I spent last weekend helping a dyslexic friend write a letter of complaint about the police handling of an assault. A man had launched an unprovoked attack on her, part of which involved knocking her to the ground and punching her in the face. She had run away, called the police, they took a photo of her punched face, took her home, took a statement. The man admitted attacking her, said it was an attack of PTSD and apologised (to the police). He said he hadn’t punched her, she had fallen. So the police dropped the charges for “insufficient evidence”.
Oh yes and he happened to be a former police officer.
How many times does it happen that a man and a woman have an altercation, the woman has a bruised face, she says “he punched me” and the man says “she fell” and his word is the one taken???? Just in case it isn’t clear (to any officers reading this), when you trip or fall, you put your hands out to protect your face.
It happened a couple of years back, maybe too long ago but after Sarah Everard my friend wanted to “speak up”. She complained bitterly, to a senior officer, at the time, but only verbally because of her dyslexia.
It will be interesting to see whether she gets any response back from the police.
I was glad to help her speak up, it may just fall on deaf bureaucratic ears, or it may be a tiny straw on a camel’s back, to help towards shifting a toxic police culture based on protecting officers first, victims second.