The state should help prevent - not enable – abuse during family breakdown

Mar 31

Disclaimer: This article has been written by an individual known to the editor but who would like to remain anonymous. The following account is his personal story.

[Editor’s note: this is a good example of the kind of lived experience that many therapists will not be at all familiar with. Therapists need to make themselves aware of these kinds of experiences in order to be better able to have some compassion with male clients who are experiencing relationship problems].

When I first met Helen and everything seemed glorious. Instant attraction along with easy conversation, a prefect start to a relationship.

As with most young couples we spent most of our time together. However, when we were apart I would often receive quite intense text messages about highly sexualised issues, which would often lead to signs of self-harm such as cuts to her thighs and arms. Unfortunately, I understood that self-harm is not that uncommon and I felt, perhaps, I could help.

Around 4 weeks after meeting Helen, she fell pregnant. I was overjoyed and wanted to provide the love which my parents had provided me.

As a member of the Armed Forces and having been deployed on operational duties around the globe, now was the time to step up, to be a supportive partner, a great dad and begin the next chapter of my life, the most rewarding part of life, surely.

As the pregnancy continued, Helens drinking increased to a level which was problematic, the self-harm continued, the text messages intensified.

“You don’t want a normal woman”.

“You only want a skinny woman”.

“Go hook up with a stripper”.

“Suddenly from being an outgoing individual, I was feeling isolated and that she was controlling certain aspects of my life. …As the relationship developed, the outbursts would become more regular.”

I asked if she had thought about talking to anyone, she was dismissive, stating that speaking to somebody makes it worse. During this time I was invited to a couple of stag dos. The first one was for one of my best friends. Due to my partners increasingly bizarre behaviour, I would drive 3 hours to the venue and then return to my partners, this way I would not let either my partner nor my friend down. At the subsequent wedding I had been asked to be an usher, what should have been a happy day quickly deteriorated into a nightmare, constantly being accused of sleeping with members of the brides party, individuals I had never seen before let alone met.

The second one I made my excuses not to attend, I didn’t want to upset Helen.

Suddenly from being an outgoing individual, I was feeling isolated and that she was controlling certain aspects of my life. This was the beginning of what would be a common theme throughout the relationship.

As the relationship developed, the outbursts would become more regular. During the pregnancy even attending hospital appointments would become a problem. Anyone in waiting rooms reading certain newspapers would be accused of being a paedophile or rapist. These confrontations resulted in staff allowing us a private room rather than risk further confrontations. Following more examples of unstable behaviour, the midwife made an appointment for her to see a counsellor. I agreed to accompany her to this, as that’s what she wanted, I wanted to support her. The appointment quickly descended into Helen describing a volatile upbringing. She disengaged with the support.

On occasion, she would give me small details of her childhood memories, often these insights would be immensely disturbing.

Halfway into the pregnancy Helen asked me if I could get a posting through my work. I spoke to my line manager and was informed that it was possible, however, for us to be entitled to a married quarter we must be married. Helen was adamant she wanted to move away to limit our children being in contact with her parents. We married at a low key ceremony at a registry office.

A few months later and we had moved to a base around 4 hours away.

The whole situation had me feeling anxious, things were not improving. Moving to a new house, new job, two children on the way and the continued worrying behaviour exhibited by Helen. At least we were living together, I could help my wife and support her when necessary.

Shortly after the birth my wife became obsessed with suing the NHS, claiming that a male doctor had put his hands all over her during the birth, that I had passed out during the birth and that the nurses had kidnapped the babies after birth, all of which were fictious accounts of reality. Our midwife in the mean time had contacted children services.

I had to attend a short residential work course. Halfway through the weeks course I began receiving constant text messages, over a 100 during the day.

There was an obsession with anything of a sexual nature, but not in a loving caring sense, but an abusive, negative way.

