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.
Two Years Since I Left
Content warning: domestic abuse, police misconduct, child-safeguarding failures, trauma and mental-health crisis.
Two years ago today, I escaped domestic abuse.
I packed one plastic shopping bag, loaded my three children into a van, and fled to a budget hotel.
No blue lights.
No dramatic rescue.
No carefully planned exit.
Just one 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 policing career, 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 my children and me 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 had included:
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, private numbers 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 carried 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 completed paperwork for a non-molestation order and 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 60 messages hit my phone in one day. Raging, pleading, blaming, threatening to end his life.
Then 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 held extensive documentary evidence.
Later that evening, 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, harassment, the impact on each child, and the evidence I held.
Messages.
Screenshots.
Recordings.
A timeline.
Proof.
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.
He also returned in the middle of the night to collect a laptop he had left behind.
My family heard every word.
Late November to Early December 2023
The Silence After Disclosure
Over the next days and weeks, I did exactly what victims are told to do.
I reported.
I evidenced.
I engaged with services.
I tried to keep my children safe.
On 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 formal statement.
On 24 November, my GP signed me off sick with stress.
On 27 November, I saw another GP, met my first IDVA and was referred into MARAC. Support services appeared to assume the police were doing their part.
They were not.
On 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.
There was no meaningful follow-up.
On 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 was not.
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 properly in four days.
8 to 13 December 2023
Orders, Promises, and More Waiting
On 8 December, the family court granted a non-molestation order.
On 9 December, PC Lewis Finch attended my home.
I disclosed everything again.
He acknowledged serious child-protection concerns. He said he would arrange ABE interviews. He said he would return to complete paperwork. He said the investigation would be opened.
I sent hundreds of pages of evidence, including messages, screenshots, videos and a 40,000-word timeline.
Nobody took a formal witness statement.
On 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.
On 13 December, a second non-molestation order was granted, this time naming the children.
On paper, things looked as if they were moving.
In reality, nothing meaningful had changed.
19 to 23 December 2023
When Children Arm Themselves
On 19 December, my eldest son, 13 and autistic, went missing from school.
The non-molestation order still had not been served.
He was found hiding in an alleyway with a screwdriver in his pocket “for protection”.
He was not truanting.
He was terrified.
An officer attended and referenced my ex. He 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 my ex spoke to, what was said, or why.
On 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.”
In that one moment, the following were effectively dismissed:
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 one had taken a formal statement from me.
That night, I phoned the crisis team.
On 23 December, I phoned them again.
By then, I was no longer only a victim of domestic abuse.
I was becoming a victim of institutional victim-blaming.
The Disclosure Cascade
Between 20 November and 29 December 2023, this is what help-seeking looked like from the inside.
Police: 17 interactions, 6 or more officers, and repeated full trauma disclosures.
Health and mental health: four GPs, an ambulance call-out, paediatric involvement, IAPT assessment, CBT and EMDR started then paused, and crisis-team contact.
Children’s services and education: social care, school safeguarding, head of year and Early Help.
Domestic-abuse and legal support: Refuge, two IDVAs, solicitor, court staff, Victim Support and the Victims’ Advice Line.
Housing and financial support: homelessness services, mortgage company, utilities, bailiffs and foodbank.
Every contact meant starting again.
Reliving four years of trauma.
Proving I was telling the truth.
Justifying leaving.
Explaining what my children had lived through.
All while losing over four stone, developing cardiac symptoms, having no stable home, keeping three traumatised children safe and trying to work enough to keep us afloat.
This is what a multi-agency response can feel like from the inside.
Not a safety net.
A disclosure cascade.
January 2024
Breaches Ignored, Truth Revealed
Once the non-molestation order was in place, breaches began almost immediately.
On 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.
On 15 January, there was another breach.
No action.
On 16 January, he contacted my three-year-old’s nursery twice. The nursery manager reported it.
On 17 January, PC Rolls attended the nursery.
He disclosed information without my consent, said breaches “wouldn’t proceed”, questioned the nursery manager’s risk assessment and delivered another speech about fathers’ rights.
The order explicitly prohibited direct or indirect contact.
By that point, national helplines were telling 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 proper investigation.
The Health Cost
“Mummy, You’ll Be a Baby Soon”
By mid-January, the stress was consuming me.
I had lost over four stone. I could not eat. My heart rhythm was irregular. I collapsed at home.
One day, my three-year-old asked:
“Mummy, you getting bigger?”
I explained that 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 or inadequately investigated concerns kept growing.
Child abuse.
Coercive control.
Child neglect.
Assaults.
Harassment.
Fraud.
Drug cultivation.
Threats to my registration.
Multiple breaches.
The only visible outcome was 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, the situation was stark.
Seventeen police interactions.
Six or more officers.
Eight trauma disclosures.
More than 60 professional contacts.
Two non-molestation orders.
No ABE interviews.
No 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 meant protection.
I expected another officer to skim the last log entry and send me away.
Instead, Sergeant Conrad Smith had read my 77-page document.
He knew the key dates.
He used the correct language.
He recognised missed opportunities.
He 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 months of repeated disclosures, institutional failure, physical deterioration and profound psychological harm, I finally met an officer who did something simple and rare.
He read the evidence.
He understood the law.
He treated us as human beings worthy of protection.
That should not have been exceptional.
But it was.
Two Years On
What Did Not 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. Hypervigilant in ways that did not exist before.
The hardest part is not only what happened then. It is living with the knowledge that institutions meant to protect my children were capable of watching them unravel and still stepping back.
That knowledge does not fade with time.
It settles.
What Comes Next
What happened after that meeting is another story.
How Sergeant Conrad Smith attempted to put right what others ignored.
What the organisation did to him for doing his job.
And what happens when one officer’s integrity collides with a system determined to protect itself.
That is Part Two.
