A Personal Account of Police Corruption, Institutional Betrayal, and What Happens When One Officer Dares to Do the Right Thing

Two Years On

20 November 2025. This was due to be published several weeks ago, but revisiting these events requires significant emotional recovery, and I needed time before I could return to it.

Content Warning

This article discusses domestic abuse, police misconduct, child-safeguarding failures, and mental-health crises. It contains detailed accounts of institutional failures that may be triggering for survivors.

Two years ago today, I escaped domestic abuse.

I packed a single plastic shopping bag, loaded my three children into a van, and fled to a budget hotel. No blue lights. No dramatic rescue. Just a quiet decision: if I stayed, we might not survive.

Today, the only officer who ever truly helped us is approaching the end of a 38-year career in policing — not because he failed, but because he did his job. In doing so, he exposed how many others had not.

This is Part One of my account. It covers the period from 20 November 2023, the day we fled, to 9 March 2024, the day I met Sergeant Conrad Smith — the first officer who treated us as human beings rather than problems to be managed.

What happened to him afterwards is Part Two.

20 November 2023 — One Bag, Three Children, and the Decision to Run

For four years, my normal looked like this:

• Coercive and controlling behaviour
• Child endangerment
• Drug cultivation and distribution in the family home
• Financial fraud in my name
• Threats to my nursing registration
• Escalating volatility and intimidation

My sons were 13 and 11. My youngest was three.

On 20 November 2023, I crossed the line where staying became more dangerous than leaving. I grabbed what I could:

• One plastic shopping bag
• A few clothes
• Three traumatised children
• No real plan

We drove to a Travelodge. I was still in shock when my phone rang: “Private Number.”

For years, that had meant disappearing acts and suicide threats used as weapons. This time, I was on the phone to Refuge when it rang. Still trauma-bonded, I hung up and answered.

It was a police call handler. My sister, unable to reach me and knowing what was happening, had phoned them.

Minutes after discovering that my 11-year-old had also been abused, I made my first disclosure over the phone.

The next day, I did what women are constantly told to do: I tried to carry on. I dropped the children off, put on my work uniform — the only thing I had taken that was mine — and went in for my shift.

Between collapsing in my room, I filled out paperwork for:

• A non-molestation order
• An occupation order

I thought I was stepping into a system designed to protect us.

I was wrong.

21 November 2023 — Disclosures Two and Three

By early evening, I was running on fumes. Two hours of sleep. Three children. No certainty about where we would live. More than sixty messages hit my phone in one day — raging, pleading, blaming, threatening to end his life.

Another “Private Number.” Another call handler.

At 18:13, I disclosed, in detail:

• Systematic abuse of me and all three children
• Drug cultivation and distribution from our home
• A 2021 incident that nearly killed my then three-year-old
• Financial fraud in my name
• Coercive control across every aspect of daily life
• Multiple assaults
• The fact I already had extensive documentary evidence

Later that evening, a uniformed constable — PC Timothy Rolls — attended my sister’s house. My sister, her husband, and my two older boys were present.

I went through it all again. This was now my third disclosure in 24 hours.

I described:

• Four and a half years of controlling behaviour
• The incident that almost killed my toddler
• Emotional abuse, threats, and harassment
• The impact on each child
• The evidence I held — messages, screenshots, recordings

PC Rolls told me that if police had attended the July 2021 incident at the time, he would have arrested my ex for child endangerment.

What I did not know — and would not discover for months — was this:

• No child-abuse crime was recorded
• No safeguarding investigation was opened
• No protective measures were taken for my children
• It was logged as a “domestic incident”

He did, however, find time to lecture me about contact centres — and later returned in the middle of the night to collect a laptop he had left behind.

My family heard every word.

Late November – Early December 2023 — The Silence After Disclosure

Over the next days and weeks, I did exactly what victims are told to do.