That evening I was sent a picture message which exhibited that she had over 30 cuts to her body. She also acknowledged that she had been drinking heavily. Concerned about my wife’s wellbeing and our babies safety, I returned home and contacted the GP.

“At this point, I was being told what I could wear, what I could watch, not to contact my friends as she would brand them as paedophiles or rapists, my phone was checked, I wasn’t allowed to the work canteen, she would also e-mail my bosses about highly personal and sexualised matters.”

Over the next few years Children Services were involved due to concerns about my wifes behaviour, ranging from ‘Child In Need’ to ‘Child Protection’. Involvement from the Mental Health Crisis Team would become frequent, it would always end in non-engagement from Helen.

The multi-agency meetings would often centre around her drinking, self-harm and mental health issues. The relationship had become incredibly strained and her abuse towards me was constant. I felt like I always agreed with her, or I would face the consequences. The professionals in the meeting would insist I should speak freely in these meetings, but I couldn’t, they would go back to their office and I would face the aftermath at home.

At this point, I was being told what I could wear, what I could watch, not to contact my friends as she would brand them as paedophiles or rapists, my phone was checked, I wasn’t allowed to the work canteen, she would also e-mail my bosses about highly personal and sexualised matters. In the evenings she would become intoxicated and become abusive towards me, the police would be called, they would remove her, release her and she would return to the house in the morning promising that it would never happen again. This became a common theme. Whilst I would be filling the car up at a service station she would be in the kiosk moving the newspapers and throwing them on the top shelf. On one occasion she would be using the community facilities to print off posters, ignoring the children who were crying in the buggy, to the point that the staff within the community facility called Children Services. During this time Helen was putting up posters in the supermarket which stated “Does your wife/girlfriend know your buying porn in your dinner hour”.

The cycle continued, drinking, overdose attempts, controlling behaviour, self-harm, cutting her neck and stomach in front of me.

I did my best to keep working, look after the children and attempt to get help for my wife. It was hell, but I had to keep going. My wife would fail to work with mental health services, but childrens services claimed they had no concerns about the mother and I should speak freely in front of my controlling partner, even though they had identified the domestic abuse at an early stage of their intervention.

Finally there was a social worker assigned to us who understood the situation. We were already subject to a child protection order when another incident occurred which left me no choice but to activate a multi-agency protection plan to remove myself and the children from the situation.

“Although a ‘survivor’ of domestic abuse… I was never going to give my career up to make me financially eligible for legal aid.”

One afternoon I returned home from work early after receiving numerous ‘odd’ text messages. I checked the draw where the bottle of spirits was usually hidden, most of the contents had gone, this must have been consumed over the 3 hours since I had returned to work after my dinner. The children were in a neglected state. Then her usual rant would begin. This was the point at which I knew I had to action the safeguarding plan, had I not I would have left myself open to criticism from professionals.

I was given a postcode and a phone number, packed a handful of childrens belongings and left. The police later arrived at the family home due to her throwing things out the windows, being drunk, threatening to burn the house down and to stab me.

At time, I don’t believe that Helen understood that I was actually leaving her, then came the remorseful text messages, followed shortly after by the abusive texts, how dare I challenge her control within the relationship.

My feelings at the time were that I had made the biggest step in safely removing me and the children from the situation, surely after taking this huge step, the system would now kick in to ensure the safety of me and obviously the children.

Family court proceedings would now begin, I was always supportive of the children having contact with their mother as long as it was safe and appropriate. I was hoping that this would be an efficient process which would prioritise the needs of the children, especially given the documented safeguarding concerns.

Although a ‘survivor’ of domestic abuse, I would not meet the financial criteria to allow me to gain legal aid funding, as a member of the Armed Forces, who wanted to continue my career and be a role model to my children, I was never going to give my career up to make me financially eligible for legal aid. This would mean that both me and Helen would be privately funding our counsel should we want to have legal representation. There were many hearings, directions hearings followed by adjourned ‘final’ hearings.

