This weekend I sat by the phone waiting for police and ambulance services to attend the address of my ex-husband, who had sent me a message saying he wanted to kill himself. My daughters were at the address; overnight contact mandated by the family court. A taxi was waiting to take me there, as I felt too shaky to drive.
At 1.30am I was able to bring my girls home to safety. And to begin the process of starting to try to undo the damage caused by their enforced contact with a man whose heavy drinking leads to aggression, violence and an unpredictability that has left me, nearly ten years after leaving him, hypervigilant, anxious and prone to jumping wildly at the slightest shock. I do not want this to be the experience of my daughters. I want them to know and understand that they should never accept a man behaving this way in a relationship with them. Perhaps I can achieve this, now that I hope I will not be forced to take them for regular, unsupervised, unsafe contact.
Nine and a half years ago I finally managed to get myself and my young children out of a situation where I was constantly on edge, waiting for the next explosion and the next physical violence towards me. Leaving him did not stop the abuse; whenever he felt aggrieved or self-pitying he would send me multiple messages with the vilest abuse – sometimes over 70 in the course of an evening. The things I had confided in him about my childhood, my elderly mother in nursing care, the heart-breaking late miscarriage I had – nothing was out of bounds for him to throw at me to hurt me.
I contacted police and social care services asking for help. I paid for solicitors to write to him.
Nothing made it stop.
I supported my children maintaining a relationship with their father – ironically, as if I had been less accommodating, the courts might have taken a different approach. Whenever a flurry of messages made me concerned that his drinking and mental health had taken a downturn, I would stop overnight contact – I knew all too well how heavy drinking led to violence for my ex.
For many years, I took no action on the abuse of me, figuring that if I was receiving his messages, at least I knew the signs of a deterioration so I could take action to protect my children.
Then on the third occasion I stopped overnight stays (following my daughters reporting a Christmas stay they had found distressing and scary, and my younger daughter sobbing and begging not to stay with him) he took me to court. I can honestly say that nothing I experienced in my relationship with my ex traumatised and damaged me as much as my experience of the family court. After all this is a process which is designed to safeguard the vulnerable and provide justice – how much worse when it serially and utterly fails you.
It took finding out that the stress of the abuse was having a serious impact on my physical as well as mental health to decide that I also needed to protect myself. It then took several attempts, failed undertakings, multiple reports of years and years of abuse to get the court to grant a non-molestation order. It finally took four breaches of that order for the criminal court to get involved. I find out in a couple of weeks whether the outcome will be real and effective steps to protect me and my daughters. After I travelled in a taxi to remove them in the middle of the night, my older daughter hiding in her bedroom listening to her father swear and shout then seeing him taken away by police – surely now, the requirement for me to enforce overnight stays will be removed.
I am no longer a victim of violence. I am a survivor. And as a survivor, I choose NOT to forgive and forget.
I do not forgive the Met police inspector who authorised a caution for my ex-husband for punching me in the face and breaking my nose – and gave him a lift home to the woman who had finally got the courage to report what was happening. I do not forgive the sergeant at Thames Valley who agreed No Further Action for my ex for coming to my house, shouting threats and terrifying my daughter – who said that this is what I should expect if I don’t allow contact with the children, and let slip that I was “just like his ex”. I do not forgive the Cafcass officer who did not read the lengthy reports from social workers, her colleagues or the statements of my children; and who told the court this was “one of those” and made statements about me based on prejudice and stereotype which had no truth to them. I do not forgive the magistrates who ignored Practice Direction 12 J, which says that domestic violence should always be considered, and arrangements should not place children at risk; who also ignored the principle of no order and who enforced my children’s overnight contact with their father. I do not forgive the lead magistrate who tried to bully me into conducting the hearing without the screens which I had requested. I do not forgive the Judicial Conduct Office, who dismissed my complaint about the bullying without looking at the detail.
However, I also do not forget. I do not forget the wonderful women, my friends from the Women’s Rights Network, who drove me to court hearings, sat with me in waiting rooms, kept me from panic attacks in court corridors. I do not forget the women on Mumsnet who encouraged me to call the police. I do not forget the friends who helped me end the marriage and move out, often receiving abuse themselves from my ex for doing so. I don’t forget my lovely (and incredibly expensive) barrister, who did her best to get a positive outcome for me from the court process. I don’t forget the kindness of the Met police officer who went out to buy my children milk for breakfast when I had a smashed face, the many Thames Valley officers who have made a case against my ex, the ones who stayed with my children while I got there to take them home.
It's time to mend myself and my children, as long as the process of damage is finally over. But it’s also time for me to get furiously angry about the implication of various agencies in my abuse. It is intolerable for the police and courts to continue to treat women in this way. Women are consistently dismissed as ‘bitter’ or engaging in ‘alienating behaviours’ when they try to protect their children from violent men. When children show an understandable reluctance to spend time with a volatile man who abuses their primary care-giver, this is cited as evidence of the ‘alienation’. Women and children are being damaged and failed.
I am a senior social work professional, now married to a judge in the family court. It has taken me nearly ten years to have my abuse taken seriously. How much harder is it for other women?
How many women and children have to die at the hands of violent men for there to be fundamental changes made to policing and family court processes?
This is now my fight. I will not stop pressing for change, I will not forgive or forget, and I will not be silenced. I am no longer a victim, I am a survivor. And I will not stop.