Key Contacts and (Non-)Responses

23 November
PC Rolls emailed apologising for a “system crash” and sent generic domestic-abuse support information.
Still no child-protection referral.
Still no contact about giving a statement.

24 November
My GP signed me off sick with stress.

27 November
I saw another GP, met my first IDVA, and was referred into MARAC. Support services assumed police were doing their part.

4 December
I was allowed back into the family home with CCTV installed. My ex and a family member turned up and threatened my nursing registration if I reported him. I reported it. No meaningful follow-up.

7 December
I submitted an online report detailing four years of coercive control.
A domestic-abuse worker later told me my ex had already walked into a police station and reported me for “financial abuse.” His complaint was quietly marked No Further Action.

I assumed mine was being investigated.

It wasn’t.

That night, I collapsed. My mum and sister called an ambulance. I refused hospital admission because I had a family-court hearing the next day. I had not slept or eaten in four days.

8–13 December 2023 — Orders, Promises, and More Waiting

8 December
The family court granted a non-molestation order.

9 December
A different officer, PC Lewis Finch, attended my home. I disclosed everything again. He:

• Acknowledged serious child-protection concerns
• Said he would arrange ABE interviews
• Said he would return to complete paperwork
• Said the investigation would be opened

I sent hundreds of pages of evidence — messages, screenshots, videos, and a 40,000-word timeline.

Nobody took a formal witness statement.

12 December
I took my son to the station to sign ABE consent forms. I was reassured interviews would be completed by the end of January.

13 December
A second non-molestation order was granted, this time naming the children.

On paper, things looked promising.

In reality, nothing meaningful had moved.

19–23 December 2023 — When Children Arm Themselves

19 December
My eldest son, 13 and autistic, went missing from school.
The non-molestation order still hadn’t been served.

He was found hiding in an alleyway with a screwdriver in his pocket “for protection”.

He wasn’t truanting.
He was terrified.

An officer attended and:

• Referenced my ex
• Mentioned an iPad removed from the house
• Then backtracked and vaguely said my ex had “been to the station”

No one has ever explained who he spoke to or why.

21 December
PC Rolls and PC Finch returned.

In front of all three children, I was told:

“There’s a difference between abuse and a bad relationship. The primary evidence — WhatsApp messages and texts — isn’t sufficient.”

Dismissed in that one moment:

• Four years of messages and screenshots
• Videos of abusive incidents
• Audio recordings of threats
• A 40,000-word chronology
• Multiple disclosures of child abuse
• Four years of police call-outs

Still no opportunity to give a formal statement.

That night, I phoned the crisis team.

23 December
I phoned them again. I was no longer just a victim of domestic abuse — I was now a victim of institutional victim-blaming.

The Disclosure Cascade — 40 Days, 60+ Contacts

Between 20 November and 29 December 2023, this is what “help-seeking” looked like:

Police

• 17 interactions
• 6+ officers
• 8 full trauma disclosures

Health and Mental Health

• 4 GPs
• 1 ambulance call-out
• Paediatrician
• IAPT assessment
• CBT and EMDR started, then paused
• Crisis team

Children’s Services & Education

• Social care
• School safeguarding
• Head of year
• Early Help
• Domestic-abuse worker

Legal & Specialist Support

• Refuge
• Two IDVAs
• Solicitor
• Court staff
• Victim Support
• Victims’ Advice Line

Housing & Financial

• Homelessness support
• Mortgage company
• Utilities
• Bailiffs
• Foodbank

Every contact meant:

• Starting from the beginning
• Reliving four years of trauma
• Proving I was telling the truth
• Justifying leaving
• Explaining what my children lived through

All while:

• Losing over four stone
• Developing cardiac symptoms
• Having no stable home
• Keeping three traumatised children safe
• Working to keep us afloat

This is what a “multi-agency response” feels like from the inside:
not a safety net, but a disclosure cascade.

January 2024 — Breaches Ignored, Truth Revealed

Once the non-molestation order was in place, breaches began immediately.

