4 September - Violence & Stalking

A friend is working in Plymouth for a few weeks. The other night he and three colleagues, all form London, went to a local pub. On the way out my friend tripped on the stairs and reached out to steady himself on someone’s arm. After he got out, a man run up to him and said ‘Why did you do that? I’ll fucking stab you’. Admittedly he said this retreating, possibly as the others were a small group, but it left them stunned. Why would you say that? Why would you say 'I’ll stab you?' For what? For perhaps not saying sorry loudly enough? My friend is not a major drinker so I doubt his group was rowdy, they have to be doing something reasonably brain consuming at 9am every day, and he’s slightly built so, you know, hardly a threat. Don’t these people read any papers? It’s on the front of the Sun every day that knives kill. It’s moronic to say I’ll stab you. Anyway.. he’s just not going to that pub again.


This reminds me also of a domestic violence conversation we had with M. a friend of P. the other night. P. can’t understand why anyone would stay with someone who hits them. But I can, I read countless stories in women's mags, it’s easy, if you think that’s the only person who loves you and cares for you, even getting hit is .. something you just put up with … for however long. In this woman’s case a couple of years so she got out ok and was not too badly hurt. She stayed because she was isolated having gone to live with him in Geneva and because she was ashamed to be failing and blaming herself somewhere. She got out partly because it wasn’t the first time it had happened to her. Which brings me back to who falls into abusive relationships. Perfectly fine women but attracted to something in the man who turns up to be abusive though he's not abusive from the start, he has that in him and probably attracts them wiht the reverse of the coin, some macho stuff that makes them feel initially taken care of by a strong guy etc. Or a guy they want to fix/change for the better and of course none of us ever goes and has indepth interviews with the previous girlfriend who would tell us how it is/goes.

M. says it’s a woman in four who experiences this. I don’t know where they get statistics but nobody I know has been through this ordeal. And I know tons of women. She said it’s not something many admit to. Perhaps, but I’m not ignorant of the signs and I saw none in any of my friends thus far. P.said he had a lover who went through that…so maybe he has got my share of knowing a victim of domestic violence so to speak of the statistics. M. said the physical violence also goes hand in hand with other forms of violence, verbal for example but I think that’s different, it may destroy you inside but it doesn’t kill you. P.said his other friend had her nipple bitten off or almost by her husband/abuser? I can only imagine that there’s a lot of drink and/or drugs involved in these situations, red mist is not something that descends on sober people that easily. But take lots of coke and spliff for example and you get various psychosis if you were bent that way already. But I have read that it’s very hard to defuse any situation when the abuser is intent on seeing anything you say or do as a provocation that fuels his rage. Trying to plead or leave the room is not an option they allow you to take.
It’s scary.

I have another friend of a friend, male, M. who’s been going through a traumatic time (spent ten days in prison for something he didn’t do) and is in the middle of a court case that’s been adjourned where he’s accused by his ex girlfriend of stalking her and subsequently breaking the terms of his restriction - but not of hitting her. It’s a giant waste of time as he didn’t do anything. In the early days of the split he of course was devastated, crying his eyes out (saw him during that time) and spending ages on the phone to her friends/family trying to understand and not accepting it was over but if he threatened her it was a passing thing.

She had reported him though by this time. He was told not to contact her but she lives opposite the police station in Hornsey where he had to go and report. So yeah, he wasn’t stalking her, he was just there because he had to go into the station. He had then erased all the numbers associated with her from his phone but later when he sent a mass mail out text about something and it got to her brother who had not been erased and on that basis he was reported and thrown in jail for a week. They took his phone. For a couple of days he couldn’t let anyone know what had happened to him. Seems a bit excessive to me.

We think the policeman assigned to his case has a crush on his ex. He’s being very very nasty, to him and to some of his witnesses. You don’t call at 11pm to bully a female character witness for example. He’s since discovered one is a magistrate so he’s changed his tack there. He also coveniently can see her coming out of her flat at any time as the station is opposite it (see above).

Anyway… phones have been examined and there isn’t much to incriminate him … she’s had her day in court and his will come in a month or so. It’s going well it seems to clear him of all this. Part of the problem was that he was recommended to just plead guilty and he told them to fuck off which annoyed them as case would take longer. He thinks ex just told one initial lie based on justified perhaps fears and then could not extricate herself from the crisis she’d created and was counselled to go ahead with something that will then crumble in court. Saying he was stalking you from before Xmas when you have perfectly decent exchanges of texts on your phone and NY wishes and so on is a little undermining of your ‘I was fearing for my life M’lord’.

Clearly you then read of some woman who’s been killed by her ex who had or didn’t have a restraining order, and there’s a lot of it about, a lot, and it must be difficult to know who to believe and it’s best to believe the woman when in doubt as she’s less likely to turn psycho and kill you but… M’s case has now consumed various months and that’s now going to mark him as well in future dealings with relationships. He’s already talking about suing the police for various mishandlings after he wins. If he doesn’t I don’t want to think of what will happen, that’s probably when you turn nasty in some sort of reveng. Plus, if he’s not cleared, which he hopes to be, it’s been affecting his business plenty. He cuts my hair. I truly don’t know him that well though but my friend does and he’s a pussycat round her house, volunteers to fix the gate, do odd jobs and cooks breakfast for everyone if he’s stayed over the night and got up first and generally is a very sweet 40 year old. However, and this is just me playing devil’s advocate, he has a fondness for the Charlie and it’s well established in my writings that I think drugs are generally bad and being known to use a lot makes you a less credible character. They do alter your personality so it’s perfectly possible that one day you’re nice as pie and the next day you’ve gone a bit psychotic. So, only having M’s side of the story I could never swear on his innocence. But he’s sweet. He said ex’s parents were not in court ‘because they’re very catholic and she wouldn’t have wanted them there to hear her lie so blatantly’. What do I know. I’ll wait for the verdict and hope nobody gets punished if they didn’t do something