Sussex police must 'never' be believed

By anonymous victim of the ‘Must Be Believed’ policy operated by Sussex Police and all other police forces nationwide.

When Sussex Police tried to stitch me up, they didn’t realise that I was an investigative journalist. It all began when I was playing with my dog on my front lawn when two burly, over weight officers arrived, walked along my path straight past me and into my house without permission.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” I shouted.

“Do you want to talk about stalking out here?” said the lead officer, who turned out to be PC AC, a fifty plus long serving officer, probably not far off his pension. The other was a trainee officer, but probably over forty himself.

Once ensconced in my living room they told me that I was the subject of a complaint for stalking and harassment. I heard this with some surprise, but asked them to outline the complaint against me. Apparently, I had caused alarm and distress on two or more occasions, which was enough to trigger an investigation. For all my years in news and documentary research, investigating some pretty rough individuals ranging from organised crime, engaging in dog fights to British Mercenaries working Africa, I had a naïve faith in the police. I thought if I just told them the truth, that this would be the end of it.

After they had outlined the accusations against me, I told them that my partner had been causing me serious concern, that she had known mental health issues due to suffering sexual abuse as a child and that I had just discovered that a previous partner had duped her out of her life savings, a total of £50K. I said that I considered her to be a seriously vulnerable, so I had gone to her family who I knew well hoping that they would intervene. It was only then to my shock and horror, that I discovered that her abuser had actually been a family member, who still had influence over her and when I approached them,  their response was that she should report ‘me’ to the police for stalking and harassment. I was having to process this realisation on the hoof while facing a rather aggressive, take no prisoners, PC AC.

“She denies she was sexually abused,” he told me. “You are a sick person who made all this up, just to harass and upset her.”

“Well if that’s so,” I replied, “How come I have all her emails telling me all this, because she found it too difficult to talk about and she could only express herself in writing?”

“You must delete those emails,” he said firmly. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; he was inadvertently telling a journalist to delete emails.

“Oh really. Must I” I replied rather tartly. This attitude seemed to somewhat irk Officer AC who then proceeded to give me a 30 minute dressing down, whereupon he told me that I was guilty and that he needed to find out whether I represented a ‘continuing danger’ to my ex partner and women in general. I was being subjected to, I later found out, what is termed ‘the robust’ treatment as is officially outlined in writing as an instruction for officers in the Sussex Police 578 Policy document on Stalking and Harassment - All male suspects must be subjected to this and that all complainants must be treated as ‘victims’ and ‘Must be believed.’

Of course, I had no idea about any of this at the time, I just found myself facing a somewhat irate, red in the face officer who didn’t seem to know wrong from right. I decided to keep my mouth shut from there on in as I could see myself being arrested and frog marched off to the station in front of the neighbours. Had I known at the time, being falsely arrested would have been the best thing that could have happened to me as I would then have been eligible for ‘No Win, No fee’ representation from legal firms, who it turns out, have been making a fine living representing people taking legal action against Sussex Police! This force alone have paid out over £1 million in defendants legal costs in recent years, that’s before paying out any compensation, which is a complete abuse of public funds! At the time, facing PC AC, I thought he “must just be a rotten apple.” I thought, just get them out of the house, get rid of them and then bring a complaint.

Officer AC finally ran out of steam. The fact that I had become passive and fairly non responsive seemed to help. I did, however, ask for their names and police numbers, which I wrote down and also asked to see their warrant cards. On their way out, I mentioned almost in passing, that this whole business was very unfortunate as my (now ex) partner was under the psychiatrist and that I was only trying to help. Being told that she was receiving psychiatric care seemed to hit PC AC like a physical body blow. He stopped in his tracks, closed his eyes, clenched his fists and visibly winced.  I remained passive, let him absorb this information, which I would have mentioned earlier had I been given the chance, and just thought, “Seriously Officer AC! You are in the wrong place to get your facts wrong.”