12 January
My ex contacted my mother. A Domestic Abuse Risk Officer confirmed it was a breach.
My mum waited five nights for an officer to take her statement.
No one came.

15 January
Another breach. No action.

16 January
He contacted my three-year-old’s nursery twice. The nursery manager reported it.

17 January
PC Rolls attended the nursery and:

• Disclosed information without my consent
• Said breaches “wouldn’t proceed”
• Questioned the nursery manager’s risk assessment
• Delivered another speech about “father’s rights”

The order explicitly prohibited direct or indirect contact.

At this point, national helplines told me bluntly:
You need to re-report the child abuse.

I was confused. I believed it was already under investigation.

When I finally spoke to PC Finch, I broke down.

Only then did he say he would “now send the information to CID”.

That was when the truth emerged:

• The child-abuse disclosures had not been passed to CID
• ABE interviews had never been scheduled
• Nearly two months had passed with no investigation

The Health Cost — “Mummy, You’ll Be a Baby Soon”

By mid-January, the stress was consuming me.

• Lost over four stone
• Could not eat
• Irregular heart rhythm
• Collapsed at home

One day, my three-year-old asked:

“Mummy, you getting bigger?”

I explained I was losing weight.

She replied:

“Yes, because you don’t eat. You will be a baby soon.”

She was watching me disappear.

I raised a complaint with the IOPC.

Domestic-abuse agencies kept asking the same question:

Does your ex know someone in the police?

Meanwhile, the list of unrecorded crimes grew:

• Child abuse
• Coercive control
• Child neglect
• Assaults
• Harassment
• Fraud
• Drug cultivation
• Threats to my registration
• Multiple breaches

The only visible outcome?
A marker on my address — and an officer telling me to think of it as a “bad relationship”.

Where Things Stood by Early March 2024

By March:

• 17 police interactions
• 6+ officers
• 8 trauma disclosures
• 60+ professional contacts
• 2 non-molestation orders
• 0 ABE interviews
• 0 child-abuse crimes properly recorded

I was underweight, exhausted, and losing faith in every system.

That is the context in which I walked into a meeting with Sergeant Conrad Smith.

9 March 2024 — The First Time Someone in Uniform Really Read It

My sister came with me.

By then:

• I was physically depleted
• My mental health was hanging by a thread
• My children were arming themselves to sleep
• I no longer believed reporting equalled protection

I expected another officer to skim the last log entry and send me away.

Instead, Sergeant Smith:

• Had read my 77-page document
• Knew the key dates
• Used the correct language
• Recognised missed opportunities
• Treated my children’s disclosures as central

For the first time in months, I felt:

Seen rather than managed.
Believed rather than judged.
Protected rather than blamed.

It was the first day since leaving that I felt an officer was genuinely on the side of truth and child safety — not the force’s reputation.

Why This Is Where Part One Ends

This is where I choose to end Part One.

After:

• Seventeen police interactions
• Eight trauma disclosures
• Sixty professional contacts
• Two non-molestation orders
• Significant physical and psychological harm

… I finally met an officer who did something simple and rare:

He read the evidence, understood the law, and treated us as human beings worthy of protection.

Two Years On — What Didn’t End When We Left

Two years on, I am not the same person who walked into that hotel room with one plastic shopping bag.

I function. I work. I advocate. I parent. But I do so with a nervous system that learned, over months, that asking for help could make things worse — not better.

That period did not simply hurt me; it reshaped how I assess risk, authority, and safety. I am more guarded. Less trusting. Hyper-vigilant in ways that did not exist before.

The hardest part is not what happened then. It is living with the knowledge that the institutions meant to protect my children were capable of watching them unravel — and stepping back.

That knowledge does not fade with time.

It settles.

What Comes Next

What happened after that meeting — how Sergeant Smith attempted to put right what others ignored, and what the organisation did to him for doing his job — is another story.

That is Part Two:

What happens when one officer’s integrity collides with a system determined to protect itself?