WIBU to call the police?

[Pizzame]

I've namechanged as this is extremely outing. I have a close friend who has been seeing someone on and off for about 6 months. It is toxic and he is abusive. Some examples of his behaviour include "giving" her to his friend, blackmailing her with videos he took of them having sex without her consent, freaking out and trashing her flat and searching her belongings, searching her mouth, checking her vagina for evidence she has been with other men and the list goes on. He takes a lot of cocaine and has got her doing it as well which is another massive worry.
I've had her call me scared before when she was with him cos he was freaking out and I've told her to come to mine but she never does.
I am a single mum and asked her a few weeks ago for a favour for her to pick my son up from the childminder after work so i could go to a co-workers leaving drinks. The plan was i would come back and we would have drinks. But she went to pick him up (he lives an hour away and lost his license) before picking DS up and was 2 hours late (i was mortified when i found out). She left this guy at her flat and came to mine with DS, she then started badgering me to get back cos she was tired and had to leave. I said i thought we were doing drinks and she says she is too tired. She eventually admitted he was at hers freaking out cos he didnt believe she was with at mine and he was trashing the place. I get back and she goes home. An hour later she called but when i answered it was him so i hung up. This happened a few times then he called and they were arguining then I heard her screaming.
My friend who has been on a few dates with her text me asking of she was ok cos he had just had the same thing (he goes through her phone and obviously was going mental about this other guy). I kept trying to call her back and he wouldn't answer so i sent messages saying to let me talk to her or i would call the police. He saw the messages (2 blue ticks on whatsapp) And still dropped the calls. I was totally freaked out and called 101, because I heard screaming it was classed as an emergancy and they went straight over.
Next thing I know the police are at my door with her. They tried to talk some sense into her then left. She was ok but shaken up and said she was glad i called them cos he wouldn't let her have her phone back and she just said she needed to get out of there.
He and his friend still at the flat so she insisted on getting a taxi back. I barely slept a wink and I'm at breaking point with the stress of their relationship.
I'm now really anxious that i wasted police time and I'm also terrified in case he gets my address and tries to hurt me or DS.
Was I U to call police? I'm going round and round in my head wondering if I overreacted.
I know i cant do anything more for her until she is willing to help herself but my tolerance for this friendship is almost at its limit. I need her to have a friend she can trust right now but I'm also furious with her for not picking up DS when she said she would and for lying to me. I feel like i need to take a step back and that I'm feeding into her drama but if he hurts her I will feel like i should have done more.
Sorry this is so long, I don't want to drop feed. Any advice would be really helpful

That's absolutely an abusive relationship. Am I right in thinking he's living in her flat? Then her problem is making a violent, controlling man leave. Not easy at all.

I don’t think you should cut contact, she will need you

I think this is poor advice. Your son is your primary concern, not her. As long as you are in contact you will be getting sucked into their dramas and have them turning up at your door which is not fair on your son. He should be protected from drug addicts with violent tempers and unstable relationships, not have his mother providing them with an in to your lives. However much you care about her she should not be in your lives until she is out of this situation for his sake. You’ve already left him in the care of drug takers once OP, don’t let this deteriorate to him seeing violence, threats and the police at your door.

This isn't drama, this isn't a woman that needs to sort herself out, it's a friend in the depths of an abusive relationship.

You can call Woman's Aid yourself for advice on how best to support your friend.

You need to take a step back for your own mental health, your going to end up ill absorbing all this drama.
I'd just say I was there for her when shes ready to leave and thats it and give her all the details of the DV unit and Womens Aid. At the end of the day shes a grown adult and is making very bad choices.

Ordinarily, I would be trying to be as supportive as possible to any friend suffering from domestic violence. BUT your first priority is for your and your son’s safety. Your friend betrayed your trust and put your child at a massive risk. For me that would be a deal breaker. You have done what you could, you called the police and potentially put yourself in the firing line of her crazed BF. She repaid you by returning there after all the stress she caused you, only because she did not want the police to find HIS drugs. I would walk away at this point.

I don’t think you should cut contact, she will need you
No. Your child needs you to be a responsible adult who doesn’t associate with drug taking risky adults.
You’re not tasked with saving her,or managing risk.your priorities are child & self

Incidentally I have had to cut contact with a friend in a DV relationship myself in the past. She wanted them to come and stay in my house while they looked for a flat (but how long is a piece of string?) and I said no.

She ended up mixed up in drugs and prostitution and in the end he was done for attempted murder on her. It was an extremely sad situation, but I did absolutely the right thing because otherwise my children would have been exposed to extreme violence, hard drugs, pimping and prostitution and florid untreated and drug related MH issues.

Cut contact OP. This situation is going to get worse before it gets better and you don’t want to be involved.

I agree with other PPs. She's in this relationship by choice, after all and she is fully capable of leaving at any time - but she chooses not to. I'd text her saying you love her and will always be there but you can't stand back and watch what she's doing to herself, and to only contact you again when she's left him.

You can't help until she is prepared to face reality. And that may be never.

