Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life the average persons never
Speaker 1: exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: If you think being a police officer makes you immune
Speaker 1: to being a victim, you are mistaken. Today's guest form
Speaker 1: of police officer, Carolyn Clark grew up in a home
Speaker 1: where love and violence lived side by side. Her mother's
Speaker 1: suffering became a temper for her own. Caroline spent almost
Speaker 1: a decade as a police officer in the UK. Then,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, the routine massage appointment Caroline was
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted, she FROs and for a woman who has
Speaker 1: spent her career in control, who had trained for threat,
Speaker 1: who had seen what silence does to victims, her response
Speaker 1: was one that she couldn't explain. What followed was a
Speaker 1: pursuit of justice, reckoning with her past, and the unraveling
Speaker 1: of a cycle of abuse she could finally trace all
Speaker 1: the way back to her childhood. Caroline Clark, welcome to
Speaker 1: I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Thank you well.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to having the chat with you today.
Speaker 1: We're going to delve into some interesting things and some
Speaker 1: of let's be open, some of them are fairly traumatic
Speaker 1: because I'm going to ask you to talk about the
Speaker 1: time when you were sexually assaulted and the process that
Speaker 1: you went through and the impact it had on you.
Speaker 1: But I think it's important that we find out who
Speaker 1: you are before we start talking about a thing that
Speaker 1: had a dramatic effect on you. I notice you've come
Speaker 1: in wearing a T shirt No more silence. What's that about?
Speaker 2: So this has come on the back of the sexual
Speaker 2: assault Yeah, and understanding how many people have been abused.
Speaker 2: There's so much stigma, particularly around sexual abuse. Yes, So
Speaker 2: the normal Science movement was created to help people to
Speaker 2: break their silence and then to have the shame back
Speaker 2: to where it belongs.
Speaker 1: I like the concept of that that for too long,
Speaker 1: victims of sexual abuse have felt like they've contributed in
Speaker 1: some way, whether that's child's sexual abuse or other forms
Speaker 1: of sexual abuse, and the victims of villified sometimes and
Speaker 1: so good on you. Let's speak up about it. There
Speaker 1: shouldn't be any shame to it, and the only shame
Speaker 1: is on the people that perpetrate these.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely so. No, this mission has grown somewhat since
Speaker 2: that sexual assault, which is great.
Speaker 1: Interesting backstory. You got yourself. You're a police officer over
Speaker 1: in the I was.
Speaker 2: I joined in nineteen ninety four when I was twenty
Speaker 2: years old, so I served nearly eight years in West Yorkshire,
Speaker 2: yep in the north of England. So yeah, I think
Speaker 2: it's very much shaped who I am today those years
Speaker 2: in the police force.
Speaker 1: What made you want to join the place?
Speaker 2: Well, I grew up in a little mining town. I
Speaker 2: always had this dream to go to the city lights
Speaker 2: or explore the world. And I got a job in
Speaker 2: an insurance company and I just realized every single day
Speaker 2: the same faces on the train or looking miserable and
Speaker 2: I was like, is this people's lives forever? Just like
Speaker 2: nine to five. Anyway, I was sitting at my desk
Speaker 2: one day typing and my colleague was having this conversation
Speaker 2: on the phone and sounded really exciting, and she put
Speaker 2: the phone. I said, what was Actually all my sisters
Speaker 2: joined the police force and she's just been chasing some
Speaker 2: criminals through a car park. And I thought, oh, that
Speaker 2: sounds a lot more interesting than just tapping on a keyboard.
Speaker 2: So I thought, okay, I'll give them a call and
Speaker 2: perhaps I might join. And they said at the time
Speaker 2: that it was an eighteen month way. This I didn't
Speaker 2: tell anyone. Yeah, so I thought, if I don't get in,
Speaker 2: I don't want the shame of not being good enough.
Speaker 2: So I went on a waiting list for eighteen months.
Speaker 1: And yeah, got in. Okay, Well that's interesting because people
Speaker 1: listened to my podcast probably have heard me talk about
Speaker 1: why I joined the police. And I was having lunch
Speaker 1: from on the building site and I saw the cops
Speaker 1: chasing a bad guy and I thought, that looks like fun.
Speaker 1: So you didn't join for any noble reason. You joined
Speaker 1: because you thought it would be exciting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think I was ambitious, courageous, determined. I
Speaker 2: think all of those qualities and values I had within
Speaker 2: almost like came up to the surface and went, well,
Speaker 2: I'm not actually fulfilling that in this role in an
Speaker 2: insurance communist. I felt there's probably a lot of wasted
Speaker 2: qualities within me that could have been news elsewhere. And
Speaker 2: I thought, okay, I was quite like that, though, I'll
Speaker 2: give that a go. What's the worst that can happen is.
Speaker 1: You know, well, yeah, I find the founder a fascinating
Speaker 1: career and you see a side of life that most
Speaker 1: people don't get to get see. It comes with costs,
Speaker 1: as we all know anyone that spent a length of
Speaker 1: time in law enforcement. It comes with costs, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting things that occur as well. And
Speaker 1: job satisfaction. Yeah, you talk about going to the same
Speaker 1: office day in day out. That's what I loved about
Speaker 1: the cops. Never knew what you were going to do
Speaker 1: each day. You could day it could start day up boring,
Speaker 1: and that could be the most exhilarating, fascinating, or traumatic
Speaker 1: day you've ever experienced. You just didn't know.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what I loved about it. I
Speaker 2: think I hate that just mundane life, and I would
Speaker 2: wake up and go, God, I wonder what I'm going
Speaker 2: to face today. Sometimes it would be horrific. Other times
Speaker 2: it could be, you know, exhilarating. You could come home
Speaker 2: and go, I really change someone's life today. And I
Speaker 2: think for me, I was always in service to humanity
Speaker 2: in some way, shape or form, and that job just
Speaker 2: met completely with my values, just knowing that you could
Speaker 2: make a change. And I think this is why I've
Speaker 2: probably gone on to do what I've done with every
Speaker 2: experience in life, is like, how can I change that
Speaker 2: around into something good to serve the public. And I
Speaker 2: think the police did that very well.
Speaker 1: And I think regardless of why we join all why
Speaker 1: people join the police, if you do commit to that job,
Speaker 1: you do understand that there is a public service and
Speaker 1: there is a lot of good and it makes you
Speaker 1: feel good about yourself, like they're doing worker to make
Speaker 1: people's lives a little bit better. Yorctually, where you were
Speaker 1: a police officer described the area that you were stationed in.
Speaker 2: So for me, when I joined, I was looking that
Speaker 2: my cousin worked in the recruitment department, so she said,
Speaker 2: you can choose any division.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But again the character that I had, and I think,
Speaker 2: deep down, when I've really done the work and looked
Speaker 2: into this, I think I was I was trying to
Speaker 2: impress my dad, because my dad was a very harsh man.
Speaker 2: So it was like, if I just throw myself in
Speaker 2: at the deep end, then I'll get praise from him.
Speaker 2: I'll finally be seen, I'll finally be commended in some ways.
Speaker 2: So I thought, Okay, I said, to a choose me
Speaker 2: the most notorious crime ridden division, throw me in there. Well,
Speaker 2: as you would know, if you're a good officer in
Speaker 2: a terrible area, you can't you can't leave, you can't
Speaker 2: get down, get stuck there. So it was called killing back.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean it was. I mean it was
Speaker 2: eleven miles from where I grew up, but I couldn't believe.
Speaker 2: It was almost like a different world. I'm like, do
Speaker 2: people really exist like this? I think it was a
Speaker 2: shot sharp shock. Even though I grew up in what
Speaker 2: I now realize this was a pretty domestic violence home.
