Kate can still recall how long and hard she thought about how to tackle a day she knew would be difficult.
But she could never have envisaged how it would turn out to be one of the worst of her life.
She was meeting with her ex to try and amicably discuss ways he could safely see their child. So Kate made the decision to see him in a pub with an outside area so they would be in a public space.
Picking one near her home – so it was familiar to her – she asked a friend to wait at the house in case she needed support.
But none of this mattered when her ex-partner attacked her in the street, chasing her into her home and then spent hours harassing and terrifying her, banging on the doors and windows, threatening to kill her and her pregnant friend.
Fearing for her life, Kate, who has given just her first name for security reasons, imagined she would be able rely on a set of measures she’d previously put in place to protect herself and her then six-months-old daughter, to get her out of such a terrifying situation.
A Location of Interest marker had been put on her house, meaning the police had registered her address as a place where there is someone vulnerable at risk.
The mum had also previously gone through a 14-month process with the family court to get a non-molestation order (NMO) granted against her ex, banning him from using physical violence and intimidating, harassing or pestering behaviour.
Although this order was a civil one, breaching it is a criminal offence holding a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison. So when Kate called 999 on that petrifying day in spring 2017, she believed help would come.
However, she says that the operator told her they had no one on patrol in the area because they were dealing with several incidents at pubs.
‘I had my baby, I had my friend who was five months pregnant who was terrified. I told them this on the phone – I said there’s absolutely no way I could defend myself, my daughter and my friend if he does get into the house,’ the 36-year-old tells Metro.co.uk.
Kate knows the operator could hear how much danger she was in because the 999 call was so harrowing, a recording of it ended up being used to train the Merseyside Police force’s victims’ unit.
It was also used as evidence at Liverpool Magistrates Court= although it was played to the judges in private, as the police told Kate’s parents they would not want to listen to the call.
‘You can hear the banging and it sounds like he’s coming through the door,’ Kate says.
Her ex, who Metro.co.uk is referring to by the pseudonym Joe, was eventaully convicted for harassment (put in fear of violence) more than two years later, at the start of 2019.
Kate said she was subjected to years of physical and psychological violence when she and Joe were together.
The abuse seemed to die down once Kate became pregnant, leaving her with a ‘false sense of security that everything was behind them’.
But she still warned Joe: ‘If you raise a hand to me when my daughter is in the house then that is it, there will be no going back.’
So when he attacked Kate just eight weeks after their baby was born, she called the police and Joe fled.
Kate had done everything ‘right’.
She ‘just left’ her abuser, she called the police when she was attacked, she preventatively applied for a marker to be put on her house and she had tried to sort things out amicably.
Recalling that day in spring 2017, when she met Joe to discuss him spending time their daughter, Kate says, ‘I never, ever wanted to stop him from seeing her but I was adamant that I never wanted him to have unsupervised access to her.’
And yet, despite all this, she still found herself trapped inside her own home with a man threatening her life and no one coming to help her.
Kate eventually escaped after her and her friend’s parents arrived at the house with a ‘convoy of cars’.
While Merseyside Police could not comment on this specific case because Metro could not safely reveal all the details of Kate’s identity, detective superintendent Cheryl Rhodes said: ‘We take all reports of domestic abuse extremely seriously and we work together with communities and partner agencies to tackle all violence against women and girls.
‘A key part of this ongoing work is ensuring victims of domestic abuse feel they will be believed and supported when they report offending to us, and we have developed a programme of work to ensure that we do everything in our power to support victims, target perpetrators and reduce violence.
‘We want to continue the strides we have made to make sure Merseyside is an environment where women and girls are safe and feel they can pursue their daily lives free from fear and harassment.’
According toHarriet Wistrich, the director of the Centre for Women’s Justice (CWF), Merseyside Police is just one of 43 police forces in the UK which are all part of a ‘creaking’ criminal justice system enforcing laws to protect women that are ‘worth little more than the paper they are written on’.
The CWF an organisation which works to address violence against women and submitted a super-complaint ‘highlighting serious failures by the police to use powers designed to protect victims of domestic violence’ in March 2019.
