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I am at the start of the process of getting out from a (detail removed by moderator) year relationship where my partner uses coercive and controlling behaviours. He has not attacked me but has used violent behaviour around myself and my child such as hitting furniture, slamming doors open into walls, screaming abuse into my face and preventing me from physically reaching my child to provide comfort when she has been petrified by his behaviour. His favoured CC techniques on a daily and weekly basis actually relate more to economic control and more subtle behaviours that seen in isolation might appear to be quite trivial. He did once very proudly tell a couples counsellor that whilst his rages were not ideal that he didn’t hit me. This rather suggested that he knew that at the time, pre Dec 2015 before the CC law came in, that he could get away with his behaviour. He has carefully walked a line between being abusive but not quite stepping over a line where he could be held legally accountable.
Anyway, after many years of this cycle and a recent rage that left myself and my child in fear for our safety the police are quietly looking at whether he has now crossed the line and whether there is now enough evidence to potentially prosecute him. However, the PC I initially spoke to was surprised when I told her that a couple of years ago I was advised that my partner could legitimately seek a Prohibitive Steps Order to prevent me from taking my child out of the local school and moving a safer distance away (where I would also have far better job prospects and many more affordable housing options). We currently live in a very rural area and there are no jobs that fit my CV within a reasonable travel time. Given that my career was built up in large organisations that you would only find in cities and large towns there is little hope of finding a job for me here and all efforts to find something suitable with a really concerted effort over the last two years have drawn a blank. Housing here is also limited and expensive so I don’t see how I can make it work financially if I have to stay here. He has also ensured that my name is not on the house so I have no claim there it seems. My options are pretty limited.
I have never been able to get through to Rights of Women to clarify whether this it is definitely still the case that he can prevent me moving my daughter from her current school, or whether there are other factors that might be tip the balance in favour of my being able to move away. This is complicated by the fact that he works from home so actually being able to call them can also be an issue as he’s always in the house. I also don’t have the money to pay for a lawyer as the last one I saw offered a free 30 minute session and is unlikely to offer it again (others locally don’t offer a free session and are charging nearly £300 just to have an initial discussion which I can’t afford).
The notion that he can legally trap me in a location where my chances of finding the kind of work that would enable me to support my child and myself makes me feel pretty hopeless about the future.
I just wondered if anyone has experience of dealing with a Prohibitive Steps Order and whether they were able to challenge it and move some distance away or not?
I am due to record a video as evidence for the police soon and am having to build a cover story to enable me to safely do this. At the moment though I have no idea if there is enough admissible evidence for them to follow up with legal action or indeed whether this might make any difference at all to things like Prohibitive Steps Orders and such like.
Any thoughts or experiences anyone has on any of the above would be much appreciated.
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Hey Mojo, great user name, getting your mojo back well done for posting,
my instincts go to your saying that you fear he will do a prohibitive steps order is that right?
Just to clarify, he hasn’t yet. Is that right?
If that is right, I can’t see anything to stop you moving away right now this second, with the help of Women’s Aid. Please phone them.
Getting to safety for you and your little one a priority.
All else can be sorted, step by step later.
Yes, it is a leap in the dark. But my guess is you are entitled to much more of your assets than you think.
When it comes down to it though, how much is the safety of yourself and your little one worth.
You can rebuild June is a good time if any to leave.
You have the summer holidays to sort yourselves, can still apply for a new school/play group for your small one, and off you go in the autumn. Job, college course, whatever moves you forward…all best warmest wishes
ftc
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Find a refuge today. He’s already messed up enough of your life. Your child is living in fear. You have a duty to protect her. Money, property and possessions should not even be considerations in your decision. Forget about all the “what if” complex legal stuff…..
Get away and start again.
Do you have a friend, relative you can visit that you can ask to do the research about a refuge near you, or even better far from you?? If not,
go see the church minister on the way to buy groceries….don’t Google it on your phone.he can trace that.
