Epsom College Murder Suicide

[PleaseStopSayingHuBbY]

I'm shocked but not surprised. This world is depressing and scary for women.

'Imperfect victim'

I agree, see also rape prosecution(or lack of)

I don't think you are understanding the problem here Snotty. No one has said that we need a perfect victim or denying that she might have slapped him. I can imagine a scenario in which she might have. That does NOT make him a victim in any way. What we are saying is that it's irrelevant and just gives abuse apologists the opportunity to say that this was a mutually abusive relationship. I would bet my house that it wasn't. The abuse would have been one sided.

By publicising this without context (looking at you BBC) it is distorting the real picture. Can you imagine how her poor family feel about that? It should make any woman angry.

I will add that your first post talked about the slap and police involvement with no nuance at all. You keep saying that she might have been abusive too. That is offensive to many on here.

@knittingaddict by first post do you mean the one where I linked the article or the one after that?

Thank you. I can’t even go into the DV in my family. It was just normal. The stuff my dad, his siblings and my grandmother suffered at the hands of their father.

The abuse my Aunty went through was I guess more calculated. At least if my grandfather was going to hit them he’d just get up and do it. My Uncle worked for the third and public sector in high profile roles. My Aunt also worked within the community . Almost like Emma she was a high flyer. He was demeaning, he was suffocating , he was such a bully and she hid it all.

The first one.

I do understand that domestic abuse is an emotional subject. I know it is for me.

I am very concerned that the police involvement in 2016 is being talked about in the news with no explanation about why that could happen in a one sided abuse situation.

Did you do the freedom course by the way? Highly recommend it as a way of understanding domestic abuse better.

Sorry, I meant the one with the link

Shameful of the BBC.
But then we already knew it was a misogynist organisation.
I'm going to lodge a complaint - and get a standard response back no doubt.

1st rule of misogyny: Women are responsible for what men do. 7th rule of misogyny: Women should always be grateful to men for everything. 8th rule of misogyny: Men are whatever men say they are and women are whatever men say they are

Indeed. And an abusive man obviously had a bad mother. So it's still the woman's fault. Hence why I hate all these comments about parents being responsible for their (older) offspring's behaviour. No. They have free will and they make their own choices.

Interesting that you say that your aunt was also a high flyer, like Emma.

SO many of these men want wives who they can brag about, and who bring in a high income - but at the same time they are insanely jealous of their wife's/partner's success and will do anything they can (in private) to undermine and destroy her.

Another situation that a woman can't win in.

It haunts you when you think of how these women suffer, especially when they are women you know and loved.

Agree that the reporting on the 2016 incident is horrible just stated as fact, because it feeds into a line that she somehow was violent too and any domestic abuse went both ways.

We all know that this is vanishingly unlikely and it is a sign that he was controlling.

But society does love to blame a woman and it falls nicely into the hands of those who like to say that when a man is violent is is always a woman's fault.

to all those who have been affected by this story and domestic violence.

@knittingaddict ah right I understand now. I did mention this a few post back that I hope people didn’t think I was flaunting or goading with that post and that I personally didn’t think this was that she was a bully. It was merely meant to be an update on the case.

On other boards (mainly the royal ones) I quite regularly update a topic with a link for an article (my preferred news source is sky news) and give a brief overview of what it says for those that don’t want to click the link. I try to use non emotive language to keep the post neutral as I think of it more as a focal point to be able to open up discussion (it’s the history student in me). This is probably okay to do on gossipy non issues but doesn’t reflect well on serious topics.

But I fully admit that in hindsight it can read as goady as I’m just reiterating a goady article. So I do apologise on that front.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

What is nightmarish here that there is a serious attempt to take a slap and compare it to a premeditated act of violence with an offensive weapon.

Qualitatively they are not the same. Legally they are the same. The strength of the perpetrator is not the same.

When you see people start speculating about this, I can only think that they don't really think at all.

The issue women have to deal with is one that is seriously difficult. The person most likely to attack or kill you is your male partner. That he is 30 to 40 per cent stronger, and with any kind of fight in the house you are likely to be injured or die quickly.

That is how women die, because of these truths. What real fear can a man have if slapped by a woman? Physically nearly none in most cases.

That’s true. I asked my husband last night if he would call the police if I slapped him. He said no. I asked why and he said because he wouldn’t feel in danger.

@LexMitior Exactly. It's about danger to life.

I once, ONCE slapped my abuser. I had endured weeks of relentless name-calling, screaming in my face, water and food thrown over my head, keys being hidden so I couldn't get to work, damaged property, being pelted with small items and had managed to Grey Rock the lot. But he grabbed a picture of my late mum and went to tear it up and we ended up grappling over it. He was in my face telling me that he was glad she was dead and I slapped him.

I think he wanted me to slap him. He wanted to see me lose control and had failed with the usual provocation so purposely crossed every decent line in order to push me to a place where I did the thing that I would normally never do. He knew I would be more angry with myself for letting him push me there than he would be for being slapped. He also knew he could then call me a violent abuser and get much fun out that.