Sussex Police were unlucky with me. Not only was I journalist, but I had a cast iron alibi with a vast array of extremely respectable witnesses. They were just doing what they normally do, following policy 578 to the letter, treat the man as guilty whether he was or not and never mind the evidence (or lack thereof). Also, they were on borrowed time in many respects in that if a police force continually abuse their power and deliberately deny justice, sooner or later they will be found out and it will come to public attention. It’s just a numbers game and here they had walked into a journalists house uninvited and unlawfully, had told him to delete emails, the very evidence that proved his innocence.

My ‘cast iron’ alibi was that for three years, throughout the time of my relationship with my partner who was now accusing me, I was a full time carer for my Mother who had dementia. I had only 12 hours a week respite, where a nurse or professional carer would take over from me. There are 168 hours in a full week and I had just 12 that I could call my own. The rest of the time I was on 24 hour call as dementia sufferers don’t recognise whether it is day or night. This was my life for three long years. Generally my only break was playing with my dog on the green in front of my house while social careers and district nurses visited and bathed my mother, or covered her bedsores in cream. Planning to go out took major logistical planning, with lots of emails and texts. I saved 5 hours for Sunday so my partner and I could walk the dogs on the local beach and have a cup of coffee, before I had to be back, ready to face another week of 24 hour care. I would use 3 hours at the pub on Friday evening and use the remaining 4 hours going out on a Saturday.

If my partner wanted to spend time with me, she had to stay at my house as for the rest of the time I was tied to my responsibilities. To call me a stalker was patently ridiculous and I had a wealth of emails and texts to prove it. I’m afraid as things progressed I started to treat the police with open contempt and told them I must be a stalking genius as the only way I could see my partner for three years was if she visited me. No doubt, this was a dangerous attitude, but I was tired and exhausted after three years of caring and found many of the police easy to trip up evidentially as they weren’t very bright. Many of them were just bullies in uniform, faced with an extremely motivated and experienced news researcher. Also, I was reassured when a retired officer told me that the Police didn’t have the same resources to stitch people up anymore, because of all the financial cut backs!

If Sussex Police were unlucky in alighting on me, so was I as I discovered that my partner suffered from a recognised health disability which makes them lie without realising it. The Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) was, apparently, caused directly by her abuse as a child. This is a very difficult, awful subject, but when a child is abused, their brains flood with chemicals which causes terrible long term effects. This form of BPD is also known as the ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ syndrome, where partners totally idolise their partners to begin with and then suddenly totally turn against them, treating them as the worst people in the world without any self awareness of their contradictory behaviour. It’s nobody’s fault except the abusers. It’s like the flick of a switch and their attitude totally changes. I suddenly realised that the woman who had sent me a 16 page love letter and had asked me to move in with her the day before, was now staring at me with extreme hatred. All this happened in the mundane, completely peaceful setting of washing up the dishes together. I handed her a cup to dry and I thought she was going to throw it back at me. I soon realised that I couldn’t help her, which is why I had turned to her family.

I explained all this to Detective Inspector G, who was handling my complaint against PC AC. He dismissed all of it, wasn’t interested. To him, I was guilty and I should consider myself convicted of stalking and behave accordingly. I needed to keep my head down. He said they had considered her mental health difficulties, but as she could “Manage a bit of shopping,” she was perfectly alright. This was his considered opinion, never mind the major medical research into BPD, never mind that she was still at risk and under the influence of her abuser, never mind that 15% of all BPD sufferers commit suicide, “She could manage a bit of shopping!” When I told him that she was beginning to incite a rather dangerous and unstable mutual acquaintance to stalk me, he said:

“So what, you are a nonce, you deserve it.”

Not surprisingly I lost all faith in Sussex Police after that and decided to turn the tables and investigate them, as a journalist. I also brought an immediate, well documented complaint against DI G, telling the Sussex Police Professional Standards Department that a reporter’s notebook, in which I had recorded the conversation, was acceptable in law. It’s almost on the same status as a police officer’s notebook, when they read from them in court.

