The Home Office announced last week that they are launching a public consultation asking whether they should create a specific offence for domestic abuse that would cover coercive control and emotional abuse. It is so important they do make this a law and use it to protect victims because at the moment thousands of women are suffering domestic abuse and their abusive partners are going unpunished.
My ex-boyfriend tried to force me into taking my own life, but what he did, didn’t even break a law. This is what happened to me and why a law criminalising all forms of abuse would have helped me.
trigger warning
I was with my ex for two and a half years before I reported him to the police. It doesn’t sound a long time, but when you’re fifteen and being forced into missing school and held responsible for a man three-years older, it’s a very long time. For most of it I didn’t even realise he was abusing me, he never hit me or forced me to have sex, we just argued a lot. Or at least that’s how I saw it. I didn’t understand what was actually happening. He very slowly beat down my self-esteem and got me under his control.
He got angry over things like me tweeting boys with an ‘x’ on the end, dressing too much like a boy or too much like a ‘slut’. He wanted to text all the time, if I didn’t respond within two minutes I was ‘obviously’ ignoring him and he’d sulk until it ended in argument. He said I was too insecure and my punishment was to not talk to him for two weeks. If I attempted to contact him an extra day was added on, but he always broke the rules before my time was up. He called me names like ‘slut,’ ‘whore,’ and ‘slag’. He said I'd changed into a bad person but he'd never tell me how. He self-harmed and it was my fault, he stashed pills for an overdose, drunk excessive amounts of vodka and phoned to tell me he was on a roof about to jump and it was my entire fault. He wasn’t on a roof, he was just trying to get me to breakdown.
One time, I was away from home staying in a hotel by myself, he chose that night to systematically terrorize me. He sent a constant stream of anonymous messages, literally faster than one a minute, from the early evening through to the early hours of the morning.
These were some of the messages:
My ex-boyfriend tried to force me into taking my own life, but what he did, didn’t even break a law. This is what happened to me and why a law criminalising all forms of abuse would have helped me.
trigger warning
I was with my ex for two and a half years before I reported him to the police. It doesn’t sound a long time, but when you’re fifteen and being forced into missing school and held responsible for a man three-years older, it’s a very long time. For most of it I didn’t even realise he was abusing me, he never hit me or forced me to have sex, we just argued a lot. Or at least that’s how I saw it. I didn’t understand what was actually happening. He very slowly beat down my self-esteem and got me under his control.
He got angry over things like me tweeting boys with an ‘x’ on the end, dressing too much like a boy or too much like a ‘slut’. He wanted to text all the time, if I didn’t respond within two minutes I was ‘obviously’ ignoring him and he’d sulk until it ended in argument. He said I was too insecure and my punishment was to not talk to him for two weeks. If I attempted to contact him an extra day was added on, but he always broke the rules before my time was up. He called me names like ‘slut,’ ‘whore,’ and ‘slag’. He said I'd changed into a bad person but he'd never tell me how. He self-harmed and it was my fault, he stashed pills for an overdose, drunk excessive amounts of vodka and phoned to tell me he was on a roof about to jump and it was my entire fault. He wasn’t on a roof, he was just trying to get me to breakdown.
One time, I was away from home staying in a hotel by myself, he chose that night to systematically terrorize me. He sent a constant stream of anonymous messages, literally faster than one a minute, from the early evening through to the early hours of the morning.
These were some of the messages:
He knew I was self-harming, he knew I’d been hospitalised for wanting to kill myself a few years before, but he still sent them endlessly, on the one night he knew I was on my own.
The first time I called the police was in March 2013 after we had met-up and he threatened to stab me. The two police officers were understanding but there was nothing they could do… because there was no law. He got back in contact with me and over 6 months it slowly got worse.
In-between incidents he was lovely and charming. I used to argue back when he shouted at me so I just thought it was normal relationship arguments and he was right to blame me. I think if there had been a law that made this control illegal I might have recognised it sooner. Or a teacher at school, or someone on a helpline or my mum would have said something sooner.