Speaker 2: Seeing that, and I was just gobsmacked and appalled at
Speaker 2: the generational cycles of abuse that were just continuing over
Speaker 2: and over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I would imagine in an area like that,
Speaker 1: majority of crime, probably the main crime is domestic violence,
Speaker 1: and that that type of thing in low socio economic areas,
Speaker 1: that's quite often, quite often the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was very low socio economic but
Speaker 2: your laugh because it was that bad that the scriptwriters
Speaker 2: from the Bill would come out and get stories.
Speaker 1: I love that show. Yeah. Well, I enjoyed the Bill,
Speaker 1: although it was so I found it so really sick.
Speaker 1: In part sometimes when I was just tired of police work,
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like watching the Bill because you could
Speaker 1: you felt like you understood all the characters in there,
Speaker 1: the nature of it.
Speaker 2: It was so real, and we had to jerk and said, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, if you can't remember the cash and just
Speaker 2: watch the bill and then you'll get reminded.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well that's right. I did a little bit
Speaker 1: of work over in London and various police stations over there,
Speaker 1: and it looked like the said of the Bill. It
Speaker 1: was felt very familiar with it. How did you feel
Speaker 1: the first like you go through the academy, how did
Speaker 1: you feel the first day that you went out in
Speaker 1: uniform and working as a police officer. Because you think
Speaker 1: you're ready for it, but it usually comes as a shock.
Speaker 1: Have you got any experiences that showed you how little
Speaker 1: you knew?
Speaker 2: I think I was just reading naive when I look back,
Speaker 2: and as I say, I had that strength within, but
Speaker 2: I'm not really caught up to the reality of life,
Speaker 2: almost like I was probably living in a little bubble.
Speaker 2: So I remember the first time on foot patrol. And
Speaker 2: you remember, back in the early nineties, like women wore
Speaker 2: skirts and colots, we wore stock in so you're like
Speaker 2: a proper lady. And it was my tutor dropped me off.
Speaker 2: He said, you know, do two hours, but you have
Speaker 2: to get so many tickets. And it's like, okay. I
Speaker 2: remember these two kids walking at the other side of
Speaker 2: the street and the shouts OI, and I'm thinking they
Speaker 2: can't be talking to me. Surely they won't speak to
Speaker 2: a police officer like that. So I carried on walking
Speaker 2: in there are you And I looked around and said,
Speaker 2: excuse me, come here, in that sort of like teacher voice.
Speaker 2: I said, who are you speaking to? And they're like
Speaker 2: ff or something like that. I said, where are your manners?
Speaker 2: You know you don't speak to me that same please,
Speaker 2: And I think in that moment I realized that like
Speaker 2: the world I've grown up and is not the world
Speaker 2: that I'm going to survive In the police force, it's
Speaker 2: like I have to you almost have to meet them
Speaker 2: at their level. So I had a lot of on
Speaker 2: doing to do a naivety to survive in that job.
Speaker 1: Did you do single unit patrols in those days? That's interesting,
Speaker 1: like we do have them over in this country, but
Speaker 1: it's very rare. That's a sharp learning experience because at
Speaker 1: least when I started, invariably you had a partner that
Speaker 1: you could rely on. It didn't take very long before
Speaker 1: you became the senior partner, but for the first couple
Speaker 1: of months you had a buddy that looked after you
Speaker 1: and pointed you in the right direction.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, when you think about it, even putting
Speaker 2: a female out on her own, it's pre ludicrous. I mean,
Speaker 2: I remember chasing a car by myself, and times when
Speaker 2: you called to a hostage situation, but they would usually
Speaker 2: say wait outside the address until somebody arrived. But of
Speaker 2: course if you're outside and address and you can hear
Speaker 2: commotion and then you're just sitting in a car helpless.
Speaker 2: But you know, we it was all downe to numbers.
Speaker 2: If you didn't have it. You had a certain amount
Speaker 2: of cars, six cars, and you had to fill them.
Speaker 1: Yep, you weren't armed as well, were you back back
Speaker 1: in those days. Now that seems like a foreign concept
Speaker 1: to someone from law enforcement in this country because we
Speaker 1: always had the firearmors the backup. But that would have
Speaker 1: let you felt fairly vulnerable, I would imagine in certain
Speaker 1: circumstances completely.
Speaker 2: I mean when you think when we joined out, we
Speaker 2: had was a little truncheon. Yeah, this long, that's it.
Speaker 2: There was no capsican spray, there was no side handle baton,
Speaker 2: there were the floppy handcuffs, so we were really exposed.
Speaker 2: But I remember when the first brought the capsican spray in,
Speaker 2: we finally felt that we all had something more than
Speaker 2: just because no one really I think you only use
Speaker 2: your truncheon to smash a window. But we never had
Speaker 2: issues with guns back then. Yes, it was always knives.
Speaker 2: So my philosophy was, well, if we've got a gun,
Speaker 2: they're going to try and outbeat us in some way.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, part of me thought if we
Speaker 2: had guns would have there been more gun crime in
Speaker 2: the UK.
Speaker 1: Perhaps I understand where you're coming from because I was
Speaker 1: amazed that you could do the policing that you did
Speaker 1: in London without the firearms. But does tend to escalate
Speaker 1: if you've got the firearm. Well, the bad guys have
Speaker 1: got the firearm, and then it keeps going that way.
Speaker 1: Did you have any scary experiences anywhere you genuinely feed
Speaker 1: for your safety.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there wasn't too much of that. Actually,
Speaker 2: it's probably the safest I felt in my whole life,
Speaker 2: in the sense that growing up with a volatile father.
Speaker 2: For the first time I was actually surrounded by some
Speaker 2: really safe, protective men, right, and I think for me
Speaker 2: that was extremely comforting. I remember the first time, probably
Speaker 2: the scariest time, when I first joined I went to
Speaker 2: this burglary and it was, as you know, when you
Speaker 2: would get a call. By the time we arrived, times
Speaker 2: elapsed and they've gone. But this time we were around
Speaker 2: the corner and my colleague said to me, you go
Speaker 2: wait at the front and I'm going to go inside,
Speaker 2: meaning I'll face the danger. You can just be the observer.
Speaker 2: So I'm stood there thinking, okay, well, what do I do?
Speaker 2: No word of a lie. It was a textbook robbery.
Speaker 2: He literally jumped through the front glass window with his
Speaker 2: swag bag, and I thought, what do I do now?
Speaker 2: Like my tutor's not here to give me direction, So
Speaker 2: I chased after him down the street. It was about
Speaker 2: six foot two. We had this little ponytail, so I
Speaker 2: grabbed hold of him, grabbed his ponytail, pulled him because
Speaker 2: obviously you got leverage with the hair, dragged him to
Speaker 2: the ground. I remember we were rolling and I'm just thinking,
Speaker 2: what the heck am I doing? Like, where's my colleague?
Speaker 2: And the area that you're in, nobody comes to save
Speaker 2: a police officer. In fact, they just look over and
Speaker 2: laugh at you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, when I eventually got up and I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: this job's fun. This is must be what you do
Speaker 2: every day. You get, you know, pretty naive. And this
Speaker 2: guy there was a warrant out for his arrest, and
Speaker 2: they're like, do you realize, Like I think I've got
Speaker 2: a braver accommodation for that. Do you realize what you've
Speaker 2: just done? I was like, oh, I just thought this
Speaker 2: happened every day.
Speaker 1: But they're the things, the situations that you find yourself in,
Speaker 1: and you know when you get through it. Sometimes I think,
Speaker 1: and we get paid for this because the excitement, the adrenaline,
Speaker 1: and I was drawn to that. I enjoyed that aspect
Speaker 1: of it. But it brings back memories like when you
Speaker 1: an alarm of breaking then and you might be on
Speaker 1: night shift and you're creeping, creeping around in the dark,
Speaker 1: not knowing what you're going to find. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: does leave impressions.
