Long story, I have thought many times about posting this and haven’t but here goes, I will try and make it as short as possible.
After my divorce (we still remain great friends to this day) I was vulnerable when an ex from my teenage years contacted me, we started dating and basically he was very controlling, not from the offset, but by the end of the relationship I was unrecognisable mentally and physically. My ex-husband bless him was so worried he took me to my GP who gave AD’s and sent me for counselling, I was an absolute mess, also going through peri.
The ex partner who was controlling then started stalking me, texting me, also seen near my home which is down a dead end so it wasn’t by accident. My friends said I should report him so I did, the police came out and said he wasn’t breaking any laws (this was a while back now but I still think it was illegal to stalk) so I left it. Then I lost the plot one day and signed him up for stupid things online, including sending info on penis enlargement to his address,
incredibly daft and childish I know but I’d had enough.
Next thing I have the Police at my door asking me if I was signing him up for things as he’d reported it to the police, I was so scared of being in trouble I denied it. Anyway they went to the bother of tracing it to my home and I explained I’d had enough of his behaviour and lost the plot. I was asked to sign a form stating I‘d stay away from him which I was happy to do and he had to do one too, which was all I wanted to be left alone by him. Next thing I have a woman texting me saying she’d dated him, he was an arsehole but he hadn’t stopped talking about me and she wanted to know how he treated me, all very odd. Anyway a week or so later the police ring me saying I need to stop contacting him or I’d be in serious trouble. I was still having counselling and burst into tears telling them it wasn’t me and they needed to find out who it was as I couldn’t stop something I hadn’t done. About a month later the police turn up at my home and arrest me. I’ve never been in trouble with the law in my life, not even a parking ticket. So off I go and have a police interview and they accuse me of sending all these texts to him which I hadn’t done and told them so, over and over again. My family were livid and ringing them up saying I was having counselling and they were very concerned for my MH etc. eventually that same day I’m released on bail.
But as much as I felt traumatised/humiliated/embarrassed I thought at least now they will look into it thoroughly and find out who’s doing it and then know it wasn’t me.
A few weeks later a letter came through saying case was dropped but basically saying if I did it again I’d be in serious trouble. I was mortified, I hadn’t been cleared and I didn’t see it ever stopping, as well as still struggling with depression. So in the early hours with my girls in bed I thought I‘d take myself to a nearby railway line, as I couldn’t see any other way out of it, after all this is the police were talking about who have such power. As I was getting ready to leave I burst into tears, thinking how my heart broke and never recovered when my brother died when I was a child and I couldn’t do it to my girls, they are my absolute world, so I called a MH service who came out and sat with me. After they‘d gone I couldn‘t trust myself, so I booked somewhere to stay with our dog and my girls and we disappeared. I’m not sure who contacted the police but next thing they were trying to find me out of concern that I could harm myself. They rang my mobile asking me to just show myself at a nearby police station, I refused as I was terrified and didn’t trust them. Eventually a police woman higher up in the rank contacted me and I said I want this looked into to find out who is doing this otherwise I’m never going home and it was then that she told me they couldn’t, because my ex had gone into to different police stations each time only ever with screenshots of the messages, so they only had them to go on. She apologised and was shocked I’d been arrested on no hard evidence. After that he was then visited by them and told if he ever went to them again without handing over his phone to get proof he would be in serious trouble.
I could have taken my life over that and what is so upsetting the police officers who came out to my home never contacted my counsellor, or GP, even though they’d asked for that info to verify all he had done to me. To this day I don’t know if the woman who dated him and contacted me tried to set me up, or if he did it still trying to have control over my life.
So this case with NB and the previous police visit, although for a different reasons has really struck a cord with me and it breaks my heart to think she could also have been so stressed about the police incident and it tipped her over the edge.
As much as I still feel ashamed of myself for being arrested, I thought it important to share in case anyone else found themselves in a situation where they felt embarrassed/humiliated/ashamed and couldn’t face life, to let them know you’re not alone and things do get better.
I was also referred to the woman’s refuge for advice and they were wonderful, they weren’t surprised by my story and said they had many similar in regards to policeman not believing women and look what’s come out about how female police are treated in the force by some of the men.
So sorry for the long winded post.
he has daughters ffs.
