Domestic abuse: 'Family courts helped intimidation continue'

'Family court made me feel more vulnerable'

Jane believed she had fallen in love hard when she met her future fiancé. They moved in together with their children. But months into the relationship he began to abuse her.

When she finally left she says his desire to still control her played out through the family courts for years - despite the fact she had a restraining order against him.

She is among those calling for a radical overhaul of family courts.

When I met him I thought he was amazing - I was so in love with him. I thought it would last forever.

But really he had hooked me, and he very cleverly groomed me into believing everything was my fault- it was all my fault.

There was the physical abuse, obviously, which is what everyone knows about, the bruises, the broken bones, broken teeth.

Then there was the coercive control which was so sinister and so creepy and it crawls up on you and before you know it you are absolutely in the throes of it all.

He knew exactly what he was doing, he had it all planned in his head. And I was gone, I was so far gone.

He would ask me to pick things up from the shop on my way home and then say: "No I didn't ask you to pick that up."

A big row would ensue where he would end up throwing the things into the bin. But when I pushed it he would empty the bin all over the floor, and he'd make me pick it up with my teeth.

The status quo was sort of a punishment and then a period of me yearning to get his affections back, then he'd forgive me and be nice for a little while and then it would start again, and that's the circle that we went on.

When friends came to visit I would always get a slap or a punch after. If my mother came to visit the slaps or punches were always harder.

I had a broken nose, a cracked rib, a haematoma and countless bruises under my clothes.

But despite that he had manipulated me to such an extent I was convinced I was desperately in love with him and that it was all my fault.

I wanted to fix things, I wanted to make it better, I always felt that I could love it away. I was never going to walk away because of the shame I felt, and the guilt that I had caused this.

So in the end I didn't leave in the conventional way. It was forced.

One night things had got just a little bit too out of hand. I used to stand up to him every now and then when I was feeling brave. And every time I did stand up to him the punishment would be more severe, more violent. This was one of those nights.

I was curled up in a ball in the hallway and he was kicking me.

But this time my child heard it from upstairs and came down, witnessed it, and managed to run from the house to get help from the neighbours.

They came in, picked me up, took me to their house. They called the police but I put obstacles in the way at every step.

I just wanted them to go away so I could go back and carry on as I normally did. Go and have a wash, clean up, make the dinner, prepare the school lunches for the next day, go to bed.

A new day, another chance to try and fix it.

But the police wouldn't let it go, and I couldn't go back, even for two months after, that was all I wanted. Then it started to sink in what I had been through. That it wasn't really love.

He was convicted of assault for that night, they couldn't take anything from the past into consideration, so it was just that night. But he was given an indefinite restraining order - he couldn't come anywhere near us.

Then one of his children told me they didn't want to live with him but wanted to stay with me, so I promised to do whatever I could to make that happen. And that was the start of the family court proceedings.

'It was horrific'

We went to court so many times, probably 20 times over two years.

It was just horrific. I think if I thought that his abuse was bad, the fact that it was allowed to continue through the family court made everything 10 times worse.

They knew he'd been convicted for domestic abuse, but I still had to sit in the same waiting room as him - even though there was a restraining order in place.

All the repeated hearings were for him to prove his absolute control over me. It had nothing to do with anything else but his control.

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After a few months I had already built up a massive debt because of the legal costs.

I got a second job in order to put food on the table and to pay for bills. I sold jewellery. I downgraded my car. I stopped all unnecessary direct debits. I begged, I borrowed and even at one stage I went cap in hand to the food bank.

And of course the court case was still going so I had to represent myself.

I'm not a stupid woman but I found it very hard to cross examine and ask the right questions, and I was continually bamboozled by the way that his lawyers would twist things, and represent truths in ways that I have never seen them before.

I believe that the judiciary system needs to be trained in recognising and calling out the sinister malevolence, I suppose, of this kind of abuse from the perpetrator.

The criminal court convicted him and that was good, but the family court in my opinion enabled him to keep perpetrating.

It has been seven years now but I still can't drive past family courts without that quickening feeling inside of me.

If I do drive past and I see the walls, the huge big blocks of stone, and I often imagine what have those blocks of stone seen? How much fear have those walls absorbed? Because I'm not the only person who has been through it.

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