Slightly harrowing, eye opening process. Now decompressing.

Involved moving contents of a flat at 12 hours notice and then Taking lassie and her dad who had flown in with the same notice back to the airport.

For future reference – Womens Aid is a 9-5 operation.
Victims never want to report anything to the Police. Even if their pal got assaulted in the process. And they are unable to separate reality from their situation.
Some peoples lives are so unnecessarily complicated.
The reason for not reporting to police is Landlord was known by/linked to the abusers family – and the abused is on the tenacy agreement….we even talked informally with police pals. We tried to persaude her to no avail.

Basically the guy gets away with the abuse and the assault and no record will be made.

Any one had to deal with anything similar? Any advice?

Bombers.
Bullies only ever understand one thing unfortunately.

not sure I understand some of the short hand you used but sounds awful and hopefully I’ll never have to deal with it.

Most (if not all) Police forces now have a zero tolerance policy so if you get called to an incident, someone gets arrested to defuse and buy time. The offender can then be ‘banned’ from contact with the IP by a special court. Its v hard when people feel they cant face making a complaint and repeatedly suffer….

I do domestic violence mostly from the abusers side occasionally from the victims , as is said above the police all have a zero tolerance attitude and will push all out for protection of the victim and prosecution , they will try to capture evidence early on body camera and pursue “victimless” prosecutions using hearsay and 3rd party evidence.

There is a significant amount of support for the victim .
The real difficulty is human nature and the frequent reluctance of the victim to see it through.

The police will have made a record if contacted regardless of complainants wishes that log will be used in intelligence based risk assessments in future issues in this and subsequent relationships and as evidence of propensity to help prove future allegations.
Regardless you helped someone in need so feel good.

police all have a zero tolerance attitude and will push all out for protection of the victim and prosecution

Complete bobbins …I only read trhe first bit really and it made me slightly mad, im from the victim end of the spectrum….yes a bloke who never hit back.

As for police support I was told by the domestic abuse fat bastard in the region I moved from there was no point in pursuing a prosecution as it would never stand up.

My neighbour is in a similar situation only with her son. She’s 97 he’s 70 and has mental health issues. Last time he ended up at the police station the conclusion was he’s too mad to charge and take responsibility but not mad enough to section.
She complains about it but then won’t do anything, even denying it to the police when others have seen it.
He’s not the stereotypical abuser by any means but the it’s the stereotypical behaviour of the victim. In many ways it’s even more difficult for her, it’s her son and she’s pretty much looked after him for 70 years.

Crankboy – I’d be interested what you thought about how those ‘positive arrest’ polices balanced against the necessity test? Should desirable or precautionary equal necessary?

There’s a big disparity in the way men and women get treated in such situations.

The main thing is for the victim to get the hell out of there, but due to inevitable complications, it’s not always that easy.

She’s 97 he’s 70

It’s easy to forget that it can continue into old age… I had a hag of a great aunt who smashed the glass door of an oven with my great uncle’s head when they were both in their late 70s.

The poor bugger was too ashamed to ever do anything about it and was hounded by her until he died.

victim end of the spectrum….yes a bloke who never hit back.

This sadly is not uncommon. It doesn’t make the headlines in the same way as a physically abused wife which whilst I can understand doesn’t make the abuse any less.

I hope you are through it Phi

It’s a situation that is only beginning to be recognized:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEZH6YSQvwA[/video]

MrsMC works in child protection and had to move a DV family at 12 hours notice a couple of weeks ago. Far too common, and she has several cases where the victims refuse to stop seeing the abuser, putting the kids at risk.

Male victims get more consideration these days. Far more blokes are affected by emotional and financial abuse than physical though.

The funny thing is ,dust has time to settle

As infuriating as crankboys sweeping “There is a significant amount of support for the victim what is also true, these support groups cant help everyone and maybe there is far less support for men as its not stereotypical

By all accounts the numbers of male abusers to female abusers is much higher,

Most (if not all) Police forces now have a zero tolerance policy so if you get called to an incident, someone gets arrested to defuse and buy time

At the time you feel relief but then aggreived when the police show up to a scene its hard to tell what just happened , usually a distressed female and an equally distressed male, in my case I had a knife wound but that didn’t stop me being cuffed ,pepper sprayed and bundled then held under guard in A&E ,On top of that theres the public ridicule of it.