I agree with the others here who are saying she is in extreme danger. I think you need to withdraw from her now OP, This is upsetting you and you have your DS to look after.

She put him first over your child.
Cut contact with her for your own safety. Don't feel bad about cutting contact, he is dangerous and you have a child.

I'd say that unless she leaves him you can't have anymore to do with her. You can't make her leave him. Hopefully she wakes up before it's too late.

I'd cut contact. You need to look after yourself and your child. She has some responsibility for her situation.

Thank you all for your replies, its given me a lot to think about. He isn't living with her at the moment, he was in the army and was discharged last week on medical grounds (i wouldn't be surprised of thats a lie and he failed a drug test). He has a few weeks to leave his barracks and i have a horrible feeling he will end up living with her.
I saw her on Thursday for 2 hours for dinner and the whole time he was ringing and texting her, I told her to switch her phone off but she just won't. She won't walk away and the thought that he might do something to me or D'S has been playing on my mind. I will get some security cameras and look at other ways to protect myself. I have a loud dog so hopefully that is a deterrent.
I'm annoyed that i trusted her with my D'S. I know she has taken drugs with him but usually she is a trustworthy and decent person, I really would never have expected her to not put him first, she was my rock when i first had him and I was alone.
But she won't be having contact with him until he is out of her life. The advice about not messaging her with those women's aid details is wise, I will.see her in person this week and advise her to look at them.
I told her previously that i know i cant make her leave him but when it all blows up i.will be here to pick up the pieces, I'm going to tell her that again then back off from the situation, I'm sick with worry and i cant go on like this. She will have been up and acting like everything was normal with him while I cried myself to sleep and its not fair.
I've only met him once and he could see we have a strong bond and knows i hate him, he told her that i made a pass at him.while she was in the bathroom, obviously trying to get me out of the picture but thankfully she didnt believe him, she knows he is a liar. The fact that he tried to call me several times dyring this fight is a warning sign for me that he obviously wanted to focus some of that anger on me

Please don't cut her off completely. The last thing an abused person needs is to feel they are isolated from everyone who cares about them. That's just what the abuser wants.

There's nothing wrong with giving her all the information she needs to GTFO and then telling her that you cannot place yourself or your son in danger and that she will need to call the police to extricate herself in the future rather than to call you in the heat of the moment when she has no plans to get out.

Just be prepared for the worst. There was a woman in our friendship group in just such a relationship. We begged, pleaded, screamed for her to get out and she simply would not listen. He beat her to death over a period of about 6 hours (according to the autopsy) one night.

Pond that’s really silly advice,the op can’t maintain contact on off chance her mate decides to remove herself from this chaos
In the here and now op has to prioritise her own son and herself safety

AcrossthePond55 In OP’s circumstances, your advice is downright dangerous, really unhelpful and serves nothing but to make OP feel emotionally blackmailed. Her first priority is to keep her son and herself safe. She already went beyond what is safe territory for her friend who let her down badly and jeopardised her child’s safety. The friend was given support and could have been safely (!) escorted home and have this man kicked out by the police. Instead, her priority were the drugs in the house. Personal safety, and even more so when there is a child involved always trumps another person’s self-inflicted issues. That is literally the first thing you are told as a First Aider too. Make sure you are not putting yourself in danger. Getting actively involved could have devastating consequences for OP and her kid. For every anecdotal ‘sob’ story like yours, there are more examples of other people being dragged in and suffering. In fact, that guy has already turned his attention to OP and it be just the sort of messed-up, evil thing he would do, go after OP to punish his girlfriend in his sick, twisted mind.

A previous poster mentioned calling Women's Aid for advice yourself. I suggest you do this, and you also start documenting things for her, should she look at contacting the police for a restraining order or a prosecution for his behaviour. It may not be safe for her to do so, but if you can make a diary for her, dating the instances, noting down the calls you've received, his behaviour towards you, calls made to her in your presence etc. and if there are marks / bruises then photo them for her, this evidence will be enormously helpful. I think being honest with her and saying that you are concerned for your own safety, is definitely worth doing. That may be the turning point she needs.

Can you also ask the police for help? They may be able to give you very good advice about what can be done to make your home safer and maybe what could help your friend, in a way that keeps you safe.

To add, I agree with restricting contact for your safety. I strongly think you need professional advice for this situation.

No that’s a huge burden to document someone’s dv and chaotic life just in case it’s needed
It’s problematic approach as it keeps op involved in all this,the he said,she said drama
Op needs to terminate contact,prioritise herself,her son.now
Individuals with that level of chaos will become known to statutory services
It isn’t the op responsibility to note dates & events in case they’re significant

True. However the OP may need to go to the police about her own concerns for her own safety, and a list of incidents to date could be useful. I'm not saying that she needs to be responsible for documenting everything going forward, but writing down recent events while fresh in mind is something I'd find helpful.

I hope you're still reading this. There's an app by Robin McGraw and I know it's American but I think it may help. It's called Aspire app and it is disguised as a news application. If he looked at it it would just have news. Anyway, it records what is going on at the touch of a button and sends a message to someone when you need it.