Looking back, I can see it as very coercive and predatory behaviour (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The first time I ever stepped inside a police station, I had no idea what to expect. At that point, I had never reported a crime and had no idea how the process worked.
I soon found out that it wasn’t as straightforward as I expected. And little did I know that I would soon be swapping one abuser for another.
I went to the Metropolitan Police for help as I had been suffering a tirade of abuse from an ex-partner over a period of months. I was receiving the most disgusting text messages I had ever seen, being plagued with threatening phone calls and having upsetting parcels sent to my house.
Things had become so bad that I was having night terrors. I lived my life in constant fear – I never felt safe, not even within my own four walls.
My abuser even started reporting me for fake crimes that I hadn’t committed – it was relentless. My friends and family have since told me that they weren’t sure I’d survive this period in time.
Although I never attempted to take my own life, I did get to the point where I didn’t want to be alive anymore.
Each morning I’d wake and – for a split second – I’d forget how bad things were, before I’d realise that the world was still the same place it had been the day before. And it wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be.
Over the course of several months, I reported the ongoing abuse to the police but it was almost impossible to get anything done about it.
Then, my abuser reported me for another made up crime. The police called me to let me know that, this time, it was for harassment. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I lost my temper with them.
All I wanted was to be left in peace to live my life, and it was starting to feel like it would never happen.
Within half an hour, I had two police officers knocking at my door.
This visit angered me – they hadn’t helped me at all through this whole process. Then as soon as they thought that something they had said could be putting me at risk, they were straight round to my house. It felt like they were covering their backs.
They were there when I hadn’t asked – yet when I was the victim of a crime, they did nothing.
The nature of the way PC Hunter would talk to me did change and he got more and more inappropriate as time went on (Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
However, throughout the visit, one of the police officers, a man in his early 50s – PC Philip Hunter – was very helpful and understanding. I felt as though someone was finally listening to me, and actually cared what I was going through. When they left my house, he wrapped me in a big hug and gave …read more
Source:: Metro