It didn’t take long after I started my investigations to discover that Sussex Police were directly responsible for the death of a girl called Shana Grice. She truly had been stalked. She repeatedly begged the police for help and they responded by fining her for wasting police time. She was literally pleading for her life as she was murdered soon afterwards by her ex boyfriend. He had placed trackers on her car and continually followed her. Then, one night he crept into her bedroom while she was asleep and cut her throat! Amazingly, to the enormous distress of her family, Sussex Police still tried to defend their officer’s actions. The family  released a statement saying:

"The misconduct charge is a joke and the hearing a sham. Had (Sergeant) Godfrey not retired, he would be allowed to carry on serving as a police officer. What message does this give to other officers? Even more importantly, what message does it send to victims? We are disgusted and feel thoroughly let down by the process. There is no justice.”

Unfortunately, Sussex Police are a force who believes it (and it's officers) can do no wrong. In the words of the highly respected lawyer Mark Stephens:

“If you take a force like Sussex, they fight everything to the bitter end, incur huge legal costs – which are a complete waste of money because the victim wants compensation and a settlement, while the only people who gain are the lawyers. You tell the client going in this is what they are going to do in response, and we know that this particular police force behaves in this ridiculous way … as a consequence we are likely to issue a writ, which is likely to cost up to £10,000 just for the fee. So there is £10,000 for every writ that is issued, because they have not entered into sensible and meaningful negotiations, nor do they enter into mediation or dispute resolution, which might obviate the need to incur legal costs.”

It seemed clear to me that Sussex Police were over reacting to the death of Grice and their own part in this and were now treating all men as guilty, no matter what the evidence. At this point, I was still completely unaware that the ‘Must Be Believed’ policy is in fact a national policy, a dictate actually handed down the College of Policing, which every force must follow. However, following the Grice tragedy, Sussex Police seemed to be taking this a stage further and were, and still are, allegedly, deliberately stitching up men who may well be as innocent as I was. 

I contacted a charity called FASO (Falsely Accused Support Organisation), which is led by the amazing Margaret Gardener, whose husband suffered appalling consequences from a false accusation and who died before he was able to clear his name. She put me in touch with a fellow called ‘Mike,’ who had suffered far worse than me from Sussex Police following a false accusation by his wife, only he had been falsely arrested which meant that a “No win, no fee” legal practice were prepared to take on his case. It took three years and an enormous toll on his well being, but he finally won an out of court settlement from them, where the legal costs alone of Sussex Police were over £100K. Therefore, a clear pattern was emerging. Both police and journalists are taught to look for patterns of behaviour, it’s part of their training, it means you often know where to look to find supporting evidence. Only this week a friend of mine has been suffering similar treatment from Sussex Police and he is trying to cope with a woman known locally as ‘Psycho Suzie!,’ so it couldn’t be more obvious that he is likely to be innocent. She even poisoned his dog and admitted it to Sussex Police and they still took no action. If you are a man in Sussex and a woman makes an accusation against you, it doesn’t matter whether it is false or not. “You are toast!”

The only way to deal with Sussex Police is to attack them back. They don’t expect this; they are used to being in control, it takes them by surprise. It took me over a year of apprehension and worry before I realised this. Although I had burned up all my savings while caring for my Mother, I scrimped and saved and got myself a lawyer. They gave me a knock down rate, but even then it was £200 per hour, which is an absolute bargain these days. He wrote to PC AC, who suddenly now wasn’t so brave and hid behind his union! DI G was reported to the Chief Constable as contemptible. My lawyer also sent a ‘warning of legal action’ to my ex partner. By now, she had fulfilled a long term plan to move to Wales. On receipt of the letter, she immediately reported me for harassment again to Sussex Police, who asked Cardigan police to interview her on their behalf. She then concocted the claim that I had stalked her so badly that she had been forced to move three hundred miles away from Sussex to Wales. A PC TY back at Sussex received her witness statement and without checking it’s veracity, phoned my solicitor and said he believed this claim that I was guilty of stalking her to the point that she had been forced to move. The solicitor recorded this conversation and copied it to me verbatim. By now, I was gradually working my way through the whole Sussex Police force with a complaint against yet another officer. His Sergeant tried to join in the stitch up of me, only to be presented with a copy of a heartfelt email to me from my ex partner, sent while we were still together, saying that she would have to move to Wales to care for her own Mother, but that she hoped that I would move with her and we could continue our relationship. The Sergeant had jumped the gun and was totally discredited by this.