The assigned CAFCASS (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) worker would submit their report on completion of ‘findings of fact’ enquiries.

In the initial hearing it quickly became apparent that Helen had been accessing my private e-mails, through my own account. My fault, in the rush to leave our home, all my possessions remained in the house, which she and her parents would now be living in for the next 9 months. She would be accessing all the correspondence between myself and my solicitor, advice which was costing me thousands of pounds. When I found out about this I ran a security report which identified that she had been accessing my private e-mails on average 30 times a day over a 5 week period. Her family had also paid a 3rd party to discover my address to ‘keep me under surveillance’.

“Helen would use social media to make serious allegations about me and a number of professionals, which included various support workers and individuals working in the military, nursery, police and the courts.”

Her court applications would become more ludicrous with completely false allegations including witness intimidation, affairs with professionals, theft, domestic abuse, threats of murder and financial abuse. She would make applications for non-molestation orders against me, all of which were completely rejected by various judges. In the mean time, the children continued to have contact with their mother, supervised at the local nursery, until the court completed their final judgement.

The accusations continued, she was going to use her ‘friends in parliament’ to have the children removed from my care. Often, during proceedings, she would exclaim that she knew where we lived, when we got up, when we left the house and when we would return from work.

Shortly before the final hearing she was barred from the nursery who were facilitating supported contact at this point. This was due to her barging into the nursery shouting, swearing and being aggressive towards staff members and other parents, after she refused to leave, the police were called to escort her from the premises. Shortly after the incident the nursery withdrew its facility to support contact and she was banned from the premises.

Over 8 months had passed since I left the family home, there was a five day final hearing. The judge dismisses her four hours of voice recordings and videos taken against the knowledge of various professionals. Helen would have contact three Saturdays a month at a contact centre. Contact arrangements continued over the next 18 months. Processes would be put into place to prevent me being left alone with her or her parents who would accompany Helen to the sessions, if I was left alone then further allegations would be made against me, it was an obsession with me rather than excitement about seeing the children. Constantly she would allege that the children had been abducted by me, helped by ‘corrupt professionals and bent judges’.

On one occasion, which lead to the contact centre withdrawing their facilities, she refused to return the children at the end of the session, citing that a neighbour was entering my house at night to abuse the children. We were all interviewed by the police from the local safeguarding unit, again, this was yet another crude attempt to undermined my care for the children. Helen was preventing the children being returned to me, to the extent that she was attempting to put them in her car and remove them. In the end around 6 uniformed officers and a number a social workers removed the children from her, at a time when she was filming the incident live on social media. The children were very distressed at this point. This incident coincided with a time when she began making strong links with a prominent activist group who would often be interested in conspiracy theories and how services often, and deliberately, covered up child abuse cases. Her allegations would fit their agenda seamlessly.

“I was constantly living in fear of what might happen next. It was taking an enormous toll on my wellbeing”

Helens allegations of abduction would continue on social media, however, the allegations would now name completely innocent individuals which she alleged were paedophiles or were facilitating paedophilia. During this time I was suffering with high levels of harassment, stalking and threats. This extended to neighbours, statutory and voluntary services along with anyone who had supported me. The subsequent recipients of this nuisance included High Ranking Police, Military figures and Royal Estates. Her first attempt to remove the children at the contact centre had failed, however, a month later she was the passenger in a car, driven by a local member of the activist group, filming my house, before e-mailing my solicitor stating that she would be removing the children from my care.

The court hearings continued, no firm outcomes were ever achieved, it would just roll on to the next hearing a month or so later. At this point it had cost me around £70,000 in legal expenses.

I then received an e-mail from my solicitor to confirm that Helen had applied for a divorce but wanted a financial settlement to finalise it. We had been married for just over 2 years before I had left, I had nothing of value and most of my furniture was gifted from well meaning friends. She had always refused to support the children in any form, refusing to even give the children their clothes or bedding. She had applied for half my Military pension along with half of my ‘non-existent’ savings. In my mind this was another cynical ploy to put me further into debt. I went to work, provided for our children and paid legal bills to ensure their voice was heard during proceedings. Her employment record of 6 months paid employment in 8 years meant she had no intention of working, so she wanted to take from me and the children.