Speaker 2: I mean back in those days, it was when they
Speaker 2: used to take the ATMs out of the walls. You
Speaker 2: remember the used to be space.
Speaker 1: We had a spade of that. Then the two early
Speaker 1: two thousands and with.
Speaker 2: The trucks, and then I remember one guy, I think
Speaker 2: he was drunk. He had obviously come out of the
Speaker 2: pop and thought it was a good idea to go
Speaker 2: back in and take the safe and he had like
Speaker 2: a little shopping trolley and we caught him like pushing
Speaker 2: it down the street. Some mean, you have to laugh
Speaker 2: at those kind of.
Speaker 1: You've got to love love those moments. I still laugh
Speaker 1: very early in my career. And I think it went
Speaker 1: for about a kilometer and a half, chasing, chasing the
Speaker 1: naked man down the down the street at two o'clock,
Speaker 1: three o'clock in the morning, that we're looking out for
Speaker 1: the kidnapper that had been abducting or had abducted the child,
Speaker 1: chasing this naked man, thinking this is a kidnapper and
Speaker 1: helpful eather. I had an old sergeant with me at
Speaker 1: the time that wasn't really the type that was in
Speaker 1: a foot pursuit, so I'm ahead of him chasing this
Speaker 1: naked man. I still and then we're running up a
Speaker 1: hill and down streets and I remember, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to do it, but I thought he's getting away,
Speaker 1: getting away from me, and I've yelled that stop or
Speaker 1: I'll shoot. I wasn't going to shoot. I didn't have
Speaker 1: my firearm out, obviously, and he stopped at that moment,
Speaker 1: and I ran and grabbed him and wrestling with this
Speaker 1: naked man on the road. The sergeant I think I
Speaker 1: nearly killed him because he thought, who is this young
Speaker 1: idiot as in me saying stop or I'll shoot, So
Speaker 1: he sprinted up there he collapsed beside us. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's strange the circumstances that you find yourself in.
Speaker 2: And it's funny, isn't it how when you're in a conversation,
Speaker 2: how it actually invokes old memories. Yeah, because I have
Speaker 2: there's so much that I've forgotten. But when you start
Speaker 2: to have a conversation, and I remember chasing some kids
Speaker 2: because I was pretty fit back then, but you know,
Speaker 2: some of these little whipper snappers. You can't catch them, right,
Speaker 2: And I remember running, you know, and your feet are
Speaker 2: running faster than you and I literally fell over, like
Speaker 2: ripped all my tights and skin was hanging off my leg.
Speaker 2: And I remember this, all these kids just laughing at me.
Speaker 2: I thought, oh God, I hope I never ever see
Speaker 2: them again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's joys of placing. Did you get into
Speaker 1: the criminal investigation side of placing?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, as far as I got was in drugs.
Speaker 2: I went into the drugs team, which was.
Speaker 1: That like that would have been interesting times because drugs
Speaker 1: were being pretty prevalent as out now, but very much
Speaker 1: so in the in the nineties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very prevalent. I think the fun part of that
Speaker 2: was doing all the concerts, like I remember V ninety
Speaker 2: seven we did the Yeah we did. We were in
Speaker 2: plain clothes and I remember being told, look, we're not
Speaker 2: going to arrest for cannabis because there'll be that much
Speaker 2: of it unless it's a serious amount, but just take
Speaker 2: it off them and like we were walking around with
Speaker 2: pockets and pockets of weed, and yeah, it was it
Speaker 2: was fun. I think the downside to that was all
Speaker 2: the surveillance, and I just wanted to be in the
Speaker 2: heat of the moment. I wanted to be in the
Speaker 2: thick of it, on the front line, whereas there was
Speaker 2: hours and hours sitting in cars almost falling asleep, watching houses. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you say, vake memories. I think the countless
Speaker 1: times I've been seeing in the car at all hours
Speaker 1: of the day, night and sitting there trying to trying
Speaker 1: to stay awake and try not to miss anything, and
Speaker 1: being cold or hot or all the different different things.
Speaker 1: But yeah, well that's what you sign up for when
Speaker 1: you do policing. You worked child protection as well, so that.
Speaker 2: Was outside of the police, which has been interesting because
Speaker 2: I think I've always been driven towards understanding trauma, even
Speaker 2: though I didn't realize I was. So the child protection
Speaker 2: was in twenty four hour homes, and it was kids
Speaker 2: who had literally been passed through from parents to foster
Speaker 2: care to the point where they had nowhere to go.
Speaker 2: So I mean, these were heavily, heavily tromized children, and
Speaker 2: I struggled because there were kids who were hitting you,
Speaker 2: spitting at you, and I thought, in the police force
Speaker 2: we had powers to do something. And of course it
Speaker 2: was no fault of these children. However, the children were
Speaker 2: heavily protected and I was drowning in that job. I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, bosses would just turn a blind eye,
Speaker 2: and I think for me, there was a big part
Speaker 2: of my vulnerability was still quite exposed. I had that
Speaker 2: mother figure in me. I just wanted to help everyone.
Speaker 2: But again, when we talk about does that help you
Speaker 2: to survive in a home like that, that mother inside of
Speaker 2: me didn't.
Speaker 1: If you want to help everyone, then you jump deep
Speaker 1: enough into a dark area, you find that you just
Speaker 1: haven't got the capabilities of it. It's too much, too
Speaker 1: too much to deal with. What time you left the place?
Speaker 1: Why did you started to leave the place?
Speaker 2: I had a car accident.
Speaker 1: It was working.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it wasn't a choice. And that was a
Speaker 2: very dark time of my life because, as you know,
Speaker 2: you join a family and literally we would have back then,
Speaker 2: we had bars in police stations. I don't know whether
Speaker 2: you had those.
Speaker 1: Not officially, okay, so we deny their their allegation.
Speaker 2: So you had little secret underground bars, but we had
Speaker 2: proper bars. So if you were to say a two
Speaker 2: to ten shift, everybody would go up for one drink,
Speaker 2: we would debrief, we would connect, and we all relied
Speaker 2: on that as a sort of camarade and connection. So
Speaker 2: two thousand and one I had a car accident and
Speaker 2: I thought, I'll be fine, I'll just you know, get
Speaker 2: fitter and get back to the job. But back then
Speaker 2: they were like, we'd pay civilians a lower wage than you.
Speaker 2: Why'd we wait for you to get fit and be
Speaker 2: back on the job. So I was pensioned out and
Speaker 2: I went into quite a deep depression because, as you know,
Speaker 2: like suddenly whereas everyone I thought these were all my friends,
Speaker 2: and it was the lonely, scariest time. I mean, I
Speaker 2: was obviously in a lot of pain with my back,
Speaker 2: but everyone who I thought was my friends, or a
Speaker 2: lot of them, weren't they.
Speaker 1: It's funny because you join the police and as distinct
Speaker 1: from other careers, it's like you're part of a I
Speaker 1: don't know, a club or family. You call it a family.
Speaker 1: I think that's played out too much because once you've
Speaker 1: left that so called family, you realize it's not so
Speaker 1: much of a family. You have friends in there. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there is a saying there's nothing more X than an
Speaker 1: ex police officer. So it does impact on you because
Speaker 1: that's part of your identity when you're a police officer.
Speaker 1: I speak for myself, but I think it's generally accepted
Speaker 1: that that is part of your identity as a police officer.
Speaker 1: So when you leave, it's not unusual to be a
Speaker 1: little bit lost.
Speaker 2: Well it's like who am I? I mean, if you
Speaker 2: think a purpose, absolutely, and if you think about leaving
Speaker 2: a bank, you can go to another bank. Well you
Speaker 2: can't go to another police force. Yes, there's no role
Speaker 2: that they want to provide for me because they don't
Speaker 2: want to take on me and keep my wages as
Speaker 2: a civilian. So it's like, well I've got all these qualifications,
Speaker 2: but what am I actually qualified to do? So there
Speaker 2: was that period of where do I belong? But yeah,
Speaker 2: the losing the family was really tough for me because
Speaker 2: it was everything. I mean, you're literally when you're not
Speaker 2: at work, you've got a small amount of downtime. I
Speaker 2: was single, so I didn't have children in a family life,
Speaker 2: so they were everything to me.
