If I'm a victim of a crime and it's going to court..

[purpleme12]

Do I need to sort my own solicitor?
And pay for it?
Who sorts this?

Because they can just carry on, knowing you're very distressed about it. Some people just enjoy doing this. They love knowing that it's very, very upsetting to you.

Is it a neighbor
do they own or rent via the council or a HA

If they do rent via the council or HA once you get the restraining order send a copy of it to the Council / HA

mine was a very serious violent case of ongoing harassment with knives / weapons

I got my MP & local councilor involved and as soon as the council got a copy of the last restraining order which included distance they pushed through his move within weeks

it’s unlikely that the council / HA will evict them if they have kids but you have to be really really persistent

If you can get a ring doorbell / cctv for further evidence of harassment in the future

Victim Support aren’t generally involved in the court side of it. That’s usually done through the Witness Service who are run through CAB. If they haven’t contacted you then you can get in touch with them for support through the court process here: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/legal-system/going-to-court-as-a-witness1/get-help-and-support-being-a-witness/get-help-from-the-witness-service/

I have name changed to reply.

This info is important to be able to advise you.

Been through hell with similar. Threat to kill. Neighbour pled guilty to public order offence. Still my neighbour. Restraining order due to expire.

lots you can do. Depends on context if your housing situation

@ASBNeighbour
You can apply for a variation of the RO through the court that issued it
it’s free
you can do it yourself by downloading the forms but I would contact the original judge and look at the original restraining order
get the judges name and RO ref from the order

contact the court ask for the original judges chambers email and email them with the ref number and ask for a variation of the order

it won’t cost you anything and if you have good reasons to have it extended or changed the judge will do this for you

I was very polite I wrote that I understood why initially in the first RO couldn’t include distance and thank you for keep me safe but blah blah blah

I would like an extension of the order to ensure my safety in the future blah blah

I also had an excellent MP & local councilor

The local council were shit and would have let him return but I played them at their own game and got the RO changed right at the last minute

The RO is basically for life as it’s until further notice so no end date so unless the judge changes it my ex neighbor can’t do fuck all

his stupidity and his harassment & his violence cost him his council house which rarely if ever happens normally the victim moves

he seriously underestimated how relentless I was 😂

Yes.
We both own ☹️
God yours sounds really scary!
If there were knives the evidence would be more straightforward the hardest thing is the evidence.
(But obviously I'm extremely glad there's not knives!)
Yes I've got doorbell and CCTV now. That's how we got the latest incident
The first few incidents unfortunately were before the CCTV

Oh ok thank you I didn't know about this. I will have a look at this and contact then.
Is this something people should be referred to or something?

Eg he doesn't get the impact of the constant reports to children's services on me. All he says is that anyone can make reports to them and kind of skims over it and says we can't prove they're malicious.

Please contact your MP about this especially if they are from the Labour party. Stella Creasy had this recently happen to her and got the same response from the police.

Regardless you can contact your MP and local councillors through theyworkforyou.com

I watched The Capture.
I get so worried about deep fakes they want to get me into trouble so much

I watched The Capture.
I get so worried about deep fakes they want to get me into trouble so much

Just to offer my experience. I didn’t meet my solicitor until the day of the court case. I had no idea that the defendant had hired a barrister, though after very briefly being introduced to my solicitor she stood in the corridor very loudly getting on famously with the guy I didn't find out was his barrister until I was on the stand giving evidence. I was put through the mill viciously by the barrister and told off for crying on the stand and while i walked out. My solicitor didn’t even come to tell me the verdict. She must have just lost and left. Magistrates court.

Victim support were an absolute shitshow from start to finish.

I am sorry you had such an awful experience.

I must reiterate that the prosecutor is there to represent the Crown and not you personally. They are not ‘your’ solicitor. To be honest, quality of crown prosecutors can be variable but it’s very unusual for them not to come and see the witnesses after a case.

It is also usual for the prosecutor and the defence advocates to know each other. They are professional colleagues and will come up against the same people day in day out. The fact they have a relationship outside court does not usually have any impact at all on their performance in court. They all want to ‘win’ out of professional pride more than anything.

Whilst I don’t doubt your experience, I hope it was a while ago. These days we will not tolerate people making a witness cry and there are usually special measures available to avoid some of the stress of giving evidence, such as screens or video link.

i am really worried about questions asked yes. i have no idea what he will say to his person and what tehy will try to accuse me of - because they have tried to accuse me of so much stuff. i have no idea if any of that will be brought up in court.
i am worried about it being for nothing yes. because then i have to go back home and it may get worse.
i am scared

I don't understand what you mean by this.
Who do you think is a deep fake?

I just mean they're so intent on getting us into trouble they've reported us to police, for few different reasons, SS, environmental health. They are so determined. You can't help thinking of the lengths they might go to to make a fake video or something

Do you really think they might do this?

I don't know. Don't know if it's feasible or not. Or if it's me being so worried

Presumably the fact that no further action was taken after the calls to various authorities will be evidence to support prosecution. CPS don’t take cases to court that they don’t think have a chance of winning. Neighbour reporting you to all and sundry will have pissed off all the services who had to investigate. I ended up with a v civil/friendly relationship with SS after constant calls by an abusive ex. They called, I answered and I apologised for them having to waste their time.
if neighbour owns house then v unlikely they will get legal aid as assets are taken into account.
You should get a chance to be taken round court to familiarise yourself with process before the court date.
It is hugely stressful so please go and see GP and if only temporarily ask for counselling/medication. And as others have said the court staff/judge/barristers/magistrates do this for a day job and while not overtly demonstrative they know how difficult witnesses find court and are helpful

We left a cardi and one toy in our garden for a couple of hours today.
This prompted the woman who lives with him to take a picture of our garden.
It does not stop. I don't know what they are now going to do . Again. There is no law against this though.
And if someone reads this post no doubt they'll think no big deal but it's so not like that

I don’t know if it works the same in every area but where I used to work the police would do the referral if the victim was vulnerable or likely to need special measures in most instances. They wouldn’t always do it though. The Witness Service won’t accept referrals until there’s a court date set though so it’s not something that would happen immediately after the crime being reported.

@purpleme12 Do you keep an incident diary? Its a record of the date, the time, and what happened. Start keeping one now. Bring it up to date with everything you can remember happening so far. Seeing it all written down can be very effective.

Is this something that any member of the public can come and see??!
I don't want everyone watching me!

What has he actually he charged with?

What are the bail conditions.

Try and separate the behaviours between

ASB.
Harassment.

Your council will have an ASB case worker too. This is for all tenure types. What has their involvement been?

What behaviours has the woman displayed. Then look at how she can be dealt with.

Harrassment.
I believe not to approach me or talk to me.
Unfortunately it's still not that simple. They can still make comments towards us from garden or make malicious reports about us if they want to, I bet.
Council haven't been involved (apart from environmental health when neighbour had noise recording device put in for our supposed noise but that came back normal household noise) don't know if that's what you mean.
Apparently they haven't been able to proceed with anything for the woman. I don't know why to be quite honest. It is my feeling they've accepted her weak excuse for what she's done and don't want to proceed with her.