Researchers looked at the four legal powers available to officers – imposing bail conditions, making arrests for breaches of NMOs, imposing domestic violence protection notices (DVPN) or applying for restraining orders.
They interviewed 11 frontline women’s organisations, including the National Domestic Violence Helpline and Rape Crisis South London, to assess the specific reasons these tools are supposedly not working.
Summary of the four legal powers available to officers protecting victims of domestic abuse:
Bail conditions:
Conditions for someone released on bail usually include not contacting the victim and not attending their home address or the area around it. This only applies when an arrest has taken place.
Arrest for breach of non-molestation order (NMO):
An NMO granted by the family courts under Family Law Act 1996 usually orders the respondent not to contact the applicant directly or indirectly, not to attend her home address or an area around it or other locations such as her place of work or study.
This order is only granted where the applicant and respondent are or have been in an intimate or family relationship.
Breaching an NMO is a criminal offence which carries a maximum sentence of five years in jail.
Domestic Violence Protection Notices (DVPN) and Orders (DVPOs)
Police can issue a DVPN for 48 hours and can then apply for a court to grant a DVPO for up to 14 to 28 days.
These order a perpetrator not to contact a victim or survivor and not to attend her home address, including moving out of the address if they are co-habiting
Restraining orders:
A restraining order is made by a criminal court at the conclusion of a prosecution, upon the application of the prosecutor. It can be made following an acquittal.
Source: Centre for Women’s Justice
Although NMOs are one of the most commonly used protective orders granted to help victims of domestic abuse, the CWF report found that officers often ‘trivialise’ breaches of NMOs and ‘do not understand them within the wider patterns of domestic abuse’.
Kate describes how, on one occasion, after calling the police about Joe’s abusive behaviour, she was told by an officer:‘You’ve had a lover’s tiff, you both just need to calm down.’
She tells Metro: ‘I’m not a silly kid. Don’t downplay the hole that he’s punched through my dining room wall while I’ve got a baby in the house. Don’t you dare downplay what this is.’
Another woman, who cannot be named for her own safety, has an indefinite non-molestation order in place against her abusive ex.
She spoke to Metro about how protective measures like hers are policed too generally, which means she has never really felt truly safe. general, saying hers has never made her feel safe.
‘By the police not acting, it actually sends the message to perpetrators that they’re above the law and they can do whatever they wish,’ she explains.
The mum believes this culture gave her abuser ‘more control and power because he knew he was taunting me and frightening me and it was his way of saying “I’m not going to go away”.’
She adds that the charities Refuge and Women’s Aid, are ‘the only places where women feel they can go to where they’re actually believed – they’re heard and they don’t need to sit there and tell their whole story thinking “oh my god, is someone gonna help and listen”.
‘Unfortunately, with some police forces, that is not the case. And if a woman is making that first call and they get a bad call handler, they could send them back in a dangerous situation.
‘I’ve had so many people who have spoken to me over the years who have said “oh no I don’t want to call the police because I’ve had a bad experience and I don’t want to call them again” and that’s not okay.
‘We don’t feel safe or safeguarded. My ex has got away with so much and he’s just been shown that he’s above the law, that he can continue to breach.
‘This is why the domestic abuse number keeps rising. It’s alright people putting new laws and legislations in place but if the authorities are not going to act and back this up the numbers are going to keep rising. They’re putting women at risk.’
Another unnamed survivor told Metro that her perpetrator ‘routinely breached’ an NMO ‘with no action taken’.
‘I still live in constant fear that he will find us,’ she admits. ‘He left voice recordings threatening to burn the family member’s home where we fled to.
‘Police told me to leave it as “you don’t want to upset him anymore”. He sends threats via people who knew me that he “has something for me”.
‘I’m constantly looking over my shoulder to keep us safe and lying about where we are from.’
Kate feels similarly, describing ‘the aftermath of leaving’ as ‘worse than any part of the relationship’ she was in.
She says her faith in the police service was ‘completely destroyed’ until an officer in the victim’s unit helped her take her case to criminal court and get her ex prosecuted for harassment.
‘It was years and years of hell. I still can’t sleep in the dark. I still sleep with the light on – there’s certain elements that will never go,’ she says.