Think of your child’s happiness and security, she has the right to a good life, and so do you. -
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Dear mojo,
Thank you for your post and welcome to the forum, I know it can be difficult to post for the first time. You’ve explained serious abuse towards yourself and your child and it sounds like you recognise your risk and that something needs to change.
I want to reassure you that the concerns you mention about leaving are valid and understandable. It is only natural to think through the ‘what-ifs’ and want to prepare yourself. Thinking about where it’s practical to find work so you can provide for yourself and your child is realistic.
The many barriers against leaving are part of the reason why many women stay in an relationship in which there is abuse. So it’s about working out how you can overcome them, or whether you can put them to one side; as you are trying to do by posting here. There is also, as suggested in the replies above, an element of taking a leap of faith when you leave. It does become much easier to sort out the practical elements once you are somewhere safe where you can access support.
With regards to finding out more about a Prohibited Steps Order, I would suggest contacting either DV Assist on 0800 195 8699 or the NCDV on 0800 970 2070. Hopefully they can answer some of your questions. You could consider taking one out yourself for some protection. You may also need to consider going to court for a Specific issue order; you can read about this in the Rights of Women guide ‘Children and the Law, when parents separate’.
Keep reaching out for support in whatever way is possible for you,
Kind Regards,
Lisa
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Hi Mojo, yes this is exactly what happened to me. Has made moving really difficult. Have been stuck in limbo for a very long time, unable to move forwards in life. The PSO was my ‘punishment’. I’ve even got him saying that in email a number of times; and ever since he has used it to say no no no to everything where I need his consent for our child.
It’s a very smart move building your case for a protection order. I wish I had done this, and called the police straight away for support and assistance, I had no idea at that time how it would go from bad to worse once I’d got him out of my house, he took being rejected incredibly badly, he quite literally opposes everything I want to do automatically, as a matter of course, he’s uncooperative and totally controlling – always.
Once he realised he had no control over me when I cut contact after the BS and abuse occuring post split, as I realsied this is getting worse, this led to him using child contact and the law, a PSO to continue to abuse and control. This has gone on for years, it’s effected our child, he tries his best to cause alienation, as a result she is disrespectful, has had anger and self esteem issues. Quite simply dealing with him has made me ill, its damaged our child, it’s been stressful and distressing over a prolongued period. I can’t work, I have memory problems, by body feels bruised all over most of the time. I have felt desperate a number of times – and wished he would disappear.
Because there is an order the police can not help me, it is viewed as a (detail removed by moderator) matter now – so he gets away with it. If I want to challenge it it has to be (detail removed by moderator) – so I’m stuck now, if I go (detail removed by moderator) I’m walking into another trap, more restrictions for him to abuse me with if I fail to comply, like if she doesnt want to go and if I dont send her when he is scheduled to have her. He will also be thinking how can I make the arrangement as difficult for her as possible, days, times, travel etc. Will they even agree to me moving? Its not for work, its not for support, its because I need a safe distance from him and to start again – so I would have to build a good case around why it benefits our child, as me wanting to get away is not a good enough reason – in fact, that would probably go against me if I said it out loud.
Have you spoken to your GP about any of this? Is it on your medical record?
Only where I live I have been eligible for legal aid because of the domestic abuse, I had to supply a letter from the GP and bank statements. Have you looked into legal aid yet?
I had a friend who knew someone that worked at family court, I asked her to ask if there was a particular solictors known that help women like me, she came up back with two firms, the one I did go with has made the legal aid process very easy, they have sorted it out for me. It’s not come back yet but the solicitor is happy to advise me and work with me on things while it goes through. Doesnt appear to be an issue in the slightest.
While you are planning your exit, I would say to consider whether you think child contact afterwards will be an issue? Make your arrangement with him but cut yourself completely out of it, use family or a contact centre for the changeovers and making the arrangment plans. This stops him from controlling you and the arrangement. I really wish I had done this, would have been much better for our child, he wouldnt have been able to use her as a weopon half as much. If it goes to (detail removed by moderator) the arrangement already in place can help too, it’s like no use applying for no contact with you, you have to already have this in place really.
