Before the Questions Began

Even now, I can recall the scene with absolute precision.

Where she sat.
The birthday cake rested on the kitchen counter.
The angle of the garden chairs.
The way her hands moved when she spoke.
How she leaned forward to listen, how she asked for a copy of my own timeline and evidence logged misconduct document — not to interrogate, but to understand.

My youngest had been waiting for her arrival. They had planned a “surprise”: walking into the room wearing a dress. Both officers covered their eyes to play along. It was a small, human moment in a period otherwise defined by scrutiny, fear, and exhaustion.

In the days before that meeting, I had barely slept. I was cross‑referencing timelines, emails, and disclosures against the Police Code of Conduct. I was trying to understand how concern had escalated into an allegation of misconduct in public office. I wasn’t defending anyone blindly — I was trying to understand how we had arrived there at all. Who had reported him? What actions had been taken? Whether any of it had a lawful or ethical basis.

This wasn’t theoretical. It was my reality.

I had begun linking officers, roles, and patterns. Friends wondered whether he or I had become pawns in a witch hunt. I was trying to understand how I had been positioned as the “victim” of a crime that had not occurred, by the same system that had already stripped me of my rights as a victim of domestic abuse.

Integrity itself had become suspicious.

What I remember most is how vividly everything from that period remains in my mind.
For years, my ex had made me question my memory. That doubt lingered long after I left. But the past two years taught me something undeniable:

My memory is not broken.

I remember every interaction with my ex.
Every police attendance.
Every date, email, and phone call.
Far too well.

Jackie had a defined role: she was part of the team investigating the only officer who had not caused further harm to my children or me. Ordinarily, that should have been enough for me to keep my distance. But there was something in how she was.

I trusted her.

Despite everything that followed, and despite what others later thought and said, I have never swayed in voicing my view, nor have I ever moved away from what I saw in her actions.

Integrity.

I still stand by that.

The Day I Met Jackie

29th July 2024

(Name changed for privacy)

Jackie was calm, professional, and kind — which made the day both grounding and unbearable. Some of her questions forced me back into months I had survived only by not fully feeling them.

At one point, my youngest decided it was time for their “surprise.” They appeared in a dress, proud and glowing. Jackie and her colleague covered their eyes again, playing along. The bigger surprise was that I was handed an Anna dress from Frozen and told I had to wear it too.

So there I was — dressed as Anna — while investigators asked whether I might be a victim of something I could barely comprehend.

I struggled to understand why ordinary professional conversations about motorbikes, music, safeguarding, and police processes suddenly needed to be reinterpreted as inappropriate. The suggestion seemed to be that mutual respect or shared professional interest was implausible unless framed as something else.

This was only weeks after I had been passed to my fifth investigating officer. I genuinely believed my case had already been sent to the CPS. Instead, I discovered it was yet another unaddressed email lie from my investigating officer, whose involvement in Sgt Smith’s arrest had not yet been identified.

All of this unfolded against the backdrop of my domestic abuse case, which already demanded every ounce of strength I had.

It was surreal.

Safeguarding should be taken seriously. But the contrast between the scrutiny directed at this officer and the failures my children and I had endured at the hands of the same force was impossible to ignore.

The idea that professional respect required an alternative explanation felt disconnected from context and evidence — especially when far more serious failures remained unaddressed.

That contrast has stayed with me.

What I Knew — and What I Needed to Know

Before the meeting, I had gone through every email and message exchanged between Sergeant Smith and me. Line by line. I did not believe the allegations against him. But after everything that had already happened, I needed to be certain. My trust had been damaged repeatedly. I needed to know it had not failed me again.

At that point, life felt relentless. I had been followed. I had no explanation for why. I was off sick from work with trauma. I couldn’t leave the house. And once again, I felt watched and destabilised by the very systems meant to safeguard victims.