It wasn’t until he was telling me I deserved to be raped, pressuring me to kill myself when I was already self-harming, and I’d starved myself back to the point of hospitalisation that I went to the police again. I was again told there was nothing they could do.
To make it fall under harassment I would have to send him, in writing, that I didn't want contact anymore. Then only if he contacted me again, even if it wasn’t abusive, they could arrest him.
This doesn't work in general for domestic abuse because the person has been so abusive already, why should one more message turn it from not-criminal to criminal? It can be really hard to avoid contact with someone when you're so used to being controlled by them and listening to them all the time, and then find you’re left waiting for them to contact you one more time, so the police can move forward.
He was eventually charged with harassment, pleaded guilty and got an 18 week suspended sentence, electronic tagging and a restraining order. I was told only to expect him to get a fine so I was “lucky” the judge took it so seriously. His defence lawyer said my ex’s actions were a ‘silly mistake’. How do you mistakenly manipulate and abuse someone for years on end?
I’m not wholly in favour of prison for criminals but I don’t think his sentence reflects the severity of what he did. Hopefully a new law would enable the court to sentence people as severely for emotional and psychological abuse as they do physical violence.
The NSPCC found 75% of 13-17 year olds experience emotional abuse from an intimate partner. There are thousands more girls who, like me, could have benefited from a better law. We owe it to all of them to make this happen. Do this for every girl who is suffering now and will suffer in the future. The government is (for once) asking our opinion so we need to tell them exactly how important it is they make this law and how much difference it could make.
You can respond to the consultation on strengthening the law on domestic abuse here: http://www.homeofficesurveys.homeoffice.gov.uk/s/122424IGWQS
The first time I called the police was in March 2013 after we had met-up and he threatened to stab me. The two police officers were understanding but there was nothing they could do… because there was no law. He got back in contact with me and over 6 months it slowly got worse.
In-between incidents he was lovely and charming. I used to argue back when he shouted at me so I just thought it was normal relationship arguments and he was right to blame me. I think if there had been a law that made this control illegal I might have recognised it sooner. Or a teacher at school, or someone on a helpline or my mum would have said something sooner.
It wasn’t until he was telling me I deserved to be raped, pressuring me to kill myself when I was already self-harming, and I’d starved myself back to the point of hospitalisation that I went to the police again. I was again told there was nothing they could do.
To make it fall under harassment I would have to send him, in writing, that I didn't want contact anymore. Then only if he contacted me again, even if it wasn’t abusive, they could arrest him.
This doesn't work in general for domestic abuse because the person has been so abusive already, why should one more message turn it from not-criminal to criminal? It can be really hard to avoid contact with someone when you're so used to being controlled by them and listening to them all the time, and then find you’re left waiting for them to contact you one more time, so the police can move forward.
He was eventually charged with harassment, pleaded guilty and got an 18 week suspended sentence, electronic tagging and a restraining order. I was told only to expect him to get a fine so I was “lucky” the judge took it so seriously. His defence lawyer said my ex’s actions were a ‘silly mistake’. How do you mistakenly manipulate and abuse someone for years on end?
I’m not wholly in favour of prison for criminals but I don’t think his sentence reflects the severity of what he did. Hopefully a new law would enable the court to sentence people as severely for emotional and psychological abuse as they do physical violence.
The NSPCC found 75% of 13-17 year olds experience emotional abuse from an intimate partner. There are thousands more girls who, like me, could have benefited from a better law. We owe it to all of them to make this happen. Do this for every girl who is suffering now and will suffer in the future. The government is (for once) asking our opinion so we need to tell them exactly how important it is they make this law and how much difference it could make.
You can respond to the consultation on strengthening the law on domestic abuse here: http://www.homeofficesurveys.homeoffice.gov.uk/s/122424IGWQS