Yep, its time again to highlight the way that some people live.

Picture the scene. I am walking on the estate on a lovely sunny Saturday morning about 2 weeks ago. I am just thinking of going to my appointment to get a statement when I am asked to go to a house on the other side to deal with a drunk female that has turned up at her sisters house.

I get there and the sister and her husband are angry to see her and I see the sister sat on the curb, crying uncontrollably and, to be polite, stinking

The story unfolds that she is an alcoholic and has been dropped off, literally, by her partner who has gone off in a rage. I speak with her and after a while she discloses she has been raped that morning. Now I have only ever dealt with 2 genuine complaints of rape and this was the second. The motions are put into place and she is taken to the police station to be examined by the doctor and interviewed for her statement.

The story unfolds

They have been together for 13 years and for most of those years he has been making her do things that she did not want to do. For example, watching pornographic movies so he can "get himself off". after which he has sex with her and, when he has finished, makes her put implements up herself (I'll leave that to your imagination). She had a very good job but due to the abuse she was not able to hold her job down and has not worked for 10 years. She owns the house and he pays for everything so she has no way of supporting herself. He makes her have sex with his friends for which they pay him as well as going dogging

About 5 years ago, she started to drink more and became an alcoholic. She drinks more to blank all this out. He gets aggressive because she is drunk all the time and so the cycle continues.

On that morning, she goes to the shop and gets back into bed at which point he beats her, rapes her both ends, throws her in the van naked and drops her at the sisters, after he punched her a few more times he leaves!!

He gets arrested and bailed not to have any contact with her

The aftermath

With my support and that of our domestic violence unit she seeks help from the domestic refuge and a solicitor. She is doing really well and I ring her every day to see how she is doing and to offer support. Then this week he rings her, she turns back to the bottle and becomes unmanageable due to her drunkenness and depression. She continues to ring me up to 20 times a day, drunk, and as I am 20 miles away and off duty I refer her to the officer who deals with her. Things go from bad to worse and no-one can get in contact with her.

I am sat by my mobile hoping now she will ring me. She has no mobile as he took it on the day and she is not answering her home phone.

I ring the control room to get a unit to check and she is found in the house, hanging.

Ever felt helpless?