petrify

While the BBC cannot independently verify their stories, almost all say they are petrified that one day, they might bump into a captor on the street or on a bus.

"I'm really scared for the future. The thought of my seven-year-old having a phone is absolutely petrifying."

A mental health assessment recorded Richards as being "petrified and unsafe", with a prison induction officer warning he was like a "rabbit in headlights" when learning there was no dedicated unit for vulnerable prisoners.

“He will tell you had this been a stranger, someone he didn’t know as well, he would have been petrified.”

A couple whose baby suffered seizures and damage to his brain during labour have described their time in Edinburgh's maternity unit as "petrifying".