Who to call if you need help
For emotional support you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline, run by Refuge and Women’s Aid, on 0808 2000 247.
If you are in an LGBT relationship you can also call the helpline run by Broken Rainbow and Galop UK, on 0300 999 5428 or 0800 9995428.
Male victims can call also the Men’s Advice Line on 0808 801 0327.
As devastating as these stories are, they are seemingly not stand-out cases. The CWF’s super-complaint summarised its findings with: ‘The CWJ has become concerned that the various legal measures intended to provide protection to women are not being applied properly on the ground.’
The CWJ report is the most comprehensive set of data available on the issue, as all the relevant information is collected and stored by different parts of the criminal justice system, which do not seem to communicate effectively with each other, say domestic violence policy experts.
Lucy Hadley, the head of policy for Women’s Aid, tells Metro that many of the difficulties in protecting domestic violence victims are because of the ‘the real lack of join-up between our civil and criminal court system’.
Many protective orders are made in civil courts and ‘it’s kind of unbelievable but there’s no automatic join-up mechanism between our civil court system and the police’, she says.
Ellie, Lucy, Kate and the unnamed survivors speak at length about a lack of understanding of ‘the complexities of domestic abuse’ in general and what seemingly small breaches actually mean.
Something like ‘laying flowers on a victim’s doorstep’ may not seem serious to an officer but actually be ‘the most incredibly dangerous and frightening act’ for a victim.
Lucy says: ‘If you look at a breach in isolation it might not mean much, but when you see it as part of a pattern, it becomes clear just how serious that is.’
Meanwhile, Ellie Butt, Refuge’s head of policy, tells Metro that it is important to remember that ‘a woman knows her perpetrator and how they work better than anyone’.
She says: ‘The overwhelming message we hear from survivors around protective orders is that the system doesn’t work and they don’t have much confidence in it.’
Some of the reasons Ellie cites for the 'system not working':
Ellie says the reasons include protective orders ‘not being put in place where they are relevant and appropriate’ and an order ‘cannot be enforced if it doesn’t exist’.
Secondly, she adds, the orders which are in place ‘are not monitored proactively by agencies (to see if a perpetrator is complying with an order), leaving the onus on the survivor to report a breach’.
An example of proactive monitoring would be introducing ‘positive requirements’ to protective orders.
These could include a perpetrator having to attend the police station to check in regularly, or participating in a prescribed intervention – such as help with drug or alcohol issues.
The point would be to ‘put more onus on the perpetrators to demonstrate compliance because, at the moment, it’s very much all on the woman to report if there’s been a breach’.
Ellie says: ‘The police aren’t always notified that these orders have been made so the responsibility is often put on the woman to make authorities aware that she’s got a protection order through the civil courts and the police need to uphold it.’
In the year ending in March 2022, the police in England and Wales recorded 1,500,369 domestic abuse-related incidents, according to the Office for National Statistics.
This number has continued to increase year-on-year with last year’s figures 7.7% higher than 2021 and 14.1% higher than 2020.
It is estimated that only one in five victims actually report domestic abuse to the police, so the real numbers are likely much higher.
Lucy says: ‘For many, they are simply too scared of perpetrators to report. Some of them know that reporting to the police will increase their risk of harm. So, when a woman reports, it absolutely needs to be seen as the most dangerous time for a woman to put herself in.
‘It’s the highest-risk time and breaches to protective orders need to be seen as the very dangerous crimes that they are. The perpetrator’s behaviour is escalating not diminishing.’
This rings true for Kate, who says the day when Joe attacked her house and no officer came to help was ‘one of her lowest points’ while ‘already suffering really extreme stress and anxiety’.
For every 100 domestic-abuse-related crimes in the year ending March 2022, only 31.3 arrests were made, ONS figures from last year show.
Out of the 1,500,369 incidents reported, just 67,063 alleged abusers were referred for prosecution – this is less than 5%.
It is important to note that there is no single criminal offence for domestic abuse so convictions for it include harassment, assault, criminal damage, attempted murder, rape, stalking and coercive control.
