Susan Nicholson case - heartbreaking

[HeatedCatFurniture]

I've read bits about this before but this article sets it all out in detail.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/28/the-police-knew-another-girl-had-died-in-his-bed-robert-trigg-susan-nicholson

It's appalling. Those poor women, those poor families - and that elderly couple, spending years and £££ bashing their heads against a brick wall of indifference from the police.

And so many of the officers named in the article are women, too.

It wasn't a newspaper article though. It was an investigative report into malpractice. It took the jury a few hours to come to the decision that he murdered her.

Plus the 'newspaper article' is post his arrest, charge and sentence.

Speaking from personal experience
I reported an assault to the police.my stbx assaulted our 15 year old son by shoving him across a room and holding him up against a wall and I witnessed it.
The two officers who came out did not take it seriously and wrote it up as not a crime.
My ex told them some bs and they believed him. I complained and the sergeant threatened me that my ex could put in a counter complaint of assault against my son. I backed down because the situation was too stressful to pursue it further.
I was later told that my ex should have been arrested and held over night, based on what I saw happen. However I was intimidated enough to let it go at the time. The most likely explanation seems to be that the attending officers could not be bothered with the hassle of taking him in.
They can and do close ranks when one of them has cocked up.

Sorry, newname but that is rubbish and you obviously haven't read the investigative report linked in the OP.

Is the jury skewed? The lawyers? The CPS?

The CPS is the authority! It brought a successful prosecution.

Newname,
The trouble is that despite flaws in the investigations being repeatedly drawn to the attention of the police, these were repeatedly blocked by different officers so that 3 repeated investigations failed to discover the murder.
Remember, this man has now been found guilty of murder and a long history of DV exposed. If the parents had not persisted in the face of repeated police denials, a dangerous man would still be living in the community. He is only in prison because of the parent's persistence in the face of continued opposition from the police - that is what is so shocking.

Newname...

I have just started woking for the police. It has honestly shocked me how seriously they take every incident, however small. They are frustrated much of the time by the victims themselves who won't consent to medical exam or interview, and are quite frankly uncooperative.

Those pesky victims, eh? Knowing what they know about no criming and piss poor investigation and still not cooperating. If only the police had powers to do something even without the victim's consent, eh?

Oh, hang on, they do!

If this is your jaded assessment of victims of DVA early on in your career, then I would beg you to excuse yourself from ever dealing with a case of suspected DVA in future. It's attitudes like yours that stop women reporting and going through with prosecutions of violent men.

NearlyFree17

Exactly. They do close ranks when there is an obvious mistake. It matters at all levels of violence but it seems to me that domestic violence is the bottom of the 'league'.

I wish you all the best and to you and your son. x

Newname, for goodness sake read the story. It's NOT the parents' view. The police force has been found at serious fault by an independent investigation. The killer is at last behind bars due to a retrial.

Stop jumping to the police defence without even reading the facts.

Women who are victims do often withdraw their complaints - for reasons connected with the DV in the first place. This is why police can wear body cams when investigating an incident and why the prosecution does not always have to rely on a scared woman not withdrawing her complaint.

You should know this, if you work for them.

They are frustrated much of the time by the victims themselves who won't consent to medical exam or interview, and are quite frankly uncooperative. The word uncooperative here is interesting. I'm sure it is very frustrating for the police to not be able to nab someone for DV when they know they've done it. but to label the victim as "uncooperative"? The vast majority of victims aren't uncooperative, or certainly not deliberately. They are traumatised, in fear, conditioned by their abuser. They have probably had a number of abusers throughout their lifetime. What is normal for them is very different from what you would consider normal. Calling victims uncooperative is part of the problem. No empathy. No understanding. It also puts the victim as the problem, rather than the perpetrator, police procedures, the law or societal attitudes being the issue.

They are frustrated much of the time by the victims themselves who won't consent to medical exam or interview, and are quite frankly uncooperative.