There were two hearings prior to the final hearing, to which she never made an appearance, writing to the court to say she couldn’t leave the house as I would instruct someone to go to her house to break in and remove all her ‘evidence’ of abuse and corruption. She was awarded nothing, however, I was still paying for the legal costs involved.

“Not only had the perpetrator of my abuse and the safeguarding danger to the children been allowed to use legal and administrative aggression against us, but she was now doing so with the backing of public funds.”

Months after the contact centres withdrew their facilities, we continued to be in and out of court. At this stage I had special measures in place for my own safety, I would travel with someone and park in a secure car park in another area of the court complex. In the build up to one particular hearing, Helen was encouraging her ‘activist’ friends to attend court with her to witness ‘justice’. The hearing soon descended into chaos and was abandoned after she let her associates into the court chanting about paedophilia and cover ups. They completely ignored the judges pleas to leave, the judge pressed the panic button, me and my barrister were ushered out of a separate entrance whilst police and court security removed all the ‘activists’. At the time of the hearing Helen and one of her ‘friends’ were also on bail for harassment charges in relation to the harassment against my neighbour.

At this point I was constantly living in fear of what might happen next. It was taking an enormous toll on my wellbeing, I was living in a cycle of going to work to pay for legal expenses to ensure my childrens’ safety.

The behaviour of Helen was an increasing worry, the police and Children Services asked me to move from my house to a more secure location. A location on a local military camp where the houses are located behind a fence line, only accessible via security passes from the guardroom.

The hearings continued, I was always video linked into proceedings due to the level of hostility directed towards me.

She had now managed to access legal aid which meant more court applications from her which included applications for the judge to remove themselves from proceedings due to bias, relocate all hearings to outside the county and further non-molestation applications against me.

The legal aid system, yet another service she had successfully abused. Not only had the perpetrator of my abuse and the safeguarding danger to the children been allowed to use legal and administrative aggression against us, but she was now doing so with the backing of public funds.

“It has placed me into very dark places at times, going to work and knowing that they [the IDVA] had supported her has allowed continuous malicious rumours to hugely impact my life professionally and personally. Self-doubt has crossed my mind along with a feeling of helplessness.”

At the final hearing, Helen decided she actually wanted no contact.

Years of court proceedings, costing around £135,000, leaving me with loans and debts, all to ensure that my children would be fairly represented in the interests of safeguarding.

Determined to find out how the system had failed me and subsequently placed the children at such a huge financial disadvantage compared to their peers. The toll on me, my parents and friends was huge, emotionally and financially. It would alter three generations of my family. Why?, because I decided to remain working, whilst Helen attended one drop in session with entirely false and completely unfounded claims of domestic abuse, the IDVA (Independent Domestic Violence Advocate) had used ‘professional judgement’ to claim that Helen was a ‘victim’ based purely on what ‘she had told her’, hardly a robust system when considering the implications of a supporting letter from a DV agency is often the gateway to a seemingly blank cheque for Legal Aid.

As a male domestic abuse survivor, it has been a battle throughout to be believed. The fact that an agency took my ex wife’s allegations at face value based upon one conversation at a “drop in” has enabled her to continue to abuse me.

It has placed me into very dark places at times, going to work and knowing that they [the IDVA] had supported her has allowed continuous malicious rumours to hugely impact my life professionally and personally. Self-doubt has crossed my mind along with a feeling of helplessness.

I should have been able to trust this agency. The police initially put me in contact with them from times when they were called out to our home to remove Helen. I confided in their IDVAs since their first involvement. My IDVA at the time was horrified to find out that Helen had been allocated Legal Aid, so I can only imagine his disappointment to find out all the work he had provided me had been undone by his own employers.