Speaker 1: So I struggled well, because your work shift, work too
Speaker 1: odd hours and the type of things that you're doing,
Speaker 1: you do tend to socialize, especially if you're on night shift.
Speaker 1: You can't play with anyone during the day other than
Speaker 1: the other people that are on nightshift. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: can understand. I very much understand how it can be
Speaker 1: difficult when you leave and not buy your own own choosing.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about your upbringing there? I want to
Speaker 1: raise that where did you grow up before you found
Speaker 1: your way in policing. What was your childhood like? So?
Speaker 2: I grew up in a little mining town, so I
Speaker 2: went through the Minus strike. That was pretty tough.
Speaker 1: So this is for help us that live on the
Speaker 1: other side of the world. But Yorkshire is That's how
Speaker 1: I identify as a mining town.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of coal mining.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so a tough, hard, hard town. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I yeah, I was born in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 2: You know, in the eighties there was all the minor strikes.
Speaker 2: Luckily my dad didn't work in that field. He was
Speaker 2: a printer, so we weren't as affected.
Speaker 1: Could just stop you there, just on that aspect with
Speaker 1: the minor strikes, because I still have recollections of seeing
Speaker 1: the vision on the news. They were violent strikes, weren't
Speaker 1: they And the police were at the forefront of policing stuff,
Speaker 1: and there was some real violence that played out and
Speaker 1: they oh.
Speaker 2: Terrible, and I mean, you know, there were people who
Speaker 2: wanted to go to work but stayed off, so they
Speaker 2: were the ones that were protesting. But there were some
Speaker 2: that had families that had to go to work, so
Speaker 2: they used to call them scabs and they were like
Speaker 2: throw things at the bus because the bus would have
Speaker 2: to go through, you know, the protesters through the picket line,
Speaker 2: and you know, I think we'd never see place with
Speaker 2: the you know, the shields, and I mean, this is
Speaker 2: just at the end of my road. It was really confronting,
Speaker 2: and I remember kids at school had no money, no clothes.
Speaker 2: It was a really tough period of time in that town.
Speaker 1: Your family, family environment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there was mom and dad and my sister
Speaker 2: who was fourteen months older. Look, it's hard to know
Speaker 2: what I remember and what I've gone back and rejigged
Speaker 2: all the memories through my healing, but look, it was
Speaker 2: very very controlling. Mom was terrified of my dad.
Speaker 1: Yeh.
Speaker 2: You know those kind of homes where it was your
Speaker 2: dad's coming home. That kind of like dad's coming home,
Speaker 2: we need to go and hide. When I was three
Speaker 2: years old, I was confronted with the first time I
Speaker 2: ever saw dad and mom almost in a fight when
Speaker 2: I ran to pull my dad off my mom. He
Speaker 2: was drunk. In fact, you know, the vision of that
Speaker 2: moment is so strong in my mind just goes to
Speaker 2: show how trauma embeds itself in you that I even
Speaker 2: remember what he was wearing. And I was this little
Speaker 2: three four year old, and I must have heard screams.
Speaker 2: So I jumped out of my bedroom and I jumped
Speaker 2: onto his bed, and I was his height, so I
Speaker 2: must have been small because he's only a small man.
Speaker 2: And I remember grabbing his shirt. So imagine he's wearing
Speaker 2: a button shirt like you and ripping it. And I
Speaker 2: remember they've seen the buttons flying off and screaming like,
Speaker 2: don't you hurt my mom? Leave my mom. Can you
Speaker 2: imagine as a three year old, that's her protector, her
Speaker 2: safe person, Suddenly he's not safe anymore. So I think
Speaker 2: that would have been a pivotal moment in my childhood
Speaker 2: to go, well, if he's not safe and he's not
Speaker 2: protecting us, it's now my job. And when I look
Speaker 2: at my journey into the police force, I was already trained. Gary.
Speaker 2: You know you think wow too. I mean, as a
Speaker 2: three year old to confront her father, no wonder. Every
Speaker 2: time I went into a domestic van situation, I said
Speaker 2: to my male colleague, I'll take the man, as we
Speaker 2: feel quite emotional now. And he said, well, why are
Speaker 2: you taking the man? I said, I can de escalate.
Speaker 2: I had no idea. It's because I'd already confronted danger
Speaker 2: many times over, so I think that path for me
Speaker 2: was always meant to open up. Now. That was my
Speaker 2: earliest memory. Everything else is quite foggy, but we were
Speaker 2: petrified of him, and even as a teenager, I remember
Speaker 2: standing up to him, which we rarely did because we
Speaker 2: knew what would happen, and he threw me against the
Speaker 2: wall in the house. I remember my head hitting sort
Speaker 2: of the hard artexts in wall and just being absolutely
Speaker 2: shocked to the core of how we went from not
Speaker 2: to ten in a split second.
Speaker 1: And I, as a teenager, yeah, it's not a not
Speaker 1: a good environment. There was something in prepping for the
Speaker 1: podcast I read that had been written about your childhood,
Speaker 1: not just really early FA's and then we'll talk about it.
Speaker 1: Caroline grew up in a home where love and violence
Speaker 1: live side by side. She witnessed emotional and physical abuse,
Speaker 1: control and fear, and she watched her mother suffer through
Speaker 1: all of it in silence. The silence became her inheritance
Speaker 1: talk us through that. What are we reflecting on there?
Speaker 2: So in twenty nineteen I went back to the UK
Speaker 2: and I went to see my mum's best friend of
Speaker 2: fifty years and I talked a little bit to her
Speaker 2: and I said, can you give me some indication because
Speaker 2: my mum had she was in dementia at that stage,
Speaker 2: quite quite late stages, Just to give me some indication
Speaker 2: of what my childhood was like. And she said, your
Speaker 2: mum used to come to work with chunks of hair
Speaker 2: pulled out. Well you know how hard it must take
Speaker 2: to yeah, and with and bruises. And she would always
Speaker 2: say I fell down the stairs. As we know now,
Speaker 2: you think chunks of hair pulled out is not conducive
Speaker 2: with falling down the stairs. So it started to give
Speaker 2: me this sort of picture of my childhood. Now, if
Speaker 2: mom didn't tell anyone, she was already born into that
Speaker 2: silence herself. So I felt my role was to keep
Speaker 2: mom happy. So if Mum was happy, she was almost
Speaker 2: the barometer of the home. If Mom's happy and Mom's
Speaker 2: safe makes we feel, then I'm safe. And I think
Speaker 2: that's how a lot of people grow up in childhood
Speaker 2: domestic violence is they become that parent figure to the parent,
Speaker 2: so they robbed of the childhood. So Mom's silence was
Speaker 2: passed on to me that we don't speak about abuse.
Speaker 2: We don't we make excuses that we protect the man,
Speaker 2: because if we don't protect the man, then the person
Speaker 2: who is in line for the punishment would have always
Speaker 2: been my mom.
Speaker 1: And how does that manifest itself in a child in
Speaker 1: a family home, Like you would be very mindful to
Speaker 1: not trigger anything in your father to say the violence escalades,
Speaker 1: and you're protecting your mother by staying silent and keeping
Speaker 1: the peace because your mother was the person that was
Speaker 1: going to be the brand of it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean I do remember even when she first
Speaker 2: started in the early stages of dementia, she was still
Speaker 2: able to verbalize, and I would always stick up for her.