I find it utterly bizarre, he could have been battering you but he will still get access to his child should you (detail removed by moderator) . I hear what you are saying and that it has been dreaful, terrifying and totally unacceptable for you, our stories sound quite similar, but reading what you have written, this is not enough to warrant him with no access to his child. If he wants it, he will get it, providing he doesn’t do something really stupid next. The best we can ever do is build a case for safe contact unless the child is being physically or sexually abused or severely neglected. The child being pulled here and then, pushed a bit, witnessing him losing his temper, is sadly often not enough and there needs to be EVIDENCE, he will deny everything and lie, they all do. It helps if the child doesnt want to see him but sometimes even then they are made to go. Read the Safe Not Sorry doc.
Youre very wise finding out what are his rights, yours and your childs. If you get a protection order, he may well come back at you with an arrangements order and try to get as much access as he can so he can create havoc with this.
I would say always try to do what is best by all of you in all your decisons, draw from your integrity, try not to make any emotional decisions. Informed, logical and reasoned yes. Know the law and everyones rights.
If he doesnt play ball, and you have concerns for your child’s welfare then you have to do what you think is right by your child hey.
I think it’s important to be mindful of his access rights as it will effect how you behave in the aftermath.
I think getting this protection order and making it legal he is not permitted to come anywhere near you is the best place to start without any doubt in my mind. With hindsight, I would have gladly handed over my money to get one if it meant it was dealt with swiftly and I’d got it in place. Money well spent if you can get access to the funds.
A moonlight flit could also be a good option if you want to leave the home anyway, but any legal protection you can get will serve you well; it will however, leave him incredibly angry and possibly out for war.
Get yourself a WA’s support worker from the nearerst local charity; mine was invalubale with her knowledge and support.
It is my undertsanding that unless there is a high risk of violence then you wont get refuge; this is what I learnt anyway. Support to help you get out yes, always, to get your own place of safety, but not a place in a refuge, these places are in demand and short in supply. Unless you live in Scotland, there is much better help up there.
Keep posting Mojo and gathering info and support. My vote is obs with this protection order xx
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Had another thought about this Mojo, if you apply for social housing, if you are in a domestic abuse situation, this does give you more points and bumps you up the ladder a bit. However, depends where you live and what is available, these places are often in demand too, so there is often a wait. If you can move in with a freind or family you are technically classed as homeless under their system so in need.
Really depends where you live and what is available – social housing can advise you and the WA’s support worker also, she should be able to assist you with the housing problem / workout together what can be done.
Of course if you can pay to privately rent then apply for housing benefit afterwards this is good option, as you get to choose where exactly you live.
Or is it about getting him out with this order? Moving later, once you have found work as you feel ready for it. Unsure as I don’t know enough about your situation, but throwing it out there as food for thought just in case you may not have considered this. Guess the police or a solictor would be the best people to advise on this option.
Whatever you do, do what you need to do to make it safe x
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having been through this too – the above from both ladies is the best advice – id add and this sounds very general because i tend to go in deep with this – start as you mean to go on ie focus on the fact that he has been abusive through out why would this change? because often abusive men are seen as ‘good enough fathers’ and contact at all costs were previously promoted due to fathers rights groups – this is changing. i cant reiterate enough its worth saying your children are fearful to go for contact they do not feel safe – your not being obstinent in not promoting conact and you will but it has to be ‘safe’ contact. so contact centre for handover and as i say start as you meant to go on- dont be scared to go for supervised access in the contact centre or depending how the kids feel reduce the contact to nil – you will need evidence and professional back up to do this xx love diymum
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A belated thank you all for your input (getting ready for police interview and writing a job application so progress of sorts). I will try and find a safe time to call one of those organisations that Lisa mentioned to see if they can provide more insight into Prohibitive Steps Orders.