“It seems natural that a mother should be assisted by the state to protect her children from abuse. It is arguable that when a father needs assistance, that this meets a different set of assumptions.”

The same agency which had represented me at MARACs (multi-agency risk assessment conferences).

That attended court with me.

That acknowledged she used legal and administrative aggression against me.

That was aware of the judgement which claimed ‘there is no evidence of control neither any evidence of coercion’ by me alleged by Helen.

That were aware that a judge had found ‘The mother to be emotionally abusive to the father’.

The same organisation which had assessed me as ‘High Risk’ on 9 separate occasions.

I registered my utter disappointed with my IDVA at the time, I received the following response: ‘It is with significant embarrassment that I can confirm that a general letter of support was provided, unchecked. I was asked to pass on apologises. Its a genuine error if there such a thing, well intentioned, but sadly unchecked.’

I felt, in a strange way, more positive with this news. OK, I thought, they had released a supporting letter in error, unchecked and had apologised, all be it via text. Human factors, everyone makes errors.

To subsequently discover that they had supported and facilitated my abuser, took me emotionally to an incredibly low place but I had to keep going for the sake of my children.

The response from them since I made a justifiable complaint has been staggering. As an experienced serviceman I would never dream of responding to a complaint in the way they did. It has affected me in such a detrimental way, impacting my work and personal life. I have been unable to be honest with my own elderly parents about the situation due to the additional stress it would put them under. This leaves me feeling isolated, silenced and disbelieved – everything that an abuser does - all over again.

I wanted two things to happen, assurances that it would not be able to happen to anyone else in the future and that they would inform the Legal Aid Board of their error and a retraction of their letter of support.

Their response concerned me deeply.

They removed my IDVA support at a time when the risk hadn’t diminished and had the potential to increase given upcoming court hearings.

They failed to acknowledge any of my points of concern, including no attempts to contact the Legal Aid board.

Helen was now accessing public funds whilst I was required to take out a loan of £25,000 to ensure that I was represented along with needs of the children, given the fully documented safeguarding concerns in relation to Helen.

It left me little choice but to begin the process of following their complaints procedure and to source some DV support for myself. Thankfully a DV organisation specialising in male victims would now support me.

The process began by me receiving an incomplete complaints process, which was last reviewed 7 years ago and was 3 years out of date. This was not filling me with any degree of confidence that they would be taking my complaint seriously.

At every stage of the process my response would be professional and accurate, often supported by professionals within my network.

The whole process descended into what felt like a rather obvious intention to cover up rather than address the concerns.

The process was difficult and cumulated in me requesting help from my MP. The MP received a response from the CEO of the service, I felt that her response was personally aimed to make out that I was abusive, it was untrue and difficult for me to understand why such a tone was taken.

This is an agency who are supposed to support victims of DV, not to portray someone as an abuser, simply because they challenge working practises, with the sole aim of improving them and preventing others from being disadvantaged in the future.

I will keep fighting for equality and change to prevent others from incorrectly becoming victims in a system which should support them.

It seems natural that a mother should be assisted by the state to protect her children from abuse. It is arguable that when a father needs assistance, that this meets a different set of assumptions.

The situation has left me with a feeling that they have facilitated a continuation of abuse that their own service IDVAs had identified that I was already suffering from. I may never reach a point where me and my children have the same level of safety which most families take for granted, however, every service involved adds an additional level of support in their own way, which enables a more robust holistic level of protection. I am of the belief that their decision to close my case was made due to my compliant rather than any justifiable risk assessment, and against the advice of other professionals involved.

Futher information
You can find support in the UK on the following helpline:

ManKind Initiative, Tel 01823 334244, weekdays 10am to 4pm

Families Need Fathers (FNF), Tel 0300 0300 363, weekedays 9am - 10pm Monday - Friday and from 10am - 3pm at weekends

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