As told to Dave Jarvis

"It may sound strange but on the day I decided I couldn’t carry on with my life any more I also knew I still had everything to live for.

My husband Tony, a prison officer, was a good husband throughout my bouts of depression and my daughter Kirsty, 30, and I have a fantastic relationship even now.

But I knew also that I couldn’t live in the outside world either. I felt trapped.

I had suffered from depression on and off since my teenage years. But as I got older it was my obsessive nature  -  wanting things to be just so – that derailed my life.

From the books on the shelves to the cups in the kitchen - everything has always had to be in its place for me. It is an illness that has destroyed me and ruined my marriage.

But if you told me I would end up plotting my own murder because of it, I would have said you were mad. I would have said that’s for 007 movies. But it happened.

Throughout it all I never stopped loving my husband but he has found somebody else now and I can’t say I blame him.

Life used to be so different. I had had good jobs as a clerical worker doing the wages, sick pay and deductions and stuff like that at different companies. We had a good family life with friends and an active social life. But the depression bouts and the obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD as it is known medically, was always under the surface.

Even as I young girl going for walks with mum and dad I knew something was a ‘bit out’ as I would say because I would play silly games.

I used to tell myself that if I didn’t touch a certain leaf on a certain tree I would be dead I the morning. It was fun and satisfying but it became a compulsion.

I would always keep my room tidy as a child but as you become older keeping life in order is so much harder.  Not being able to keep thing under control and organised is what started to make me want to end everything. That is how all this started. My whole life is ‘out’ now – out of control.

When I met Kevin Reeves, 40, at the Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, Kent, in 2003, where we were both being treated for our problems, I thought I had made a good friend.

He understood how I felt about life. He was a good listener. He lived not far away from my home in Strood in Snodland and we struck up a good relationship and I grew to trust him. I grew fond of him.

Kevin was unemployed but he was a friendly kind of man. I was always open with him about my problems. I told him I felt I couldn’t carry on but that I didn’t have the courage to do anything about it myself.

I told him there had been cries for help in my life and that I had never succeeded in ending my life.

If I’m honest I think I planted the seed in his head. I said: ‘I wish I could hire a hit man, or something.’

Then he just came out with it. ‘Well, I know someone,’ he said.

‘He could do the job for you,’ he added.

I couldn’t believe I was having the conversation because it sounds so far fetched.

I remember saying it would put me out of my misery and I believed as a good friend he wouldn’t want me to suffer. So I asked him to help.

I knew I still loved Tony and Kirsty and that I should fight these feelings for them but I couldn’t go on fighting any more. I had everything to live for but the urge to end it all was in control of me. That is what I was being treated for but it wasn’t really working.

Kevin made a phone call and came back to me and said it could be done for £2,500.

I thought he was doing it because as a friend he cared about me.

I had money put away from my share of the money from the sale of the family home after I split up with Tony. I wasn’t going to need the money. Not if everything went according to plan.

Kevin said he was going to have me shot. All I had to do was ay the word. I had plenty to think about.

When I left hospital I was still desperate to end it. I moved into a halfway house and got back in touch with Kevin who was back at his home with his wife. I told him I wanted to go ahead with the plan.

He said it could still be done but that the price had doubled to £5,000. It was going to cost more than he thought. He said getting a gun was expensive.

I agreed because I couldn’t live. I was desperate to die but I didn’t have the guts to jump off a tall building or a cliff or anything like that. I made a cheque out for £5,000.

He told me to get ready for a drive-by shooting on June 11, 2003, on the road where I live in Strood.

He said I was to walk along as normal and a car would drive along with him in it to identify me. Another person in the car would shoot me.

I was scared and relieved at the same time. I wanted it to happen. I was terrified but I was going to go through with it. I felt real terror after agreeing to it. I wondered what would happen if I only ended up wounded. What would happen if the gunman missed, I thought. But I was determined to go through with it.

