Clare's law - video call

[Fuffleflo]

Today I made an application under Clare's law. When I met my DP he told me his ex-wife had been both emotionally (and on one occasion phyically) abusive to him throughout their 10 year marriage. Im concerned because some of the behaviours he attributed to her, namely gaslighting, have started to emerge in his treatment of me and I'm beginning to.wonder whether the 'abuser' and 'victim' were reversed in his account.

At present the gaslighting is only very rarely but enough to concern me. I stressed in the CL application that I didn't feel at risk of violence, that the emotional abuse was relatively 'minor" and only rarely but explained why I was concerned. I received an email back this afternoon asking if I would be free to have a video call with officers.. I wondered if this was a standard thing? I don't want to waste police time. I know some people making clares laws applications are in much more need than me. We have no children and have been together a year.

Even if he has no record, you can still leave him. It’s not okay that he makes you feel gaslit. Even if you love him, it’s not okay. You can leave for any reason or for no reason.

@Fuffleflo please leave this man. There is red flags, take the call but prepare to be gone anyway.
I was a cleaner in my early 20s for a very kind and generous local business owner, he had a daughter with Down’s syndrome and would donate to local charities who specialised in helping people with disabilities. He was so approachable and friendly.
But he was beating the living fuck out of his wife and his daughter who didn’t have DS.
I didn’t witness it first hand but I did clean up the mess from when he trashed the house and I did become an ear for the wife.
Theyre on the cusp of elderly now and she is still there, he is still very fondly thought of locally.
I offered her help at the time and even offered to have her and her DDs stay in my house but she had places to have gone, just to scared to leave.
Even really nice people with good jobs and wealth can be abusers.
I really hope you get away from this situation OP because something made you do a CL application.
My sister was about to do one on a guy she was seeing just after the pandemic but she decided to not bother and instead leave the brief relationship and the bloke became unhinged. My DH had to pay him a visit and tell him she wasn’t interested and if he contacted her again she’d call the police and luckily that kept him away but my husband is a unit so that probably helped.

Claires Law really is amazing - my ex was arrested for coercive and controlling behaviour and assault - all done to me. Unfortunately he completely got away with it because it was my word against his and I had little evidence. I’d left and blocked him and deleted all trace of him from my life. It was only when he started to stalk me that I finally had the courage and fear that something would happen to me that I went to the police. Unfortunately any Claire’s law application on him won’t show anything, because he wasn’t convicted.

I tried to warn other women he started seeing - just one very polite message to them with no follow up - but of course he passed me off as the ‘psycho ex’.

Months and indeed years later I discovered he had done the same to several woman, because they all contacted me to say I was completely right and they wished they had listened

Ive got a good one now - in fact a good one who healed me from the damage that one did.

Good luck OP. If the news you receive means you have to leave him, we’re all here to support you.

@Itsfinallyhappening Clare's law isn't limited to convictions. If the police feel that the information they have is concrete enough, or suggests enough of a pattern that they're confident the person requesting could be at risk, they can use their discretion to share that. A good thing too, as many police call outs don't result in someone being convicted.

How did it go OP?

Just to say ... An ex of mine did a Claire's Law on years back and somehow it shows me as he aggresor ,whatever it said ,I am a man after all even though I was the one who called the police and reported all the harassment.

I'm so sorry to hear that...that's disgustingly unfair.

I had my video call...apparently it was a safeguarding call just to make sure I was okay and we went through a domestic abuse questionnaire. I hope they are this on the ball in other areas of the UK (I'm in a busy city area). I felt their speed was commendable particularly as I'd stressed in the application that I was not at risk physically and that the gaslighting was 'minor'...poor choice of words but I was a victim of serious dv years ago so perhaps that's warped my ideal of what's serious.

The officer said he couldn't say yet when I'd hear back regarding whether they'd be a disclosure...in the meantime I will distancing myself by going away for a couple of weeks and if I end the relationship, which looks likely, I'll do so from a safe distance.

Despite suffering dv once previously in another relationship this is my first encounter with gaslighting ...I felt uncomfortable using the word on the call today as previously it seemed a bit overused to me in the media etc. But being made to question even for a millisecond my own memory, sanity and things I knew to be true as a form of abuse...the manipulation in that is so grim.

How you doing?
Have you heard anything more about the CL disclosure yet?