Fizzylem – it does sound like you and I are looking down a similar road. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience. It must be really tough to have gone though all of that and to still be stuck in limbo. I am really hoping that your solicitor can provide you with the support you need. By bravely sharing your experience here it has clarified for me that I need to use my brain on this otherwise it won’t just be me that he punishes – our child will inevitably be used by him to exact revenge. I will go to a solicitor and leave here the moment the police alert him that they are looking into things and at that point I will begin the legal process but it needs to be the right thing at the right time as you have found. I am so sorry to hear that your health has been so badly undermined by all of this and I can only hope that with a solicitor fighting your corner that things might improve on that front.
Going back to Prohibitive Steps that I originally posted about, unfortunately my understanding is that even if I leave and get my child into a new school in another area the court will just send me back here once he has applied for a Prohibitive Steps Order. The lawyer I spoke to said that the courts would take a very dim view of my simply running off and removing my child from the school even though I am acting to protect my child…go figure! Mind you that was before I had more of a case for possible CC so I am not sure if that could be used by me in mitigation.We all come to this place along slightly different routes. Whilst these men share a broad methodology they have many different ‘end game’ scenarios ready to deploy when we leave. Some will become highly aggressive stalkers, some will unleash huge and destructive financial resources, others will become extremely physically violent, perhaps even psychotic and many more have their own special mix of passive aggression or a very particular mix of the above. We all know the statistics and the terrible risk attached to leaving an abuser. Each of us has therefore to address the level of risk we and our dependents face given what we already know, or think we know, about our abusive partners and husbands.
In my case I am dealing with a high net worth man. He has told me he will use the law and can afford to keep this going indefinitely. Despite the resources at his disposal he has kept me living at subsistence level. I have lost huge earnings from what was a very good career through relying upon his promises and what he led me to believe. All of my savings have long since gone while his have just grown. Everything I had I spent on ensuring our child’s needs were met. When my savings inevitably ran out he resented that it was then down to him and seems to blame me when our child needs clothes etc (recently leading to yet another of his rages). If he were on a zero hours contract and struggling I could perhaps understand but that is not the case at all. As I mentioned there are no jobs for me here out in a rural area, I’ve bene looking for a long time and applied for everything that sounds remotely like it might fit my CV. In the past he has been very unsupportive to say the least – ranging from refusing to discuss logistics of my working to negatively commenting on roles I have applied for to screaming at me and shunning me for not checking with him that it was ‘Ok’ to apply for one role. Now though he has changed tack and says he wants me to find a job as that would ‘help him’!My life is very different to how it was before I met him – I shop at cheap online stores and ebay for anything I need but rarely buy new clothes for myself until they fall apart. This was not how I had to live before I met him when I had a well paid job and my own house. I wasn’t rich but I didn’t worry about money, now I worry about it all of the time. I even have to ask him for money to buy clothes for our child – in the recent past this has resulted in him shutting himself in his study and an expletive filled rage that my child and I could hear all over the house complete with crashing and smashing of items being hit or thrown. He on the other hand will quite happily spend a hundred pounds on a shirt!
Linked to this, in the past he has made it very clear that he will run me into the ground financially through the law and won’t just let me ‘take’ our child ‘away’ from him. He will fight me all of the way. I do not doubt this as it fits his M.O. It won’t matter how reasonable I am about access or anything else. He knows of course that this would not be an equal fight, he’s counting on it and he will exploit that.
But this behaviour is not really about the money is it? That’s just a tool of control. However, it is clear to me that just trying to run from this man is not the answer. I don’t have the financial resources to walk unprepared into a legal battle, where he has chosen the terms of engagement, and just hope for the best. I’ll be using what little money I have in a property I still own to fund my freedom fight (despite him trying countless times to get me to sell it and give him the money!). Once he’s got the lawyers to chew me up and spit me out there will be little money left let alone enough to buy so much as a card board box around here. So even with this money from my house he will know that he can essentially use a legal siege to run down my very limited resources. It’s what men like this do. I also suspect he will up his abusive game to another level.
