A battered housewife convicted of killing her husband shared the red carpet with Hollywood stars at the premiere of a film about the killing.

Provoked, a British Asian film with a star-studded cast which went on general release at the weekend, is based on the story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, who came to Crawley in 1979 to be married to a man she hardly knew.

Over the next ten years she suffered the nightmare of almost daily physical, mental and sexual violence at the hands of her husband, Deepak.

She said: "The idea of making a film on domestic violence and about what happened to me seemed good to me. I'm glad that the film has been made. Hopefully, my story will help women like me trapped in such situations to come out and let the world know their plight."

Deepak, she says, hit her, broke her fingers, beat her while she was pregnant, held a knife to her throat, smashed her face with shoes, chipped her teeth, and ripped out chunks of her hair. He controlled who she saw and spoke to, where she went and what she ate.

Their two young sons were witness to much of it, and though the youngest, Ravi, remembers nothing, his elder brother, Sanjay, recalls crawling under the table to hide when his father started flailing with his fists.

Kiranjit, in desperation set fire to his feet while he was in bed in the hope that he would never be able to run after her again. But the fire spread and he died after receiving 40 per cent burns.

Bewildered, poorly advised and speaking little English, she was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 1989.

Southall Black Sisters (SBS), a small group of women who had been helping women escape domestic violence for 10 years, received a call from Crawley women's centre.

Rahila Gupta who is on the management committee of SBS, co-wrote the book, Provoked, with Kiranjit said: "Although we did not know the full story, we suspected that she may have suffered abuse at the hands of her husband and that she had killed in an ultimate bid for survival.

"We took on the might of the legal establishment and the apathy of the country at large and won. The case was reopened, her murder conviction was reduced to manslaughter and she was released in 1992."

Kiran's case succeeded on grounds of diminished responsibility. In passing judgment, the judge redefined the law on provocation so that it could accommodate the slow-burn experiences of women who had a history of being battered.

Kiranjit is portrayed on the screen by Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai, alongside a stellar cast which includes Lost star Naveen Andrews, Miranda Richardson and Robbie Coltrane. Provoked had its UK premiere in Leicester Square, London last Tuesday.

Kiranjit says that her experience helped free at least four other women serving life sentences for similar killings.

She admits to both guilt and regret at the killing of her husband. She said: "I feel it every day - no-one deserves to die like that."

But she is also adamant that she was acting irrationally after years of abuse, and that she had no choice.