Sophie Melvin

OBE

**Dame** **Lady Sophie Melvin**, OBE(nee **Acaster**, formerly **Hussain**) is an English painter, drawer, children's rights activist and wife to Sir Luke Melvin.

Sophie married Melvin in 1969, after ten years of being romantic partners, living together and loving each other. They married in London. Sophie had been loyal to her husband from 1959 to his death in 2006. She travelled with him on tour and she never spent one night apart from him.

Sophie was abused as a child mentally and physically and often had to endure a beating with a belt, a black eye and spending hours locked in the outside toilet. In 1958, when Sophie was aged 19, she was forced to marry Bob Hussain, and he carried on her parents' rituals of beating with a belt and punctured lungs. On 19 September 1958, she was raped by Hussain and was saved by a young man called Luke Melvin, who beat Hussain up. Their divorce was finalised on Christmas '58 and she moved in with eighteen-year-old Luke and his family. They got together in 1959 and since then, she has been a children's rights activist, starting public activism in 1960.

## Biography

Sophie Acaster was born in 1939, and grew up in an abusive family. Originally, she was slapped round the face and had the odd knock to the floor but in the late forties it began to take off with Acaster being beaten with a belt whenever she ever got anything below an A in class or whenever she talked when her father or mother was talking. She was left alone for days on end at age 12 and in the early fifties, the abuse started to get much worse with rape being threatened. At 14, Acaster ran away from home but was found by her father and tied up in the garage, beaten with a baseball bat until she was in a pool of blood and left to die. She managed to survive and went back to the daily belt beating and black eye. In 1957, Acaster became an adult and was locked in her room so she couldn't leave the house. Paid rapist and murderer Bob Hussain began to visit the house often and Acaster's father told her that he was her boyfriend. They got married in 1958. She was forced to move in with him and he often beat and raped her. In August 1958, her father paid for Hussain to kill her and he began his move the next month. They engaged in a public engagement on 19 September 1958, where Hussain raped Sophie and stabbed her ten times. A young man called Luke Melvin heard the commotion and tried to disarm Hussain but Melvin was stabbed. He then came for Hussain from behind and knocked him down. He then stabbed Hussain in the leg, and took the knife out. Bob Hussain was arrested, charged and sentenced to life. Sophie Hussain moved in with Melvin and his family. Sophie and Hussain's divorce was finalised on 25 December 1958.

Acaster and Melvin began a romantic relationship in March 1959 and soon became partners. Sophie and Luke moved into their own place in July 1959 and Melvin agreed to become a children's rights activist with her. They did their first bit of public activism in January 1960. Acaster became a professional artist and painter (the only subject that took her mind off the abuse in her childhood) in May 1960. Melvin became a Capitol Records employee and the income of the couple was quite high.

In December 1968, Luke Melvin proposed to Acaster and she accepted and they married in February 1969, with George Harrison Melvin's best man. Melvin launched a professional music career in May 1970, becoming one of the most successful artists of all time in the space of a month.

In 1975, Sophie Melvin told her husband Luke that they may have to move from Liverpool due to the death threats he was receiving and the black eyes they had got while in public due to the controversy of his 1975 US Tour. They managed to get through it, and in 1978, they welcomed their only son to the world: Ben. Sophie travelled with Luke to Buckingham Palace in January 1981 when he received an MBE from the Queen.

Luke Melvin retired in 1982 and they had a peaceful rest of the decade. Sophie accompanied Luke Melvin when he toured extensively from 1991 to 1998. He then gave up touring and retired.

In 2005, her husband was awarded with a knighthood, making Sophie "Lady Sophie Melvin", a title she loved after all she had been through in her childhood. Her husband died in 2006, and she was devastated completely, and was at the head of the Luke Melvin Memorial which took place in September 2006, marking her husband a "hero" not "just in the music world", having saved her life too.

In 2010, Melvin was awarded with an OBE for services to children's rights activism, charity and artwork. She received a knighthood in January 2019. She has said she will not end her "Lady" title and will become "Dame Lady Sophie Melvin".