Speaker 2: I remember hers pulling on one side and saying, do
Speaker 2: not stick up for me, because I copy it when
Speaker 2: I go home, So she was almost silencing me. So
Speaker 2: don't you say anything, don't protect me, because I'm going
Speaker 2: to be the punchbag. Right, So you see how this
Speaker 2: generational silence is passed on. So then in me, embreding
Speaker 2: me is what would happen if I was to speak
Speaker 2: my truth, and the consequences in me would always be
Speaker 2: what my father did. So even if I go out
Speaker 2: to the world to speak my truth, I've got this
Speaker 2: little voice going. Remember what happens when you speak up,
Speaker 2: which is the father figure. So you're almost in every
Speaker 2: situation fearing the father until you actually do the work
Speaker 2: to not be afraid of him, which I did to
Speaker 2: confront him and not be afraid of him anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm under stay where you're coming from, and it makes
Speaker 1: me quite sad when you're hearing you reflect on your
Speaker 1: life and the trauma that's passed on from your mother
Speaker 1: from that family environment, because whether you like it or not,
Speaker 1: you are a product of the environment in which you
Speaker 1: grow up. There's another passage that's been written in relation
Speaker 1: to yourself. And if I could read that out and
Speaker 1: then we can talk further about that. She was a
Speaker 1: good girl. She learned early that keeping the peace was
Speaker 1: safer than telling the truth, that being loved meant making
Speaker 1: herself small, and the detachment was worth the cost of
Speaker 1: her authenticity. She carried that blueprint into adulthood without knowing
Speaker 1: it was there. So that's exactly what you were talking about,
Speaker 1: that making yourself a small girl not going to upset it.
Speaker 2: So what happens is, I mean, we're all born authentic,
Speaker 2: we're bomb pure, we're born with our individual expression. Now
Speaker 2: what happens in the first several years of life is
Speaker 2: we start to trade the authenticity, which is our true selves,
Speaker 2: for attachments. So if there's disapproval, dismissal, you know, you're
Speaker 2: over sensitive, you're too much, you're too dramatic. All those
Speaker 2: labels we get told, they start to get imprinted. Well,
Speaker 2: if I'm too much of this and not enough of that,
Speaker 2: You're constantly trying to work out how can I get
Speaker 2: love from these two parents. And if they tell me
Speaker 2: I'm too dramatic, then I have to be quiet. If
Speaker 2: I'm too sensitive, you know, then I have to sort
Speaker 2: of tough en up. So you're constantly reassessing because you're
Speaker 2: wanting to keep this cord of attachment to the parents.
Speaker 2: So this is how we lose who we are for
Speaker 2: those first several years and become who we need to
Speaker 2: be to have love and belonging, because you think a
Speaker 2: child can't survive by itself, so.
Speaker 1: They need that sense of belonging and they need that nurturing.
Speaker 2: Protection because when you think about it, you're in survival
Speaker 2: for those first few years of your life. And you
Speaker 2: know when you talk about telling someone, I remember running
Speaker 2: to my grandma's house when Dad had done something to me.
Speaker 2: I was about nine years old, and back at that time,
Speaker 2: I was having incredible migraines nosebleeds. So something happened to
Speaker 2: me at nine that I'm not quite sure. I haven't
Speaker 2: sort of gone back and pulled out the memory, but
Speaker 2: I remember running to my grandma's, my paternal grandma, very
Speaker 2: protective of her golden boy Grandma Grandma, grandma Dad, and
Speaker 2: I explained what he did and just thought, finally I
Speaker 2: can just sit down and be held. And she just
Speaker 2: looked at me. She went, your dad wouldn't do that,
Speaker 2: and I thought wow. So of course in that moment,
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, I'm not believed and I've told the truth,
Speaker 2: and she's defending my father. So you see also this
Speaker 2: sort of You've got this father who was violent, he
Speaker 2: was volatile. His mother is basically saying my son could
Speaker 2: do no wrong. And the reasons she did that because
Speaker 2: she feels some sense of responsibility because she raised him.
Speaker 2: So she's also protecting herself by going no. So the
Speaker 2: sailence continues. I did speak up, I went for help,
Speaker 2: and I got told that didn't happen. So it's like,
Speaker 2: would I risk then speaking up again, because then I
Speaker 2: have to carry it and think, oh, well, I'm a
Speaker 2: bud girl. I may be exaggerated.
Speaker 1: I suggest Yorkshire would be similar in what I'm talking
Speaker 1: about here. In the communities that I worked and the
Speaker 1: communities I grew up in, like domestic violence. It was
Speaker 1: almost like, well, you don't talk about that, like you
Speaker 1: lived in a I grew up in a suburban street
Speaker 1: and there might be someone's you're always hearing things come
Speaker 1: from that house, and the response is, oh, that's just John,
Speaker 1: he gets cranky when he's had a drink. That type
Speaker 1: of type of commentary, and it was swept under the cup,
Speaker 1: but people wouldn't talk about. Yeah, we call it for
Speaker 1: what it is these days, it's domestic violence and coercive
Speaker 1: control and all the other labels that we've got for
Speaker 1: that type of behavior. But there was a generation and
Speaker 1: not that long ago where it was sort of accepted
Speaker 1: and we just don't talk about it. And that's a
Speaker 1: lot of life that women are born into when they're
Speaker 1: in a marriage. Do you think we've changed and progressed.
Speaker 2: I'd like to say yes, but when I look at
Speaker 2: the domestic violence rates and the amount of women being
Speaker 2: killed so far this year, I would say I think
Speaker 2: we've progressed in the sense that women are getting a
Speaker 2: voice and there's services for them to be heard. But
Speaker 2: I think we've got a long way to go when
Speaker 2: it comes to protecting women, for women to be believed.
Speaker 2: And I'll talk about it when I go into what
Speaker 2: happened to me, But I think the culture around domestic
Speaker 2: violence sexual assault is very much to blame the victim,
Speaker 2: and I think that's what needs to change, is to
Speaker 2: stop going what did she do and rather look at
Speaker 2: it was his choice, why did he do that? So
Speaker 2: I think we've got a long way to go with
Speaker 2: a justice system with I mean, Queensland's just cut the
Speaker 2: domestic bands funding by thirty odd million this week alone.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize ever. I thought if anything to be increased,
Speaker 1: it would be there.
Speaker 2: So the public are looking and going, you know, how
Speaker 2: can we be protected? How can women feel safe? And
Speaker 2: they're saying, well, we're taking the funding a way when
Speaker 2: you know four women have just been killed in four days. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I think I call it like we've got a
Speaker 2: ceiling level of there's only so far that we can
Speaker 2: go as the public. But we can do way more
Speaker 2: than what people imagine, which is to talk about it,
Speaker 2: to mates, to call their mates out. So I think
Speaker 2: let's not be so disheartened that change isn't happening immediately,
Speaker 2: but we can all make changes in our community.
Speaker 1: I think that I agree with you, and I think
Speaker 1: what you said mates need to call their mates here, Yes,
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, if men are the rule of the
Speaker 1: problem with domestic violence and the perpetrators of domestic violence,
Speaker 1: I suggest there's no one that commits domestic violence that
Speaker 1: someone doesn't know other than the victim, that the person's
Speaker 1: committing domestic violence. Yeah, we know there's people that you
Speaker 1: get that person looks a bit violent when you get
Speaker 1: get drunk. You can tell invariably because they're cowards. It
Speaker 1: doesn't happen out in the public because someone might call them.
