My advice to anyone man or woman going through domestic violence is to stay strong don’t give up you never know what is going to happen and miracles do happen if you keep saying the truth. For years it felt like no one believed me and the truth to what was really going on. So many things happened to me that were abusive and I did not have proof or evidence so I thought. Then years later when I started to read the letters from jail which my abuser had sent to me, I had kept them all. I was so surprised they were fill with evidence of the abuse as he talked about it in his letters. So these became part of my evidence of abuse. Written letters dated signed by his name from Long bay jail they told of a very abusive, controlling, violent relationship and many, many apologies in them for how he had treated me. Then before my rape trial more evidence as to the truth I had talked of being stalked and threatened but there was no real evidence of this until my rape mention. When the policewoman acting on my rape case was threatened by the private Detective hired by my abuser in long bay jail to stop my rape trial.  She was so frightened by this that she rang Maroubra police station and a car load of detectives came to the court and dragged the private detective out of the Waverley court house so my rape trial mention was not stopped. I didn’t know about this until I was at the DPP and the detective for my case was talking to the solicitor for the DPP telling him. The Solicitor for the DPP wanted to put me in police protection to keep me safe. He said your abuser can not do this to us we are the DPP and will not stand for it. He also threatened my solicitor acting for me in the family law court at Parramatta we had to hide in the women’s toilets for our protection as he would not let her file the documents for my case. He also threatened her outside the building held her against the wall of the court building and told her she had to stop representing me or he would close her law firm down.  Then when I went to get AVO’s at Penrith court after the rape trial as he was acquitted in the rape trial not enough  physical evidence. I was not happy that I could not get an avo as he had threatened my life and I knew how violent he really was and he was now on parole in the community. I went to the Ombudsman to investigate my case and I felt I needed an avo for my protection it was investigated by the Inspector at Penrith Police station. Who came back to me weeks later to say that my abuser is already back in long bay jail he had been on parole which was cancelled because everything that had happened to me that I had talked about at the rape trial and the avo hearing had already happened to another victim. It was with Liverpool police station detectives being investigated. As he had raped, kidnapped and beaten, stalked another victim it was too serious for him to be out in the community.

I had also photocopied the letters that talked about the violence in our relationship and gone to long Bay Jail and gave them to his parole officer to read and use. The inspector said to me that if he had done my avo it would of been for two years and I would have had two police officers with me at the court the whole time for protection as i had plenty of evidence as to why I needed an avo but as he is now back in Long bay jail there is no need. I thought I had no evidence no one will believe me as to what has happened to me. Also at my rape trial I was asked to look at the photo of the bedroom with the bars on the windows by the prosecutor for my case. I had to look at the photo and then the jury and tell them what happened in that room. I broke down and couldn’t breath after a couple of times of him saying this loudly to me and looking at the photo and remembering my violent rape while I was in the witness box. I had to be carried out of the witness box because I was so upset from looking at the photo and talking about what had happened in that awful room. The judge stood up at the top of the court room and ordered for me to be carried out of the witness box that no man was allowed to come near me. As the court officer had tried to touch me and I reacted really badly so the judge then ordered for only females to come and help me so my two female social workers both come up and helped me out of the witness box so I could recover from giving evidence. She also ordered for the jury to be dismissed for the day to recover from seeing and hearing my evidence. The jury was so traumatised by what I had said and how I had acted in the witness box so that they had to have the afternoon off to recover from this. The jury knew that some terrible things had happened to me but there was not enough physical evidence for the standard of proof for the court case. Also the detectives at the time of the abuse happening to me had kept a file on me with some of the records of the different assaults and incidents that had happened to me. I did not know about this until before my rape trial when the police at Maroubra were looking for an incident report on the day the policemen came to my home two days after my eight hour rape and I told them what had happened to me. The detective who was investigating my rape case told me about the file that was found on me he said I am really surprised you are still alive after everything that has happened to you. Also my abusers parole officer had a report that I had written up at the time of abuse with a month of incidents in it. I had given it to the police who gave it to his parole officer who then gave it to me to use as more evidence of abuse. Evidence just keep appearing about the history of violence of which I had no knowledge of until I started to take action. Abusers don’t just abuse one person there is usually a trail of evidence that is left and a trail of victims behind them. So don’t give up you never know what it going to come out and support you like what happened for me. Just keep saying the truth and being strong because Karma works in strange way to support you.

For more information on my true story you can read my bio Voices from inside available on this website soon.