When I previously looked at things I didn’t, at the time, qualify for any legal aid at all although that may have changed for various reasons. So it will be down to using the house money, my only bit of security to fight him it seems.
Given all of this I have come to the conclusion that the only way to stand a cats chance in hell of protecting my child and myself from the absolute n**********c rage and hatred that will follow my leaving will be to have done my research and be ready for him. With this in mind I will leave when I am best placed to do this and when the timing is right, rather than flee, hide and hope for the best. I’d rather go on the offensive than simply wait for him to hunt me down like prey.
He doesn’t know it but is now the subject of a live police investigation and I am now waiting to see if the police feel there is enough to take to the CPS. The officers I have so far talked with and given evidence to have had no experience of using the Coercive Control law and seem to feel that, whilst he is indeed abusive and his behaviour unacceptable, it may well not meet the level required. Since I now have two significant incidents since the law came in and can show a pattern of controlling behaviours over a long time frame it is hard to know what else I need! However it will be assessed by a more senior officer before a decision is made so I will have to see how it goes. On the plus side they said that now it is in writing it is solid evidence and said I now need to keep adding to it via calling 999 if necessary or reporting him to the officers who handle my case on 101.
It is though very clear to me that simply running and hiding will not stop a man like this nor will it ultimately protect us. He will just keep coming after me and he could I believe become more of a danger to my child and I in other, very unhinged, ways. He has clearly demonstrated extreme paranoia and delusional behaviour in the past that could make him very dangerous once we have left. Hence my need to understand more about what steps to take, and critically, when to take them. I now do at least have the added weight of a police report demonstrating that he is abusive. But I am aware that there have been many changes since I last looked into the legal side of things in terms of where I can realistically live so was hoping for some input from other women who may have been in a similar situation recently.I’ve already packed my emergency bags and documents in anticipation of him being questioned by the police at some point and my needing to get us out asap if we get to that. I do not rule out going into a Refuge. However, like FizzyLem it is my understanding that there is a huge shortfall of places available. There are other options open to me with friends or even my old house although he will look there first I’m sure…
Wherever I end up initially I will be immediately calling a solicitor and get them working with the police and on getting in place any orders that I need to protect us. However if they can be overturned by a prohibitive steps order that insists we move back near to him then it seems that he system is fixed to keep putting us back into clear and present danger! That just seems crazy to me. There must be a way to navigate around this and get the balance between my need to be able to support my child economically along with our right to be safe and his right to see his child?
I am concerned though that the court system will see this expensively educated, well spoken business owner and believe he is innocent. He is good at playing the system, even if it is one he has not played before. In short he is a very, very credible liar with the trappings of respectability to back him up. Up against this I need to have everything I’ve got on him ready before this all kicks off and I need to understand where the legal mines are before I step out among them.I terms of access I know he has rights but also understand that these are now not as favourable if there is a suspicion of abuse. I will try and go the supervised access route or if that fails look at getting drop off at a contact centre. I understand he has rights but that that changes to the guidance for judges recently should, in theory, mean that his abusive behaviour should be factored into how often and where contact takes place.
As for Social housing, thanks again for thinking of this FizzyLem, I suspect I won’t qualify because I will have a bit of cash from my house once it’s sold – assuming that there is any left after the lawyers have finished. There may be some legal things I can look at related to his property, the house I now live in with our child and that I helped him develop. I suspect the judge could also look at his assets and feel that he should provide for his child the kind of lifestyle to which they have become accustomed?
I do also need to go the GP and have an appointment. I have been struggling with feeling pretty low since the last incident and I suspect that this is not unrelated to years and years of trying to make things work somehow. I understand that the GP can also be helpful in terms of evidence although since he is not leaving any physical evidence it is again less than straight forward.
Apologies this is a very long email – I will try and keep it shorter next time. Again thanks to all I will try and check in from time to time with updates and any information I find out that might be useful for someone down the line.
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