"The police won't do nothing"

I'd arranged to meet Billie at 1 o'clock in Camden today following doc and support worker but she rings and says she can't make it, she's on her way back from college and feels overwhelmed with all the work she has to do.

"I'm in the cafe opposite the Crowndale," I say to her. "Swing by on your way home, five minutes, for a hug if you need one, it would be good to see you."

She turns up about half an hour later and tells me her ex has hacked into her old email address and is sending her messages from that to the new fake name one she set up. She doesn't know how he's got that email. She tells me she's scared. "I don't know what to do. The police won't to do nothing."

"Tell the police," I tell her. "Go and log it with them so at least they know."

Hers is a big story but the bones of it is that the police put a restraining order on her ex a few years ago and physically he hasn't harrassed her. But we all know there are other ways to abuse somebody.

She's adamant she won't go to the police: "They'll bring him in, write their notes, let him go again." Or "They won't even agree to see me, they'll say there's nothing they can do."

She told me she called him from a phonebox to ask him to stop sending her emails "but he can hear the pain in my voice. It's horrible, be won't stop."

There is something they can do, there has to be. I tell her to go and tell them I told her to (so that with any luck they'll pick up her own reluctance to take herself there), and to say what she's just told me. I then tell her that I'll go with her. I'm no social worker or anything but I'll be there as her friend.

Billie and I did the "safeguarding children" project together. It's ironic she does not trust any of the safeguarding services open to her. I tell her that if I have to, I'll tell them I interviewed the Chief Superintendant, that he knows me, clout them with that (blimey, the blagging you have to do as a stigmum though thanks to a bit of lip gloss, not even the Chief guessed I was one).

She wiped the tears from her eyes and said she has to call them first to say she is coming and they might say no.

"Don't take no for an answer," I say. "I'm baking my cake tonight, I'll be free to come with you tomorrow morning."

Fingers crossed for her hey?

(Billie agreed to let me post about her when we were doing the safeguarding work but that's not to say I will rat a tat tat, rat a tat tat about her life. Just so you know.)