AIBU to lose faith in the police?

[OxfordCircus]

First AIBU and first time dealing with the police.

I reported my stbxh to police for domestic abuse. He’s been verbally abusive, belittling, very hot-and-cold behaviour over the years, and he’s pushed me several times over the years. The worst one, I fell and hit my head. For the past few months. I’ve been so scared I was sleeping in the spare room with a lock on the door. Stbx was going about his life, grooming himself (for dating?) and appearing charming to all. He has been arrested and is now on bail. I have now filed for divorce.

Each time I talk to the (male) officer in charge, I feel like I’m talking to my ex’s lawyer. If I say he did this, OIC has three reasons why that’s a reasonable way to behave. I submitted a bunch of evidence. He says things like there are only two examples of this, we need more. Or this one is a civil matter. Which makes me feel he’s looking at things in isolation but I thought it’s a crime of patterns? I cry every time I talk to him (which it takes several weeks for him to respond to any email).

I asked for a different officer to look at the case but I’ve been told the other officers in the team are too busy and my case isn’t serious enough for the domestic abuse team. So I’m stuck with this guy and not sure what to do. 😕

Raise a formal complaint. I did (racial harassment) and the investigating officer identified a pattern to the relatively low level complaints I was making, which over a period of time showed a clear trend. This had not been seen by any of the individual investigating officers who responded to each call. He did accept it was an operational failing due to insufficient time/lack of personnel etc etc but it seemed to stop the incidents. Good luck.

Thank you. I intend to ask for a right to review when he inevitably files the case. I hadn’t considered complaining. I guess partly because I don’t know if this is standard police behaviour.