I lived in Nottingham and left a violent partner at the end of 2014, and made two separate signed statements on his abuse to Nottinghamshire Police in 2015. This followed making two verbal reports on physical assault by this guy to Nottinghamshire Police in 2014. I had evidence which they failed to seek out, including A&E records, and they simply dismissed my reports as ‘heated arguments’ despite multiple physical assaults including smothering and having my face bitten, threats to kill, and financial abuse.
8 years later – I am still fighting Nottinghamshire Police through courts as they threw away my signed statements and went as far as to delete all evidence of my even being in police stations making those reports. They forced me to sign a caution for harassment when I tried to make the second statement even though no evidence or admission of harassment. They rapidly removed the caution when they were faced with a court action. No officer has ever faced disciplinary for any of this, including the illegal deletion of my crime reports. The force eventually referred themselves to the IOPC, and then just lied all the way through the investigation. Even after court actions and Judges telling this force to amend their electronic records, there is still no record of my signed statements or domestic abuse reporting on the Nottinghamshire Police system.
I moved away from Nottingham in 2016 before I started the first legal action on Nottinghamshire Police – they sent my local police force, Greater Manchester Police, to harass me 5 days before the court hearing. They have subsequently used Greater Manchester Police on two more occasions to harass me to my home when legal action was underway. One of those visits resulted in an intelligence report being recorded against me for circulation to other crime agencies stating I was ‘anti-police’.
I have taken Nottinghamshire Police into court rooms on three occasions now. On each occasion their Counsel/Barrister has openly lied in court, they have withheld relevant data/police records from me and the court, and on occasion tried to pull one of my legal actions out of court without my knowledge or permission (I only found out when court contacted them, with my being copied on that email, saying they were not legally allowed to do that).
On the most recent trip to court, Nottinghamshire Police hired an unqualified pupil Counsel/Barrister who was entirely out of her depth, and their senior male police solicitor watched as she struggled and floundered, both in cross-examining me, responding to the Judge, and understanding certain areas of law. The police solicitor seemed to enjoy watching her suffer. That case, a data breach of one of my signed statements, could have been resolved without any legal action, but they allowed the matter to go all the way to court in what seemed nothing more than an exercise in sadomasochistic enjoyment for the male senior solicitors of the legal department.
All internal complaints processes have been a farce, with blatant lies put in letters that have all been disputed since in court, and threats made against me both by the complaints department, and more recently the actual [redacted for legal reasons] when I gave them a ‘right to reply’ on my publishing my story. I also had a data disclosure from a third party organisation showing the [senior rank redacted] offered to share my private DV reporting information with a third party organisation that was working with Nottinghamshire Police on a misogyny-hate crime pilot.
There is a tendency to assume all abuse in police forces is down to the misogyny of male officers and male senior staff. In my experience, the female staff, including at senior/[redacted] level, have been every bit as vicious and vindictive towards women reporting male violence. The lengths they have gone to in protecting the man I reported from any criminal investigation/consequences is eye watering. I’ve found the female officers, including at [redacted] level, to be incredibly hard-faced, bitter, and hating women as much as their male colleagues. The culture and practices of this police force have not changed since my initially dealing with them, but their VAWG PR campaigns have escalated, including bulls**t about ‘safe spaces’ for girls/women, and misogyny hate crime recording.
From my personal experience, no woman should report male violence and abuse to Nottinghamshire Police. If they do, their reports will be thrown away and their life will be destroyed, including being left at high risk of further abuse from the man they report as the police will endeavour to support him, not investigate and charge him. If women choose to challenge that through court, they will face an ongoing campaign of further abuse, false recording, and undisguised harassment from the actual police. Moving to a new area won’t solve the problem – they will co-opt the local force into their abuse.
This is a dangerous police force for women. I have found that every staffing level of this police force is staffed with individuals who genuinely enjoy human suffering, and have zero interest in tackling crimes against women. Trying to unpick this level of culture draws sinister conclusions. There is genuinely no respect for the public, even at [redacted for legal reasons] level. The women seem as bad as the men, and the culture of cover-up is scary. They will spend tens of thousands of pounds challenging the impossible in court, rather than simply change records and apologise for failings. There is no will to change, and [senior ranks redacted] only apply performative vanity PR projects to make themselves look good, rather than tackle the force’s endemic culture of corruption and failings on VAWG. I would not recommend any woman report male abuse and violence to this police force, and if they do, expect the next 10 years of their life to be spent taking the police into courts and being further abused and harassed by them.
Constabulary: Nottinghamshire Police
Timespan: 2015-2023
Did you report it to the police?: Yes
Your ethnicity: White Minority Ethnic
Have you experienced suicidality due to this?: Thoughts/feelings
Are you disabled as defined under the Equality Act 2010?: Yes