Then they are not having adequate training, or they would understand the psychological complexities involved in abusive relationships.

In what way are they uncooperative? This should be a red flag to those who are trained to go out to domestic violence situations.

Let's be very clear about this, they are VIOLENT. More often than not reported by neighbours. They hear it through the walls. So even if a report of domestic violence (which is a term I abhor), is reported by a third party, it still is often dismissed. Violence is violence.

And often neighbours are themselves traumatised by what they have witnessed or heard.

Well, in my case, I suspect uncooperative meant having to drop the charges when the police bailed him to my home. Or possibly because I was asked if I wanted to press charges with him stood in the same room as me. Or it might be the time I was told that I could press charges, but it would probably end up being six of one and half a dozen of the other.

And no, I don't distrust the police or hate the police because of my experiences. I have spent time working with police forces trying to help them understand the dynamics of DVA. This might be why I am a touch frustrated that the views I've tried to counteract seem to be present in self-professed new officers.

I can't imagine much worse than being beaten by a man and then being asked if I want to press charges under the threat of being beaten again if I say yes.

I have been "uncooperative" when reporting incidents of DV.
I needed his behaviour recorded, but I also needed to get out on my own time scale. It was better that way. the children are unscathed, their upheaval has been minimal. Had the police come round and interviewed him our family life would have been instantly smashed open, disrupting their housing, their schooling, their childcare, my job = my ability to support them comfortably. None of that happened. I got him out without them feeling a thing, essentially.

I'm bloody proud of that and I wasn't willing to surrender control to how the coppers wanted to blow the whole thing open.

With him standing there as well Datun It's incredible to think this is how family violence is treated. I think this is family violence. Domestic implies that it is a woman and a man who are having a bit of a barney. How we all laugh. Not.

A few years ago, I was with a friend who took a call from his lettings agent. A tenant was wanted by the police and they had just been to the house and found the tenant had done a runner. On the call the agent described the scene he had found and then that they'd cleared everything up promptly and had the cleaner round.

What they'd found: the back bedroom was boarded up, with a dirty mattress on the floor. A bolt had been fitted to the outside of the door. There were some prostitute cards with the tenants' mobile number left around.

I was totally horrified and asked my friend to call the police immediately. (It hadn't even OCCURRED to him that this was a crime scene. I kept saying, but it looks like he's keeping a woman locked up, can't you see that?) After a little to and fro (he kept saying but there's no proof, they cleaned it all up.) he called the police and reported the whole thing. They were dismissive, perhaps even annoyed on the phone. The police never even followed up. They had no interest at all.

Sorry that's a bit tangential to the DV discussion but it seemed connected to me, not just that it was completely dismissed by the police but that my friend and the men cleaning up couldn't even really recognise it as a crime scene.

Of course now, the police only record 5 instances of the same crime and this is massively skewing figures when it comes to DVA already.

If you think for one minute your children are unscathed AntiGrinch think again.

I'm a survivor of my father being violent against my mother. I heard things no child should hear. I do love my mum, but I do wish she had left him.

But she kept up appearances, even though everyone bloody knew anyway I felt shame.

I have to say that the posts on this thread purportedly by existing members of the police force have only reinforced my view of organisational misogyny.

Blasted victims, failing to cooperate

Totally get what you mean Zolah

It's not tangential at all. That woman was being abused within a home setting.

I could arrest you tomorrow for murder. You'd be NFA'd and I'd lose my job. When I say it's career defining stuff that everyone would want to get involved in, I'm talking legal arrests

Bollox

You might get a slap on the wrist but if you could justify it afterwards you'd be fine.

Or if the person you arrest can't afford to sue you of course.

Pick a black teenager from a council estate and you would be OK.

And don't you dare come out with, "you'd call us if you were in trouble" I called 999 when someone was trying to break my door down to 'fing twat' me.

I got a call back 2 days later.