Then he phoned me a couple of days before and said it was off because he had ‘done in’ the hit man in. He said he had killed the hit man. I couldn’t believe my ears. Kevin said there had been a falling out and in his words it was ‘him or me’.

He said the money had already gone to the hit man and that his wife would get it in his will. I didn’t believe him.

Despite what anyone may say I was desperate not mad. I just didn’t believe him and I told him so. But he then swore on his daughter’s life and that convinced me. I said: ‘Well, if you can kill the hit man you can kill me.’

It is away with the fairies, I know. I think when you get desperate you believe what you want to believe. He said the price for him to do it would be £10,000. I was not happy. Far from it. But I was desperate and I paid. Money didn’t really matter – I just wanted to end it.

He said he would book me into a chalet somewhere and drug me first so that it would not be as scary as the drive by plan. Then he talked about finishing me with a gun using a silencer. I agreed and wrote another cheque for £10,000.

After that I lost contact with him. I waited for him ring back with details of the plan but he didn’t.

I was so unhappy to still be alive. When Kevin finally contacted me again he said the £10,000 I had paid him had been seized because he had gone bankrupt but that he would still kill me if I paid him another £10,000. I refused point blank.

It seems silly I didn’t see through him – it was because I was so desperate to die. I agreed to pay him £5,000 if he would still do it and he said this time it would happen on November 28, 2003. He said he would book me into a hotel and inject me with something. I made another cheque out for £5,000.

Again I didn’t hear back from him and nothing happened. This time I got a letter from him saying that the situation had changed but that ‘things are still on’.

I felt so let down because he didn’t murder me but I had parted with a lot of money  £20,000 - and wasn’t falling for it anymore. I went to the police.

At Maidstone Crown Court on January 15, 2006,  Kevin was jailed for 15 months after being convicted of deception and ordered to pay me back £2,000 – which was all he had left of the £20,000 I had paid him.

The judge said he never had any intention of killing me or getting anyone else to do it.

He tried to claim to his wife that of the money I had paid him £10,000 was a loan to set his daughter up in business. But he had taken his wife on an expensive holiday in Tenerife and told her that he had won £5,000 on a scratch card and that another £10,000 came from an insurance policy and that another £5,000 was from an ISA.

I wanted to say something to Kevin after the court case. He was standing outside the court and I wanted to ask: ‘Why? How could you have done this? But it is very awkward. I would still like to talk to him. We were friends. We got on well. But I would like to confront him. I know my emotions are the wrong way round because if he had done what I paid him to do I would be dead now.

In the end he put me through hell. At one point his wife even thought we were having an affair because of all the phone calls I made to his house. She couldn’t have been more wrong. I was writing out cheques for Kevin to get someone to kill me. It was crazy.

It is good to know that he has been found guilty. But it still hasn’t made any difference to me in the sense of being able to carry on.

And the truth is I would still do it.  Yes, if someone made the offer again I probably would do it.

I was with my husband for 35 years and I’m sure he still has feelings for me even though he has found someone else. I met him when I was 15. He has been my life. I still love him but all this has been too much.

Now the highlight of my day is watching television in the evening. I live in a halfway house and need psychiatric support. I’m not mad. I’ve been a functioning member of society for most of my life. In fact in many ways I’ve been a bit of a perfectionist – that is the good side of this illness. If I did something I would do it properly or not at all. But what I’ve got now isn’t living. It isn’t a life.

Believe it or not I’ve got a good sense of humour. I can get along with older people and young people. Anyone. I’m easy going.

Even to me what has happened is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t think there has ever been a story like this before. People say it is bizarre and I know it is.

Kirsty has been wonderful and she wants me to go and live with her. She just wants her mum back. She hasn’t had me for the last five years.

I’ve read about revolutionary treatment for OCD which can wipe it out of your mind. It would mean brain surgery so it would be a big step.

But I’m considering it. Maybe one day I will be able to put all this behind me."

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