The Times Magazine 51only the death of Lyttle would allow him to
start his life afresh. He made meticulous plans
for his murder and ways of making sure he
was never caught. “I had a kit bag with me,
ready at all times. I had black leather gloves,
a knuckleduster, some tie wraps, a rope,” he
lists. “I’d hang him and make it look like a
suicide. I’d chuck him off a railway bridge.”
One night, he decided he could no longer
put it off. He approached Lyttle’s house,
dressed from head to toe in black and with
a knuckleduster on each hand. Hiding in the
back garden, he waited until Lyttle stepped
out for a cigarette. He began to stalk forward
through the shadows and got to within 5ft
of his target when, suddenly, a young child
emerged from the house. Lyttle now had
a family and the children’s presence meant
that Hancock had to abort his mission. In the
darkness, he says, he sank to his knees and
“cried my eyes out”.
In an odd way, Lyttle’s life may ultimately
have been saved by Hancock’s propensity for
violence. In 2015, Hancock was involved in
an altercation with a member of security staff
at a Sheffield casino. He was being dragged
from the premises and threw a single punch- which he maintains was in self-defence –
that broke a bouncer’s jaw, cheekbone and eye
socket. He was charged with GBH and given
a custodial sentence. A few weeks before
his sentencing, his parents gently confronted
him. “They said, ‘What’s going on? You’re our
son and we know when something’s not right.’”
In their lounge, the truth finally, slowly
emerged. He told them about what had
happened when he was ten. “My mum just
put her head in her hands and went, ‘No, no,
no...’ My dad looked at my mum, looked at
me, looked at my mum, looked at me and then
his lips went all tight,” he remembers. “It was
the hardest bridge I’d ever crossed. The reason
I hadn’t told my mum and dad was because I
never wanted them to feel guilty. And I’d had
lifelong practice at covering it up. I’d become
a master of masking it.”
It sounds as though Hancock’s parents
dealt with it incredibly. His mother told him
that while she wished he’d said something
sooner, he was still only 24 and had his life
ahead of him, whereas some men take these
secrets to their graves. His father told him he
was “proud” of him for telling them. He also
explained to him that if he went down the
path of revenge, then he’d still have to deal
with the trauma he had been through as a
child, though he’d have to deal with it alone,behind bars. If, on the other hand,
he let go of his desire for revenge,
then at least he would be dealing
with his trauma surrounded by
people who love him. “He said,
‘Whether you go down the bad
path or the good path, you have
still been raped and you’re going
to have to deal with that. Life is
full of choices. But I know where
I want you to be to deal with this.’ ”
Hancock served six and a half
months in prison for GBH. On his release,
he resumed his boxing career while also
working as a scaffolder. Although he no longer
plotted Lyttle’s death, it became intolerable
that his parents should have to live their lives
in close proximity to the Lyttles, whose home
was only a stone’s throw away.
Finally, one night, Hancock went to the
house of Lyttle’s parents, where Lyttle and
his family also happened to be present. “I just
let myself straight in,” he says. A reckoning
ensued in the living room. “I pointed at him
and said, ‘F***ing sit down.’ I grabbed hold
of his face and turned it towards me, but
he wouldn’t look at me.” In front of Lyttle’s
parents, Hancock demanded that his abuser
explain what had happened in the den. All hegot were mumbles. “He said, ‘Honestly, Cal,
I just can’t remember.’” So Hancock took over,
and recounted the whole incident to the silent
room. “I said, ‘You and me are joined together
on this path now whether you like it or not.
Because you raped me as a child.’ ” Lyttle’s
mother, Hancock says, began to scream and
cry. “I’ll never forget the sound she made.
When she eventually got her words out she
was saying, ‘You’re a liar! You’re a liar!’”
But, Hancock says, she was not addressing
him. She was addressing her own son. “She
said, ‘You’ve lied till you’re blue in the face.
You said that nothing happened. Nothing
happened. All this lad’s done is sit down here
and now you can remember?’”
Hancock walked out of the house. The
months that followed were perhaps his lowest
period. Eventually, he sought counselling at
the Sheffield Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre.
On the morning of his appointment, he got
his hair cut, and says he just stared at his face
in the mirror without realising that his barber- and then the entire shop – had spent a
minute trying to get his attention. In his car,
he sat at some traffic lights without noticing
the lights had changed at least three times.
The counsellor informed him, gently, that
he was in crisis. She made a
phone call. On the line was
a police officer, who told him
he was very brave. Hancock
excused himself and went to the
toilet, where he almost collapsed.
“I can remember thinking,
there’s no going back now.”
In September 2018, Hancock
waived his right to anonymity
when Lyttle was charged and
sentenced at Derby crown
court for the assaults he had carried out
as a teenager. He was given six and a half
years in jail.
Hancock’s admission did not affect his
standing within his sport. In fact he ended
up being asked to box in the biggest fight
of his life, against a Russian opponent at
Sheffield Arena. “I remember the arena was
packed. And I was looking around and could
see the lights on everyone’s phones flashing.
And the music and the atmosphere was
brilliant. And I can remember thinking... is
this it? I’ve got here and I’m still not happy.
I’ve been doing this all my life, fighting all my
life,” he says. “But I’ve always fought because
I hadn’t faced what was going on inside me.”
Hancock has only fought once since.
Instead, he began attending an organisation
called Survivors Manchester, which supports
male survivors of rape and sexual abuse.
“Walking through the doors the first time,
I saw posters, artworks, poems. And it all
made sense. I felt this deep sense of belonging.
And that’s where I began my recovery.”
He has tried various therapies, from
cognitive behavioural therapy to eye
movement desensitisation and reprocessing
to hypnosis. “There is a world inside us
I was never aware of. I find beauty in the
simplest things now.”
He is training as a life coach and is
involved in initiatives encouraging men
and boys to talk about what they have been
through. “Because the more we’re speaking
about this, the more comfortable the
conversation becomes and the less comfortable
a perpetrator will be in doing the perpetrating.
At the moment, the biggest advantage
a perpetrator has is silence. So if we can
eliminate that, what have they got?”
In time, he says, he may return to the
boxing ring. What he does know, though,
is that he is no longer the Hitman: a fighter
driven by shame and pain and secrecy.
“No,” he says, smiling. “What you see is
what you get now. It’s like all the pieces of
the puzzle have fallen into place.” nSurvivors Manchester provides support for male
survivors of sexual abuse (survivorsmanchester.
org.uk; 0808 800 5005). For details of other UK
support services, visit gov.uk/sexualabusesupport‘I’ve been fighting all my life because I hadn’t
faced what was going on inside me’
Jason Lyttle, who was
sentenced to six and a
half years in jail for his
assults on HancockDERBYSHIRE CONSTABULARY