Months earlier, two officers had attended my workplace following a complaint about his conduct. It came as a shock to us all. I left my room, and no one could believe it wasn’t PC Rolls arrested.

Since fleeing domestic abuse in November 2023, he had been the only officer who demonstrated competence, professionalism, and an understanding of safeguarding responsibilities. The only one who treated my children’s safety as central. The only one who acted.

I respected him because of that.

What became clear was that complaints had been made about the time he spent on my case, triggering an internal investigation. The implication seemed to be that even the suggestion of a friendship between two professionals in a safeguarding context was inappropriate.

This was particularly difficult to process given that my victim status had been removed in November 2023 by PC Rolls, whose handling of my case had already caused significant harm.

The irony was impossible to ignore.
The same individuals whose failures had allowed abuse to continue were now anonymously reporting a long‑serving officer for attempting to investigate serious crimes and protect my children.

By the time Jackie arrived, I was terrified. Terrified of what might be discussed. Terrified of what could be taken out of context. Terrified of being discredited again.

In reality, both investigators were professional and respectful. They had access to only two days of email correspondence. As soon as they had arrived. I took them upstairs and showed them the thirteen files of evidence I had compiled documenting the abuse I experienced. Questions followed. I referred back to the work I had already done. This helped me understand the abuse I had lived through. Rolls had quoted “bad relationship.” And made it clear i had done the same again. The document I had put together was comprehensive, but I could see how it might be misinterpreted if viewed without context. I did not say that directly. From the outset, I made it clear: I had no intention of unfairly implicating anyone.

Some of what I heard that day was hard to absorb.

Even when the request was framed lightly. I felt conflicted. I could have made their job easier, but at what cost?

At the cost of reframing empathy as impropriety.
At the cost of turning humanity into suspicion.
At the cost of undermining the one person who had acted to protect my children.

What I have learned is this: unless you have lived what I have lived, the label of “victim” can become fixed.

This happens regardless of context. Before meeting that officer, my victim status had already been removed in ways that also removed my trust in policing. From that point on, I stopped seeing institutions and started seeing people.

But the central facts did not change.

He was the only officer who acted with integrity.
The only one who attempted to interrupt the ongoing harm.
The only one who treated my children as children in need of protection, not procedural inconveniences.

What continues to be overlooked is the original failure.

PC Rolls’ actions in November allowed abuse to continue. That failure altered the course of our lives. Yet he appears to have faced no meaningful consequences.

Exposing the truth took everything I had — my time, my mental stability, and very nearly my life.

That context seems to matter far less than pursuing the one individual who intervened.

What I Told Jackie

Jackie seemed genuinely surprised by the extent of what I shared. I explained that understanding intent mattered to me. After everything I had endured, I needed to know whether the actions taken against us stemmed from negligence, misjudgment, or something else entirely.

I can see three possible explanations. None of them change the outcome that matters most:

My children still have their mother.

And that is because of him.

So I will support his account of events, even where it differs from how I experienced certain moments. Not out of loyalty or denial, but because the broader truth remains unchanged.

He acted when others did not.

And sometimes, integrity is punished precisely because it exposes everything else.

Editor’s note

There is one detail I can’t ignore. The file Jackie asked for, the emails, the evidence. The police had it. I’d organised everything into clear categories of coercive and controlling behaviour using the Home Office framework. My fifth officer had every piece. By summer, I should have realised they were burying the investigation, and what followed only confirmed it. I later learned that the OneDrive evidence link I’d been asked to provide had never been fully reviewed. If they’d opened the “Impact on Health” folder, they would have found my entire chronology for PC Rolls and Sergeant Smith, with every piece of correspondence attached.

The moment I discovered where I had stored the files was the moment the truth finally settled: my domestic abuse case had never been investigated in its entirety, and it was never going to go anywhere.

My domestic abuse case was dropped 4 days before Seargent Smith attended court…..

Images are used sparingly in this series to preserve dignity, privacy, and focus on lived experience rather than spectacle.