He wasn't scared. He laughed at me.

If Emma did slap him, it's entirely likely - and probable - that this kind of scenario played out first. They love it when you lose control a bit because they have NO REASON TO BE SCARED. It's just fun and games to them.

As they keep reporting her supposed act of domestic violence against him, I really wish it wasn't standalone. Best case: the police were fully aware that he was the absuer and was using this as a control tactic but couldn't get her to admit it and so they had to close the case and walk away. Worst case: the police completely blamed her and were prepared to charge her etc, which is when he withdrew the claim because he really just wanted a threat to hang over her head.

it's amazing how one little police report, with NO detail about her apparently "striking him" brings out all the "this was clearly a violent relationship" or "they were both abusers and it went too far" while women who are raped, attacked etc are subjected to the endless, "well, what did you do to provoke him?" and "what were you wearing" and "but you did have sex with hi that night so you can't have been that upset" questions and accusations.

Having had some interaction with the Epsom police myself, I am inclined to be optimistic that they would NOT jump to conclusions but I don't know about the police in Croydon when the original complaint was made.

For me, the telling point isn't that he called the police in 2016.

It's that neither of them ever called the police again.

In a truly unstable or volatile "both sides at fault" scenario, you would expect some further incidents to take place. But he never got the police involved again.

Because he didn't have to. Emma had learned her lesson.

She had learned that he could ruin her reputation and career with one phone call. I can imagine the eggshells she walked on from that point onwards to try to ensure he didn't have a "reason" to call them again.

@SlightlyJaded If you looked at SIL's behaviour over the last few years without any context, it would be very easy to see her as the abuser. That was his plan. He needed her out of control so that he could could play the victim and turn people against her (he was particularly fond of the pathetic, "I love her but it is so hard to live with her" comments/messages to everyone). He also needed her out of control so that he could tell her that if she left him he would use her "abuse" as proof against her so that he would get full custody of the DC.

It was amazingly successful. The first time she got up the courage to tell us she was scared that he'd try (and be successful) to get custody, it might have been inappropriate but I think it was effective - DH and I both spontaneously burst out laughing! The chances of him even ASKING for custody, never mind winning it were so remote that it really was laughable. But he was SOOOO far in head that she honestly couldn't see how completely ridiculous it was.

Oh, and spoiler - he now sees the DC maximum once per week, and only because she absolutely insists on it as it's the day they don't have childcare and she's working.

Whatever the details behind the earlier report, she contacted her sister rather than the police when her life was in danger - so maybe it had the effect intended.

I’d think it was either reactive violence or self defence or she threatened to report him so he got his report in first. She may have lost her career if charged so he’d have her totally under control.

@Mirabai Yup. As @Thermopylae points out - he did it once and it worked after that. One assumes the abuse was going on that entire time but she certainly didn't call the police on him.

So so sad. And such a sad indictment of the way women in abusive situations get isolated.

@TiredButDancing It's infuriating and can send you to a dark place mentally - it did for me. On one hand, you are enduring behaviour that you know is HIGHLY ABUSIVE whilst they gaslight away denying that they are doing anything wrong and insisting that you have mental health issues, whilst on the other hand, the one time you retaliate in a small way, they presents indigent, self-righteous horror and starts calling you abusive.

You become so fucking entrenched in your isolated world that you cannot see how other people would view your situation. I'm glad your DSis has you and your DH to reassure her.

And the utter shit of it all, is that you do end up with mental health issues from being endlessly on high-alert and having to manage life with all this madness going on in the background. so they become the masters of their destiny.

This is such an important discussion.

(MNHQ I am sure you are taking note).

Greater public awareness and action = more women's (and children's) lives saved, going forward.

Saturdaynoon, Emotionalsupportviper, LexMitior and Thermopylae - thank you for your particularly salient, spot-on comments recently upthread. 🤗to SnottyLottie for what you have been through 💐

Overwhelmingly what is coming across here to me - deafeningly, in fact - is that so many smart, gifted, able, loving, generous, sane women are living (or have lived) in hell with an invisible gun held to their heads on a daily basis. - It doesn't even have to be physical, does it?

Patterns, patterns, patterns - so recognisable in so many of our stories.

Emma's only mistake was to entrust herself to that creature in the first place. As I, and so many others, did in our own situations.

SlightlyJaded I totally relate to your last post too. My experience exactly, in fact eerily so. You have put it so well - how you do, in fact, develop some MH issues through internalizing the fear and the chronic stress. I ended up with OCD and overeating/drinking to try to cope.

@SlightlyJaded I think many women too (and some men) live with low grade stuff that is always there in the background. The expression 'walking on eggshells covers it off' - it's not always threatening but enough to put you on high alert of 'setting them off' or 'criticising' any aspect of their actions or behaviour. Many men can't cope mentally if anything goes wrong in life that makes them look 'lesser' - and take it out on their partners