This means some convictions may have taken place for domestic abuse-related crimes without being recorded as such.
Kate is one of the few who saw criminal justice take place when Joe pleaded guilty to harassment.
She had ‘assumed her case wasn’t going anywhere because it had been that long’ since she reported it to the police.
Upcoming reforms and what experts have to say about them:
The Government is currently working on a civil Domestic Abuse Protection Notice (DAPN) ‘to provide immediate protection following a domestic abuse incident’ and a new civil Domestic Abuse Protection Order (DAPO) ‘to provide flexible, longer-term protection for victims’.
Multiple women’s rights organisations are enthusiastic about this reform, hoping it will simplify the protective orders process.
A DAPN would be issued by the police and could, for example, ‘require a perpetrator to leave the victim’s home for up to 48 hours’. Victims will also be able to apply for a DAPN themselves – through the family courts.
DAPOs can be in place for longer periods of time and will be able to impose ‘both prohibitions and positive requirements on perpetrators’.
Importantly, a DAPO can be applied for, and recognised, in both criminal and civil courts, alleviating ‘confusion for victims and practitioners in domestic abuse cases and problems with enforcement’.
Source: Domestic Abuse Bill 2020: Domestic Abuse Protection Notices/Orders factsheet
A Victims Unit officer who ‘restored her faith’ in the police called her and reportedly said: ‘The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) are going to take your case, please tell me that you’re going to do it.’
‘I had made a promise to myself and my daughter and every other woman out there that if I had an opportunity to get some sort of justice then I would,’ she says.
She recalls how, at one point, she was sitting with her domestic violence worker and asked: ‘What happened next?’ The officer reportedly responded: ‘Kate, you’re the first lady I’ve worked with that’s got this far.’
Kate bravely attended court but, on the second day of her giving evidence, Joe changed his plea to guilty. She says: ‘I know he did that for himself but it’s the best thing he ever did for me. I was really struggling to give evidence and to keep myself together – because of that fear of not being believed all over again.’
Joe was sentenced to a community order which imposed a curfew and required him to attend rehabilitation appointments. Kate was also granted a 10-year restraining order.
The Home Office highlighted the measures it announced in February this year, which ‘go further than ever before in protecting women and girls from domestic abuse’.
A spokesperson tells Metro.co.uk: ‘We have been clear that we expect the police to treat these reports with the utmost gravity, without exception.
‘We have classified Violence Against Women and Girls as a national threat for the first time, setting clear expectations that police must treat these crimes on a par as tackling threats like terrorism, serious and organised crime and child sexual abuse.’
Merseyside Police's full statement to Metro.co.uk:
We take all reports of domestic abuse extremely seriously and we work together with communities and partner agencies to tackle all violence against women and girls.
A key part of this ongoing work is ensuring victims of domestic abuse feel they will be believed and supported when they report offending to us, and we have developed a programme of work to ensure that we do everything in our power to support victims, target perpetrators and reduce violence.
We want to continue the strides we have made to making sure Merseyside is an environment where women and girls are safe and feel they can pursue their daily lives free from fear and harassment.
Domestic abuse is a complex issue and can take many forms including psychological, financial, sexual, emotional and physical. It can also happen to anyone, at any time, regardless of gender, age and sexuality.
We want to raise awareness of the support that is available to anyone who is or has experienced domestic abuse or has been affected by it so that nobody else has to suffer or silence or go through what they have been through.
It is important for people to recognise when it is happening to them, and that confidential support and advice is available to those that need it.
There is support available from both the police and our partners and we want to raise awareness of the support that is available to anyone who is or has experienced domestic abuse or has been affected by it.
I want to reassure our communities that all reports are treated seriously, they will be investigated sensitively and we will work with our partners to offer support and keep victims safe. We understand that every domestic incident is unique and we will do everything we can to ensure perpetrators are brought to justice, so the victims of this terrible and under-reported crime are protected and their needs are put first.
Merseyside Police would also appeal to families and friends to keep an eye out for signs that someone may be a victim of domestic abuse. Sometimes victims are unable to contact the police, which is why it’s so important the people around them who suspect something is going can do it on their behalf.
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