... that she was held for two nights in a police cell four years ago, on suspicion of the attempted murder of ex DP? I can't believe that she has carried this secret on her own and not told anyone in our family until last night.
She's now in pieces since discovering that a new change in the law (brought in in response to the Soham murders) means that this charge will appear on her CRB disclosure - and she's a teacher who is totally devoted to her work.........
Apparently the incident happened a year after they got together, after he discovered she was planning to leave him. The family knew she'd been the victim of domestic violence, as the police had been called to her flat several times in the first few months of their relationship. He'd broken her nose and pulled clumps of her hair out, threatened to burn her flat down. I also suspect that he sexually abused her, but I haven't had the courage to ask her. We were desperate for her to leave him but instead they moved away to the coast and things seemed to go quiet. She told us that he'd got counselling and was determined not to do it again.
What I now know is that although he'd stopped physically abusing her he'd carried on bullying her in other ways, and she'd decided to leave. When he found out he locked her in their flat and launched a sustained attack on her through the night. She insists that he got stabbed by accident, that the knife was stuffed down the side of the sofa - she was intending to open the door with it when he was asleep, and that it injured him in the middle of the night when he jumped over the back of the sofa, head butted her and bit her face.
I'm not sure what to believe. I wouldn?t blame her if she had stabbed him. He?s a horrible, horrible man, with a history of abusing women (though no charges or convictions - which means he can continue to practice as a lawyer). His ex wife used to sleep with a claw hammer under the pillow, and when she finished the relationship she had to leave her house under police escort.
After what happened with my sister he ended up in intensive care for 3 days but refused to bring charges against her. The police documented her injuries and wanted her to bring charges against him for assault but she also refused.
Apparently he used this incident to stop her leaving him for the next four years, while he spent his way through the equity of her flat which she?d sold when they?d moved away from London. He told her that if she left him he?d tell my elderly parents (who my sister adores) that she?d been arrested for attempted murder.
Over those four years she turned from a slim, beautiful, successful woman of independent means (she was earning 40K a year as a senior teacher in London and owned her own flat), into an overweight drinker with terrible low self-esteem.
She did finally work up the strength to leave him last year, and he didn?t tell my parents about what had happened. He didn?t care any more ? he?d used her up and lost interest.
But my poor sister has carried this burden on her own all this time. And now she is terrified her career as a teacher ? the only thing in her life which she still has which is important to her can?t continue.
Sorry for the long post and I?m not sure what response I?m looking for. I just feel so sad that my sister has carried this worry on her own all this time.