Channel 5 will show I Survived a Serial Killer: The Delia Balmer Story again on May 28 at 10pm, bringing back a documentary that follows Balmer’s violent relationship with john sweeney. The programme, first aired in 2024, revisits how a woman who once worked as a nurse and therapeutic masseuse met a murderer and survived.
Balmer met Sweeney in 1991 at a London pub and later invited him to live with her after the pair began a relationship. By 1994, she was trying to end it. That was when he tied her to her bed and intimidated her with a firearm and blade, before later lunging at her with an axe outside her home after a breach of police conditions. The attack left her with life-changing injuries, and a neighbour stepped in with a baseball bat to save her life.
The documentary centers on Balmer’s account of surviving that violence, and Channel 5 has described it as a chance for her to relive what it was like to live with a killer. The film also places her story in the shadow of Sweeney’s reputation as one of Britain’s most infamous killers, known as the Canal Killer. Balmer later wrote Living With A Serial Killer, a memoir that set out the relationship in her own words.
Balmer, now in her 70s, reportedly leads a private life in London and has not made any fresh public appearances since her involvement with the ITV drama series Until I Kill You and its documentary. She traveled to South Africa in 2023, but has otherwise stayed out of view. In an interview with ITV, she said she continues to struggle with her mental health following the attack, a reminder that the injuries from 1994 were not only physical and that the story is still not far behind her.