Speaker 1: They wait till they get behind behind closed doors. But
Speaker 1: I think we need to change the narrative that it's
Speaker 1: just not on. And I was speaking to Hannah Clark's
Speaker 1: parents about and from Queensland. You know that the tragedy
Speaker 1: that befell their family with a violent person that set
Speaker 1: their daughter alight in their three grandchildren, and Hannah's father
Speaker 1: made I think a very telling point and he was
Speaker 1: a knock about played football and a really decent human being,
Speaker 1: and he was saying that when we're out at the
Speaker 1: pub with your mates and someone talks disrespectfully about their
Speaker 1: partner or whatever, and it could be as simple as
Speaker 1: the phone rings, it's just the wife. She's nagging me,
Speaker 1: she wants me to come home. We're going to start
Speaker 1: checking males. We've got to start checking each other on
Speaker 1: that type of behavior. Not to disrespect women and to
Speaker 1: call it for what it is, and domestic violence, it's
Speaker 1: just cowardly. I think all perpetrators of domestic violence should
Speaker 1: be put in the boxing ring with someone that can fight.
Speaker 1: See how they feeling being slapped around.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, I I got so much I could
Speaker 2: say about this, But on the makeship thing, I know
Speaker 2: it's even in the minds when the blokes are sort
Speaker 2: of like talking derogatory about women. And I remember saying
Speaker 2: to one guy, like, do you call each other out?
Speaker 2: And he said, no, it's it's not for us to
Speaker 2: do that. It's none of our business. And I said,
Speaker 2: but you have to make it your business. So I
Speaker 2: think that's the almost the mentality that needs to change
Speaker 2: is oh, well, he's a mate, but that part isn't
Speaker 2: my business. Well, if it's a may it is your business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, but I agree with you. But I
Speaker 1: also understand that that could be a response from a
Speaker 1: mile and that we don't like the deal with the
Speaker 1: hard issues. We'll talk about the football, and it's when
Speaker 1: blokes get together, ours life good and they could be
Speaker 1: going through a terrible time, and we don't like to
Speaker 1: talk about those issues. So maybe we've got to get
Speaker 1: it out there. And Okay, if someone is violent or
Speaker 1: someone's mistreating their partner as a mate, you should first
Speaker 1: of all ensure that doesn't occur, but find out what
Speaker 1: the root cause of the problem is. Why is this
Speaker 1: person doing this? And I'm sure we've just got to
Speaker 1: change it. You've been a police officer, you know we
Speaker 1: can't arrest our way out of the situations. Yeah. Yes,
Speaker 1: we can put more resources into domestic violence legislation that
Speaker 1: helps protect victims of domestic violence, but we've got to
Speaker 1: prevent it in the first place if we can. Rather
Speaker 1: than going hard through the courts and policing, we've got
Speaker 1: to work out why is it happening so often.
Speaker 2: Well, just going back to the whole matship thing, if
Speaker 2: you think about you made a really valid point. You said, Oh,
Speaker 2: we just want to say how's your day gone, and
Speaker 2: keep it quite surface level. We don't want to dip
Speaker 2: down into talking about emotions. Well, this is culture, Gary,
Speaker 2: this is men don't show their feelings. Men just tough
Speaker 2: en up. Well, this is what we wanting to change.
Speaker 2: And even if you think about suicide, how much you
Speaker 2: know material is out there in the media about mates
Speaker 2: need to check in with each other. So if you
Speaker 2: put suicide and domestic violence together, you're just checking in
Speaker 2: and saying how you go in Like you know, I've
Speaker 2: just noticed your wife's been on the phone, like you say,
Speaker 2: like how do you feel? So it doesn't matter what's
Speaker 2: going on behind closed doors with mental health DV. It's
Speaker 2: about really going beneath the surface and asking yourself a question.
Speaker 2: If I feel uncomfortable really going deep and asking in
Speaker 2: what's going on? What is it with me that I'm
Speaker 2: afraid to ask him the same question? Because we want
Speaker 2: everyone to talk, we want young boys to talk. We
Speaker 2: want to change that culture mentality around girls can't get
Speaker 2: angry and boys can't cry, which comes back to generations
Speaker 2: and generations ago that I feel we're still breaking free
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's how we're raised, that's how we do things.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't laugh because it is potentially at the core
Speaker 1: of the problem, isn't it, Because that's what we're taught
Speaker 1: not to, not to show emotions, bottle up the emotions,
Speaker 1: which I've got to say, I agree in part sometimes
Speaker 1: men need to step up and be men, but you've
Speaker 1: got to show a little bit of vulnerability too, that
Speaker 1: if you're struggling, reach out to a mate. That's what
Speaker 1: matship's meant to be about. And then for the girls,
Speaker 1: as you've described in your upbringing, and I like the
Speaker 1: way that you've described it because it's really given me
Speaker 1: a thought on an understanding of how this is occurring,
Speaker 1: that you've just grown up in the environment that I've
Speaker 1: got to be small. I can't upset. If I upset,
Speaker 1: there's going to be violence inflicted, not necessarily on me,
Speaker 1: but on someone else. So I'm not going to make waves.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of women that go through
Speaker 1: that you see, and you would have seen when you're
Speaker 1: a police officer, that the timid woman that you walk
Speaker 1: into a place and you know something terrible's happen, like
Speaker 1: there's been mystic violence, and the wife is sitting there,
Speaker 1: all the partners sitting there going now, it's all fine,
Speaker 1: It's all fine, and trying the day on play it
Speaker 1: not cause.
Speaker 2: Problems, and you've I think this is a really good
Speaker 2: subject to talk about. See if I can just rewind
Speaker 2: and talk about how I ended up sort of being
Speaker 2: bullied at school and in relationships that also kept me
Speaker 2: small is because it's almost like there was a computer
Speaker 2: program running so that first several years, you know, the protector,
Speaker 2: the safe person, the dad was everything but that and
Speaker 2: then I learned to play small, stay quiet, don't upset him.
Speaker 2: So of course I get bullied at school because what
Speaker 2: happens is you can't outlive the pattern. The pattern had
Speaker 2: already been stitched into me about how to show up,
Speaker 2: never ever cause conflict, don't stick up for yourself because
Speaker 2: I said to you earlier. When I did, Dad threw
Speaker 2: me against a wall, so that was in me. Don't
Speaker 2: ever face someone and be courageous and speak out, because
Speaker 2: you're going to get thrown against a wall. So all
Speaker 2: throughout high school I got bullied by someone smaller than me.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't about a size. It was about what
Speaker 2: I've been trained. Just keep walking, it'll stop, just keep walking.
Speaker 2: And she was kicking me like for twenty minutes all
Speaker 2: the way home, and I was like crying on the inside.
Speaker 2: Bradette turned around to her because I saw what happened
Speaker 2: when my mom did or I did. So then you
Speaker 2: go on and then you wonder why all these women
Speaker 2: end up in relationships where they're being controlled. There's a
Speaker 2: bully because they've learned early on. They haven't outlived the pattern.
Speaker 2: They're still trying to outrun their father. But you're running
Speaker 2: into exactly the same four walls a because it's familiar.
Speaker 2: Oh well, at least unconsciously, I know what to expect.
Speaker 2: I've been here many times before. So when people ask
Speaker 2: how do you end up in the same domestic violence homes?
Speaker 2: They don't intentionally walk there, but the first time someone
Speaker 2: raises a hand or they cower down and go and
Speaker 2: know how to keep safe because I've done it many
Speaker 2: times over.
Speaker 1: Well, you're talking about something that the question is quite
Speaker 1: often asked, where someone's being a victim of domestic violence
Speaker 1: and they go straight from that relationship into another relationship
Speaker 1: with another perpetrator of domestic violence. And you see it
Speaker 1: time and time again. But the explanation you gave there
Speaker 1: might add some light to it. Well.
Speaker 2: I also think this is where police, possibly in first responders,
Speaker 2: would really benefit from being trauma trained, because you know,
Speaker 2: you have trauma bonds and it's just the familiarity. And
Speaker 2: there's a saying that you marry the person you've got
Speaker 2: the most psychological wounding with. So let's go again look
Speaker 2: at my father so that people can understand. So I'm
Speaker 2: going to keep meeting versions of him. I mean, luckly
Speaker 2: I never ended up in a violent relationship. I were
Speaker 2: in a lot of manipulative, yes, relationships that I didn't understand.
