To have called the police?

[imadethedecision]

Over a year now of listening to my neighbour verbally abuse his wife every single weekend without fail when he’s drunk.
He’s almost retirement age and the stuff he screams at his wife is vile.
I’ve asked for advice on here before and it’s been a 50:50 divide of some people saying that reporting it would make it worse for her and others saying I should report it.
I’m almost certain it is just verbal abuse, not physical from the things he’s screaming, and during his 3 hour rants she stays totally silent.
She’s pretty timid and won’t even look you in the eye out on the street.
Anyway tonight I made the decision to report it.
He’s been screaming at her solidly since around 2pm and his language is vile.
I hope it doesn’t make things worse for her.
Also selfishly worried he’ll know it’s me and I’ve got young kids in the house.

Definitely done the right thing, i hope she gathers the strength to tell the old bastard to fuck off.

They own the house.
In the summer he screams in the garden. In the winter it’s mostly inside, but still loud enough that I can hear every argument word for word from my garden.
Their back door is usually open for their dog.

It's very hard to record noise that isn't very near you. I tried recording shouting from downstairs before and you could hear nothing on the recording, despite me needing the TV on full volume to drown out the noise.

No need to keep ringing the police.

Email your police safer neighbourhood team, as constant calls to 101 will result in them putting you in touch with them anyway.

Ours are absolutely brilliant. I'm not sure exactly what they can do, but they may well pop by and speak to her and reassure you.

But also, if you are friendly with other neighbours, could you suggest to them that they contact police too?

The more reports the better.

Record it, ideally on a device that's logs time and date. If she refuses the police help then call the council noise team.

Do you know any of her family or friends? I'd discreetly try to find out and see if they can help her. They probably don't have a clue.

My DD lives next to one the same. Weekends he goes off on one, shouting and screaming abuse and they have a young DC too which makes it really upsetting. DD has stopped phoning the Police as he just tells them she's out and he had the TV on too loud.......no one ever goes inside and finds her all battered and bruised.

He tries to intimidate DD too, by parking too close so she can't open her car doors etc. I used to feel sorry for the woman who has to live with him, but she's there through choice and it's the poor kid I feel sorry for now. Where is her choice in all of this?

Emailing the safer hoods team is ok if it’s not going on at the time , but you have to consider the fact that if they’re on rest days, they might not pick the email up for three days .

If it’s going on at the time , call it in . If it’s loud enough for you to hear , call it on . Honestly , there’s no quota , and you’re certainly not wasting police time. In fact , if he’s sounding that aggressive , that he’s threatening to bounce her head off a solid object , that’s a priority call right there .

Police just called.
They spoke to them both.
Both fast asleep/passed out and denying all knowledge.
They said call it in every single time.
They also said that ours was the first ever report of domestic violence for that address on their system and they’ve lived there 14 years.
That surprises me as other people MUST hear it.

You've done the right thing. Do it next time when it's actually happening. Council noise complaint as well. Awful for you and your kids to have to hear this and that poor woman must feel like she's in a prison.
Of course she's not going to say anything to them with him right there with her... gosh.. awful. Well done for reporting. If more people did what you've done then abusers wouldn't be able to get away with this for years and years.

As someone with professional knowledge of supporting with domestic abuse cases I 100% support notifying police every time. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes even if they don't cooperate.

That’s so sad nobody else is prepared to do anything, record it next time.
You shouldn’t have to deal with that in your own space

I wish there had been someting obvious enough for someone to call in the abuse i used to suffer. Please do keep calling it in. She isnt going to admit to it, specially not while hes there.

Would it be worth mentioning it to other neighbour's? Seeing if they hear it and telling them you were worried. You might get some back up.

I’m more shocked that there are 4 houses next to or directly backing onto their house.
And not a single person has called up before.
And every one of them have lived on this street longer than us.
The man is such a bully. I hope to god he doesn’t come knocking on our door.
I’ll keep calling up each time.
He is SO loud that we can hear him from inside our house with our bedroom window open a crack. And he’s screaming from inside his house. I’ll try to call earlier in the day next time.
We aren’t the closest neighbour either.
Very odd.

I used to feel sorry for the woman who has to live with him, but she's there through choice and it's the poor kid I feel sorry for now. Where is her choice in all of this?

Abused people lose the ability to choose. Don't blame the victim.

What a vile human being. You did the right thing to report it.

Good for you, maybe it has given him a bit of a fright and things will calm down. Try and speak to one of your other neighbours and see what they say.

You are shocked that no one else has called before but neither have you. So why the shock ?

It sounds like a case of ‘someone will call and help’ and everyone thinks the same, turns out no one has called.
Glad you have Now OP!

I think all the neighbours are afraid of him and have decided to not get involved. I would get a few neighbours round for coffee or something, talk about it, and see if you can get a few people to telephone the police when it happens. If he is threatening her with violence I would call 999, I am surprised you haven’t called them before now.

I’m shocked because I’ve lived here a year and other neighbours at least 5 years.
I’m also shocked as previous owners of this house have all moved after 12-24 months of buying the house. Longest ever owner here was 3 years. So I figured the abusive mans address may be known to police.
I can’t believe in 14 years not a single person has thought to report it, when we’ve considered it weekly for a year.
I’ve posted on here numerous times about what to do as I’ve been worried.
We are looking to sell now too as it’s a horrible atmosphere to be living next door to.
Police did say that they were both very intoxicated, so perhaps they’re both just bumbling round the house being abusive to each other.
God knows.

How do you know how many years it's been going on?

Well I don’t know how long it’s been going on.
It could just be the last year.
But I’ve noticed this house has always been up for sale in the winter. Previous owners would take it off the market in the summer and put it back up in winter.
In summer he’s drunk all day long screaming in his back garden so not a chance of selling the house then.
So I’m presuming it’s been going on a while. Ever since the first weekend we moved in anyway. Which would be a coincidence.