The police complaints system at Sussex is a waste of time, as proven by the quote from lawyer Mark Stephens, so I went to the Sussex Police Commissioner Katy Bourne, a victim of stalking herself and the lead spokesperson on Stalking for the Commissioners Association. This woman did absolutely everything she could to close me down. Her department ignored all complaints, ignored all evidence, her claim to be representing the people of Sussex and be their voice in dealing with Sussex police is, in my view and experience, totally spurious. She seems to believe, allegedly, that every criticism of the force reflects badly on her. Rather than confront wrong doing, she refuses to investigate the 578 policy and refuses to acknowledge that her force are abusing public funds to stitch up innocent men, even though the incredible amounts squandered in settlement of legal costs proves it. Now, with the scrapping of Police Commissioners, she wants to be mayor - a woman who has knowingly helped push through a policy which the Equality Advisory Support Service describe as “Indirect Discrimination,’ which is unlawful and also contravenes Human Rights laws!

My last resort was going to my MP, then Huw Merriman, a former lawyer who became a Cabinet Minister in the last Tory Government.  My evidence was so overwhelming that at his behest, at last Sussex Police had to admit that I had no case to answer, that there was no crime, that my three years of being falsely logged as a suspect was a total injustice. There was a grudging apology of sorts from Kay Bourne. Now I learn from an article written by Dr Naughton of this Parish, that the ‘Must Be Believed’ policy is known to be unlawful and that people such as myself are to be treated as ‘acceptable collateral damage.’ The person who replaced Huw Merriman as my MP, Dr Kieran Mullan, appears in an email he sent to me to be saying the same thing and he’s the Shadow minister of Justice! While no doubt many, if not most men accused of stalking and harassment are guilty, and the fear, apprehension and misery they must cause in the women who are truly ‘victims’ must be unbearable, there can be no excuse for not looking at the evidence objectively and fairly and then acting accordingly. The more this huge scandal, this deliberate inhumane, stigmatising unlawful ‘Must Be Believed’ policy is publicised the better as surely there will come a point when, as it becomes more widely known, that a Class Legal Action will follow. I hope so because morally corrupt police forces such as Sussex need to be called to account, rather than getting away with bullying and ruining the lives of isolated individuals, who similar to the victims of the post office scandal, start out thinking they are alone when they are first accused.

Since my Mother died, I have resumed my career as a freelance News and Documentary researcher and to my utter amazement have uncovered serious corruption in my home village in Sussex - a housing development scam worth over £1.4 million involving Parish owned land. One police officer described the situation here as being run by a kind of ‘rural mafia!” I was being personally abused and threatened so often that in the end; ironically, I had to seek the protection of Sussex Police, who as you can imagine are extremely wary of me. They assigned to me, none other than PC TY, the officer who had told my solicitor that I had stalked my partner so badly that she had to move to Wales. I complained to the Area Commander about this, she said rather mockingly, you’ve complained against so many officers, there’s no one else left! PC TY and I discussed my complaint to the Police about his behaviour, which to put it mildly he was extremely hacked off about:

“You have no right to be angry” I told him. “The Police Commissioner had to apologise via my MP on your behalf.”

“What do you mean,” he exclaimed. “No one has told me that I have done anything wrong!”

So much for lessons learned by Sussex Police Force.

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