Speaker 2: I mean back in the day in the police force.
Speaker 2: No one talked about cohesive control. It was only ever
Speaker 2: if they've got a bruise, there's evidence. So as we
Speaker 2: know now, the evidence and evidence isn't necessarily a bruise.
Speaker 2: So you marry the person that you've got the most
Speaker 2: wounding with more and more, dad, So you're going to
Speaker 2: keep meeting versions. And I think when people really understand that, oh,
Speaker 2: perhaps I've just I'm back in a relationship with my
Speaker 2: father because I need to heal that relationship with him psychologically.
Speaker 1: It's deep, very deep. But yeah, I understand what you're saying,
Speaker 1: and that does make sense. Yeah, because continues.
Speaker 2: Because if I have to be honest in the police force,
Speaker 2: I would take a statement. There'd be a woman who
Speaker 2: had been beaten up, and I knew the chances that
Speaker 2: she'd revoke the statement. You've been there, right, and the
Speaker 2: chances were so high. Honestly, I hate to say this now,
Speaker 2: but I used to feel frustrated. Oh my god, she's
Speaker 2: pulled out, you know, look at her. We know it's
Speaker 2: going to happen. So from a bystanders perspective, we can
Speaker 2: see exactly what's going to play out, right, and it's
Speaker 2: just going the cycle is going to keep on continuing.
Speaker 2: Now I know the trauma side of it. I've got
Speaker 2: the utmost compassion for these women. Now, if people don't
Speaker 2: understand why she goes back, this is again the woman
Speaker 2: gets judged. How can she be so stupid? She knows
Speaker 2: what's going to happen. It's way more complicated than that
Speaker 2: when you're adding the trauma, the trauma bonds, the psychological wounding.
Speaker 2: So if only police and first responders knew what was
Speaker 2: deeply going on under the surface, we could have more
Speaker 2: compassion for or say to these women. Have you ever
Speaker 2: heard about a trauma bond? This is why you keep
Speaker 2: going back? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think education along those lines would be beneficial because
Speaker 1: it almost becomes you, well, they've done it again, And
Speaker 1: I can see where you lose the compassion if someone's
Speaker 1: gone from this relationship into the next one and the
Speaker 1: next one. And if you're staying policing long enough in
Speaker 1: the same area, you just see the pet neighboring. Hi, Mary,
Speaker 1: how are you another partner? You've got to choose a
Speaker 1: better partner, but they keep going back to the same type.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're not choosing a partner from a conscious mind.
Speaker 2: You're choosing it from what you've known from childhood. And
Speaker 2: this is the Oh, you have to choose a better partner.
Speaker 2: Whereas the partners find each other because we're here. We're
Speaker 2: just here to evolve and learn, and every relationship's a lesson.
Speaker 2: But if we roll our eyes and go, oh, there
Speaker 2: she goes again.
Speaker 1: The education for people, whether it's through school, is a
Speaker 1: responsibility of schools. Do you think we can do something
Speaker 1: more in the education space, because, as you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of children that they're not growing up in
Speaker 1: healthy environments and so they're callding that world. As much
Speaker 1: as we try to protect them with the services that
Speaker 1: we provide for children at risk, invariably it's an unhappy
Speaker 1: childhood filled with trauma. How can we break the cycle?
Speaker 1: What's your thoughts on breaking the cycle?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it takes a village. So I think
Speaker 2: there's no one answer, And I think it's unfair to
Speaker 2: put the responsibility on the schools because it's like you
Speaker 2: plant a seed in the ground and it grows in
Speaker 2: that environment. That's the whole and it needs to nourish
Speaker 2: and flourish in there. But if parents are raising children
Speaker 2: and they haven't looked at their own blueprint and their
Speaker 2: own past and their own say, violent background. It just regurgitates.
Speaker 2: And again, it's not something that's conscious, it's unconsciously passed on.
Speaker 2: So for instance, I've got four sons, So I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: I've been gifted four sons because I've been asked to
Speaker 2: break the generational cycle of male abuse. How wonderful that
Speaker 2: I was given four sons. So I go, okay, if
Speaker 2: I've got an opportunity, now, how do I want to
Speaker 2: raise those boys differently? Now that takes a lot of awareness,
Speaker 2: It takes a lot of self introspection, and it takes
Speaker 2: a lot of casting yourself aside and going what does
Speaker 2: their future look like? Okay? And I'm programmed in them
Speaker 2: every single day. So it's the family home. It says
Speaker 2: all looking at where did we come from? How has
Speaker 2: it affected us? And you know, anyone who's been in
Speaker 2: a violent home, it has to with all carrying trauma.
Speaker 2: So we can't go, oh gosh, yeah, my dad was
Speaker 2: an Alcohl hollick and my mum just sat and boxed
Speaker 2: her self in and played small. But I'm absolutely fine. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, no, So I think it's it's been that's
Speaker 2: the courage, and we talk about vulnerability is the superpower.
Speaker 2: So the way I raise my sons is to say,
Speaker 2: show your emotions, but take responsibility from them, not be
Speaker 2: a victim of poor me. So there's a fine line
Speaker 2: between I feel sad, I feel angry, I feel hurt.
Speaker 2: It's my responsibility then to unpack that and let it
Speaker 2: be a superpower rather than a failure for boys and
Speaker 2: young men. So I think it's it's actually so looking
Speaker 2: at our stuff changing the next generation, and I think
Speaker 2: their school education is around consent is huge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's another topical issue, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, consent, and I think accountability. I mean, we'll talk
Speaker 2: about the justice system, but unless someone owns what they've done,
Speaker 2: that I take ownership for it, and then how do
Speaker 2: you repair it? Which is what I always did with
Speaker 2: the boys when they scuffled. It's okay saying sorry. You
Speaker 2: know I could go sorry and you know full well,
Speaker 2: it's just sorry. It's just a word, right, So how
Speaker 2: do we teach children to own it and say it
Speaker 2: was a mistake. As my youngest goes, it's just a
Speaker 2: beautiful little accident. So not punishing children for their errors
Speaker 2: because if you punish for your errors, how you're ever
Speaker 2: going to own it? Then so and then repair if
Speaker 2: you've it's make amends. If you've messed up, go to
Speaker 2: that person, I'm sorry. What can I do to make
Speaker 2: it better? How can I can I mend that? Because
Speaker 2: all these prisoners are in prison, if they don't take
Speaker 2: accountability for anything, they're just then thrown back out onto
Speaker 2: the street and regurgitate what they went in there for.
Speaker 1: Well, accountability is a big thing, and I worry in
Speaker 1: today's society if you're talking the woke society at the
Speaker 1: extreme and that you know there's good aspects of it,
Speaker 1: there's bad aspects like any views, but we need accountability.
Speaker 1: I am worried that I see a generation of people
Speaker 1: that have never had to accept setbacks. They're rewarded, like
Speaker 1: I think it was a good lesson in life when
Speaker 1: you went in your first swimming carnival and you came last,
Speaker 1: or the kid that put in more effort came first.
Speaker 1: But we don't have that. It's encourage that there's no
Speaker 1: responsibility for your actions. Accountability. I'd like to see more
Speaker 1: accountability as you just describe the story there if someone's
Speaker 1: done something wrong, yeah, I know I did something wrong,
Speaker 1: but why you explained to me why you did, why
Speaker 1: you did that and the impact it had on people
Speaker 1: and get them to understand that. I worry that we're
Speaker 1: not teaching those skills with the generation the kids growing up. Now,
Speaker 1: what's your thoughts there?
