Evidence

[Castlegirl]

Hello all,

I don’t have any direct evidence of what my ex did to me, and I’m still having to deal with him because we coparent kids, which is very difficult for me. He was coercive and intimidating over a long period, and there were a lot of occasions where he shouted at me, hit walls etc, as well as gaslighting behaviour and lying to my friends to isolate me.

I have chat logs from talking to friends at the time, where I mentioned that my ex had been shouting and scaring me, with time and date stamps from many different occasions.

Would this be taken seriously as evidence of abuse by the police or anyone else? I don’t really have anything else, other than my friends witnessing how shaken and upset I was afterwards on multiple occasions.

[Pennypop]

The Police have trained domestic abuse officers who will listen to you and look at your chat evidence. They are victim led and it is better to report what has happened so they can complete a risk assessment for you and your children and for any further abuse from your ex. I wish you and your children all the best

[Marmalade]

Hi Castlegirl

So women on this forum have very different experiences of reporting to police. Some are very happy and others appalled by the response. In some cases of serious abuse and in particular when that abuse is ongoing, it is obviously right to report. In other cases, it’s worth weighing it up to see what is best for you especially when the abuse is in the past and you need to continue coparenting. It will be what is best for you in your particular circumstances.

Some things to consider – Look at what you want to achieve and what are the consequences.  If you want him prosecuted then think that the bar is very high for proving guilt. Do you have enough evidence for that? Do the chat logs say more than shouting and scaring you? To prove coercive control there are a lot of elements and sadly it is still rare for stand alone coercive control prosecutions to be brought, although not impossible if you have a lot of evidence. Do you have witnesses?

If you report to police also think whether if it came to it you would be prepared to go to court and give evidence and how you would feel if the verdict was guilty or not guilty. If the police took no further action on your report think how you would feel about that. If the police told him of your report and then took no further action then what consequences could there be? How would you feel and how do you think he would react? Weigh up what is best for you in your circumstances.

If the coparenting is understandably challenging, is there a third party who could assist with handovers so that you don’t need to meet? Perhaps you could use an app to communicate with him rather than have to speak to him? Your local DA service may be able to provide some advice and support for you.

Good luck. Reporting is a very difficult decision.

[BellaBella]

Hi Castlegirl,

Having been through the system all the way to conviction and sentencing it is a very difficult journey and evidence is of course key.

Is it worth it? It was to me but it was hard even with solid evidence and some great support.

One important factor to bear in mind is that lack of evidence does not mean it didn’t happen to you!

I’ve had some varied encounters with police officers, some completely unaware of the nature of what we go through and others trained in DA/DV that were amazing!

One thing that’s sticks in my mind is that whether or not there is enough evidence to charge, each report of DV/DA contributes to building a picture of the perpetrator to the police and it stays on file. This could be helpful to you in the future and also helpful for any future victims.

I didn’t do Claire’s Law till the very end of the relationship (I wish I’d done it at the 1st red flag) but what I know now is that everything I had to report over the years is now added to it regardless of whether he was convicted of the particular incident or not.

Whatever you do needs to be absolutely right for you.

If you decide to talk to someone I’d suggest making sure they are DA/DV trained for starters and making a report does not mean that you have to go all the way or indeed for him to be aware that you have spoken to someone. It starts as a conversation but that needs to be with the right person.

I’ve learned the hard way that our law is not designed to cope with these types of crimes so the framework that the police and CPS work to seems to work against us! But that’s a whole different topic!

Ultimately your safety is the most important thing. What you can do is share the information for your peace of mind and to contribute to building that perpetrator picture building.

Take good care 😊

[Cat24]

I agree with Bella Bella that reporting it goes on their record and you then have a file to add to. And to also talk to police in the DA section.

A court order is handy with this situation so only certain days and times he can pick them up . You can either have someone else there at these times to do handover or if you apply for a contact arrangement order , when caffcass call you , you can tell them handover has to be in a specific place due to x,y and z reasons and they can add this to the order.

Although the law is terrible in regards to DA. And it is.  Reporting it can be really helpful if he does something in future to further abuse and it’s evidence in any future cases. The more perps are reported the more they can be flagged up and the more it can help if they try to abuse further.

Take care

[Author]

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