of rape. Later he accepted his crime in the court. He was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison.
Kirton says Overton's actions have helped protect other women.
“It is because of his bravery and determination that we have been able to save the lives of many more people who otherwise would have had this man continue to commit these crimes.” She says further.
"If anyone feels like this is happening to them, I would really encourage them to come to us and talk about it. Because we can do something. And this case is proof of that."
But Overton still struggles to understand why Uden, the man she loved for 13 years, raped her while she slept.
"I don't understand how someone can enjoy someone having no reaction. That's what I don't understand at all." She says.
"I don't know how to explain it. He loved sleeping with women."
"He wanted me to sleep. He also wanted me not to know what he was doing."
Overton suspects that Youden was keeping him intoxicated by mixing something with his own medicines. He had complete control over these medicines.
But Youden told police that he had once raped Overton while she was undergoing chemotherapy. People become more tired due to chemotherapy.
Kirton says, "I think he was the one who mentioned it at the time. He mentioned that she was undergoing chemotherapy. And he believes that she may have been under the influence of the medication when this incident happened."
Although Youden was accused of raping Overton twice, Overton believed he had done so several times.
"He told me he did this to me seven or eight times," Overton says.
His daughter, Shari Overton, says it has been difficult to watch the impact Youden's crimes have had on her mother.
"She looks very different now," says Sherry. "I can see that her self-confidence has gone down a lot."
"I am also extremely proud of the fact that she showed courage, spoke to the police and the court and stood up for her rights."
Overton hopes her story will show people that they don't have to endure abuse at the hands of their so-called caretakers.
"I felt like I needed to speak out about this because it made me think about how many other sick people are in situations where someone has control over them," she says.
"For a few months after I found out, I thought maybe this was some kind of payment for taking care of me. Maybe I owed her that intimacy. But it wasn't. And no one else should have to do that."
If you have been affected by any of the issues described in this story, help is available through the BBC Action Line.
We used AI to translate this article, which was originally written in English. A BBC journalist checked this translation before publication. Learn more about how we're using AI.