Domestic abuse is insidious, little things and controlling behaviours like no petrol in the car to stop you going anywhere, money being emptied from accounts and being told the bills had taken it all, Internet pasword protection like child locks only she knew the code to as it was only for house stuff it was almost as if she would see how much she could get away with before something broke and there are so many things

I was lucky that several of my male friends actually saw her in full flow after I had told them she got violent ,and honestly they saw what she was like,They caught her full on in the act whilst she didn’t expect them, The bizzarre part is initially they (friends) don’t believe what you say, your a man how can this be , why do you stay, the self doubts creep in ,your told you wouldn’t survive without her help assistance there is no money, no roof ove your head etc threats of she will tell the police etc etc and you do almost become hostage, there is no movement

As it turns out I am still bitter but then I’m not, I struggle to find the word? maybe indifferent but it still angers me a lot when people say theres support for victims but they shy away from the fact there are male victims too.

I feel for whoever you just bailed out of a situation like that but its not always clean cut

^^ It’s not easy Phil.

Phil I utterly apologise you caught me adopting the stereotypes of the system.Things are geared to the assumption that dv is male on female , and my post reflected that, I am sorry.

Ninfan that is too much subtlety for a week into a migraine and some quite heavy sentences. But in DV there are a significant number of cases where things go very badly wrong .Most dv arrests are on the night when tempers are up and parties refuse to separate so the necessity to arrest is clear. My experience is that in the absence of a complaint of immediate violence most detainees will have been given chances to go elsewhere before being arrested.

Our force has a “positive action” policy – 99% of the time this is arrest but if the necessity really isn’t made out then that may involve removing one of the parties to a different address.

And Phil sadly you are absolutely correct; domestic abuse is a huge issue and priority for the police, most murders are domestic, we get regular training on ‘new’ phenomena like cohersive control, honour based abuse etc but I have NEVER had any input on male victims.

And having spent 3 years as a custody sergeant there is definitely an assumption amongst response officers that in a heterosexual situation male party=guilty=arrested. In some cases it’s obvious the female party knows and exploits this policy and basically manipulates unthinking officers to assist in her abuse.

In the OP’s example our force would still record that as a domestic – 3rd party reports are enough.

I don’t wish to make light of the situation in any way, but I have to say when I hear about abuse situations, I always think of this scene from Mississippi Burning, and wish for similar satisfaction for the victim.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1JX07MCCL4[/video]

I work for a couple once a week and often hear her shouting at him, he seems to get the blame for everything. He is quite severely handicapped, possibly stroke related. One day I was working in the front garden and he fell over landing on top of a rose. I jumped up to help him but she just started shouting at him for damaging the rose whilst he struggled to get up. Anyway a month or two back she mentioned he was in hospital. The following week he arrived with two ladies who I think may have been from the hospital and or social services. They had come to collect some of his belongings but she wouldn’t let him leave. The ladies came outside to phone the police whilst keeping the door open so they could get back in. One of them told me what they were doing and that she wasn’t letting them and asked if she was always like this. He is still there, she still shouts at him. I feel uncomfortable working for her but don’t feel I can abandon him but don’t know that there’s much I can do. I don’t know if I should talk to some of the neighbours about the situation, I’m not even sure if any of them are aware there is a problem.

I had a relationship with a girl that had lived through 3 dv relationships over about 12 years, the last one wasn’t overtly violent but controlling and belittling. Her head was a total mess, understandably paranoid, and just unable to sustain a life that wasn’t in total chaos. I was the platform for the separation with the last partner as things were ‘on and off’ with them. But sadly, I wasn’t told this. She was intelligent, professional and attractive and seemed to have managed two lives over the whole time. We lasted about 18 months, as time went on I just couldn’t get my head around the impact this life had on her, and things between us were very controlled in order to reduce her worry. The simple pleasant ‘in love’ things were all lost in the mire of anxiety and mistrust. Months in it was kind of like living the first few weeks of a relationship, where there is no certainty or security, but it lacked the excitement and optimism that usually comes at that point. It made me realise, that whilst the violent incidents are what moat of us consider horrific, the impact of the daily control by abusers and the constant stripping of self worth seemed far more devastating in the long run. I couldn’t understand it, and was living a very constrained life, bit like being a carer for someone with a disability. Was too much for me, much as I felt for her.
I can’t understand who would want to live in a dv relationship on either side, but maybe I’m just lucky.

I think some of you will find this controversial – it’s not meant to be. It’s not trolling, just what happened to me at the time.

Its v hard when people feel they cant face making a complaint and repeatedly suffer….

I went out with a girl for 4 1/2 years. Everything was OK – as long as she got her way… Whenever something (And by something – I mean me.) didn’t fit in with her plans she would kick off massively. I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to go away with friends, wasn’t allowed out on nights which were ‘our nights’ but she was. Wasn’t meant to spend my own money except money she sanctioned. The trouble was, I wasn’t terribly good at being compliant and she would go on at me all through the night until I had to go to work or Uni, she would pinch, pull hair, shout and rage at me. She would say that no one else would want me. Pretty classic stuff. The problem is that to anyone else, she would play the role of victim – say I didn’t want her to go out etc… Make out I was controlling.

I believe the only thing that saved me from being arrested under those false grounds was that we didn’t live together. I most often had at least a couple of people around who would be able to objectively say I wasn’t being aggressive or controlling.

I kind of resent the fact I could have been arrested under a false pretext…

Jamj – seen similar controlling behaviour, but without the violence. The woman involved always played the innocent “little old me?” role in public, while taunting him to leave her – and their kids – if he didn’t like it behind closed doors.

Poor bloke was a mess, took several beers one night before he opened up to what was going on to a couple of us. I moved just after, think he did eventually leave her, the kids went with him. They were young teens and presumably made up their own minds.

Been there with the ‘nice in public, nasty in private’ and I still don’t understand it. That’s why I end up reading threads like this. What did he want?? Why did he do it?

And smell_it, yes it has effects. It took a while to recognise that, much as I wanted to go out with someone again after it ended, I was having panic attacks if anyone got much closer than (almost literally) arms length. Luckily I met with someone who thought I was worth persisting with. And he’s lovely, so I’ve reformed my view of boys to ‘not universally awful’.

t to live in a dv relationship on either side, but maybe I’m just lucky.

When you in an abnormal relationship, your measure of what is ‘normal’ and acceptable is eroded and changed to one that is very distorted. You find it hard to know what a truly normal relationship is. You find excuses for behaviours and rationales behind their actions to make it more palatable. Bizarrely, it stops feeling abusive after a while until in my case I had a WTF realisation.

It is also hard to swallow, but abusers also lose out as a result of their actions…

so I’ve reformed my view of boys to ‘not universally awful’

Despite all the evidence on the forum?

Despite all the evidence on the forum?

Yep. I’m with MCTD on this.

😆

I kinda think my post is being viewed as quite negative, which was not the way it was intended, I was more hoping to highlight the awful impact I’ve witnessed first hand. In fairness, I fell for someone, and was on the verge of moving them and their children in, so there was nothing casual about it, and we all ended up hurt.
My comment about ‘either party’ was I cannot see what either the victim or perpetrator gains from the relationship, and that this in itself demonstrates the warped normality of living in such a relationship, and how insular they become.
I spent 10 years off my life assessing people who self harmed or attempted suicide in a&e’s, and whilst dv had a role in a significant number of cases, I never truly ‘got it’, till I fell for someone that lived that life. I thought that being, decent, loving and honest would be enough to make things work. Looking back I don’t know if I was niave or arrogant, but whichever I was in love and well intended.
So my apologies if my post has offended, this was never my intention.

Womens Aid is a 9-5 operation.

And while one founded on trying to do good, still helps perpetuate the myth that DV is a gender issue.

I kinda think my post is being viewed as quite negative, which was not the way it was intended

Nothing wrong with your post IMO. I was trying to explain that if you are in an abnormal relationship your perspective can be twisted to make it seem more normal.

Your experience is your own, nothing wrong with that. If you felt there was anything critical of your view or indeed your experience in my posts – it wasn’t intended and I am sorry.

Take care dude!

Phil I utterly apologise you caught me adopting the stereotypes of the system.

Oh please don’t That saying you never knows what goes on behind close doors is never truer, and I am probaly not the least biased person when it comes to Domestic violence. So maybe I transferred my experience a wee bit onto your comment as negative

Looking back the system kind of works but not when your living it

She got the house…I got to live, I will take that as a win

Take care dude!

All good, I just didn’t want to be upsetting anyone over this, given I was just a passenger.

I believe that in the US, with zero tolerance, if police are called to a domestic violence situation, the victim gets no choice, the police have to prosecute, and whoever did the hitting is going to jail.
Seems reasonable to me.