Speaker 2: And it's interesting to say about teaching My model is
Speaker 2: being okay. So imagine you're my son in the home
Speaker 2: and I mess up, I say I didn't do that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So how can we teach it if we're not being
Speaker 2: it ourselves? And this is what I say to my
Speaker 2: clients is it's your state of being. So I'm always
Speaker 2: watching if I mess up. This is a beautiful opportunity
Speaker 2: to show the children that I'm human, yes, and that
Speaker 2: I can say, oh gosh, mum's made a mistake. But
Speaker 2: this is what I do with it. And I loved
Speaker 2: what you said when you said the impact, I mean
Speaker 2: you put this into Imagine reading a victim impact statement out,
Speaker 2: You're showing the offender the effect it's had on you.
Speaker 2: So imagine if that's what we did. It's not about
Speaker 2: necessary behavior, it's how it made me feel. So if
Speaker 2: we could start to have those conversations with our children,
Speaker 2: but owning it and not deflecting. And I see it
Speaker 2: all the time in parents going I didn't do that,
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, if you if that's
Speaker 2: what you're modeling, how is your child ever gonna look
Speaker 2: and go, oh, I know what to do now when
Speaker 2: I make a mistake, I'll just deny it because that's
Speaker 2: what mom and dad does.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you know, you sort of touch into restorative justice,
Speaker 1: and I think that's such a big thing too, like
Speaker 1: people taking accountability and understanding the impact that their crimes
Speaker 1: or their actions have had. And I taught crimes it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be a crime, the impact your action
Speaker 1: has had on that someone.
Speaker 2: And I think the question I would ask, and it
Speaker 2: would be the same of my sexual offender, would be
Speaker 2: what happened to you? What's your memory of the response
Speaker 2: you got when you owned up to something? And it
Speaker 2: might be you know, and I come here from absolute compassion,
Speaker 2: I've got a beating. Yeah, So again we go back
Speaker 2: to childhood trauma. I always bring it back to that,
Speaker 2: like if they've got a memory of something dreadful and
Speaker 2: devastating happened when they said I did that, Yeah, then
Speaker 2: there's a part of them going, don't you ever own
Speaker 2: up to anything again, because you'll get a beating. So
Speaker 2: it comes back to parenting, not that punitive disciplinarian. It's
Speaker 2: sitting down and going you're human. Well, we will make mistakes,
Speaker 2: but it's what we do with the mistake. How do
Speaker 2: we repair it, how do we look at the impact,
Speaker 2: and how do we change our behavior?
Speaker 1: Some interesting stuff. We could talk for hours about it.
Speaker 1: Prior to you coming on the podcast, we had a
Speaker 1: conversation and I raised with you if you're happy to
Speaker 1: talk about it. But you were sexually assaulted and you
Speaker 1: alluded to it at the start of the start of
Speaker 1: the podcast. Are you happy to talk about the circumstances
Speaker 1: of what happened?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure. So I had a really bad back, which
Speaker 2: I've had since the police force, and I when I
Speaker 2: was recommended a massage therapist. I try cairapractice, various other things,
Speaker 2: and when you're in pain, you'll do anything to quell that.
Speaker 2: So it was the fourth massage with this particular person.
Speaker 2: And you know, at first I thought, oh, a man,
Speaker 2: and my friend said, no, he's got the safest hand
Speaker 2: and amazing, How again, you go on recommendation and you're like,
Speaker 2: if someone who I trust has said that he's safe,
Speaker 2: then I'll go with that. And yeah, it was the
Speaker 2: fourth massage and I was lying there and you can imagine,
Speaker 2: I mean We're probably three quarters of the way through.
Speaker 2: I mean I'm on my back, fully relaxed, eyes closed.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're almost in a unconscious state. I just
Speaker 2: remember thinking, what the heck is that sensation? And it's again,
Speaker 2: I feel like time just slows down. And you would
Speaker 2: know this from the police force. When something happens, you
Speaker 2: feel like it takes you an eternity to react, like
Speaker 2: what the heck is that sensation? And then I realized
Speaker 2: I was doing that. Like this, this whole feeling came
Speaker 2: over my body of surely not, surely not, and then
Speaker 2: this panic and this panic, and it was like this
Speaker 2: little tiny part of me was going no, no, no,
Speaker 2: stop stop stop. And it was a child like a
Speaker 2: child like cry. And it was this feeling of how
Speaker 2: can I be crying and screaming so loudly but nothing
Speaker 2: is coming out. It's like it was the noise was
Speaker 2: bouncing off my rips. My whole body went limp. And
Speaker 2: I would say that it felt like there was a disassociation,
Speaker 2: but also a part of me just thinking when's it
Speaker 2: going to stop? When's it going to stop? Interestingly enough,
Speaker 2: at the time, I was watching a Netflix show about
Speaker 2: a backpacker from the UK that went on a tinder day.
Speaker 2: She never made it out of his hotel room. It
Speaker 2: was so fascinating. I'd watched that the night before. Now
Speaker 2: bearing in mine, I'm in a darkened room on a
Speaker 2: massage table in his home. Nobody knew I was there.
Speaker 2: So when we think about survival instincts, part of my
Speaker 2: mind would have been going, am I going to get
Speaker 2: out of here alive? But what I couldn't understand Gary,
Speaker 2: And this is what I rappled with. If I could
Speaker 2: take men down in the street, if someone grabs me
Speaker 2: in Ali, I would fight back. This two parts of
Speaker 2: me going what the heck happened? That put me into
Speaker 2: such a limp stay that I not only couldn't fight him,
Speaker 2: I can't even speak. And that's what left me with
Speaker 2: so much shame, guilt, humiliation of not being able to
Speaker 2: understand why can't protect myself?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I understand what you're saying there, And people
Speaker 1: might say, well, why didn't you tell him to stop
Speaker 1: that type of narrative. But I've had a conversation with
Speaker 1: you and understand exactly why that didn't take place. But
Speaker 1: here you are beating up yourself going why didn't I
Speaker 1: do Why didn't I do this? Why didn't I do that? So,
Speaker 1: and I want to talk about the freeze response, and
Speaker 1: I want to talk about it in detail and will
Speaker 1: unpack that in part two. But when that happened to you,
Speaker 1: and the importance of sitting down speaking to you before
Speaker 1: we go straight to that in the podcast, I wanted
Speaker 1: people just to understand what the confident woman that you
Speaker 1: are and that you've gone through this situation. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us and we'll talk about how you got justice
Speaker 1: for what happened, how you process what happened, and how
Speaker 1: it's virtually changed your life or given you a direction
Speaker 1: in life. But after it happened, you've walked out what
Speaker 1: was going through your mind.
Speaker 2: So firstly was let me just get out of here. Now.
Speaker 2: Usually when you get changed after a massage, you're left
Speaker 2: in the room by yourself. The person will say call
Speaker 2: me when you're ready. So my clothes were near the door,
Speaker 2: thankfully because that was my exit room, and probably ten
Speaker 2: seconds after I went to get dressed, he walked behind me.
Speaker 2: I thought it was going to hit me over the head.
Speaker 2: I could feel him. It was probably, you know, between
Speaker 2: you and I away watching me. So part of me
Speaker 2: is just get the hell out of here. So I
Speaker 2: got dressed and I sort of turned my head where
Speaker 2: I couldn't look at him in the eye. I was
Speaker 2: so so utterly disgusted and betrayed. And I said to him,
Speaker 2: do you do this to all the women? That's all
Speaker 2: I could say. And he said, no, just to you,
Speaker 2: because I've got a crush on you. So of course
Speaker 2: you leave and then you start to and this is
Speaker 2: the head mess. Oh he had a crush on me,
Speaker 2: does It's almost like that makes it okay. So part
Speaker 2: of you that wants to internalize it, Oh, well he's
Speaker 2: thirty four, I'm fifty one. Oh maybe I should be flattered.
Speaker 2: So I get in the can all of these things,
Speaker 2: because guess what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: dilute it so it's not so much of a big deal,
Speaker 2: so I can push it under the carpet, you know,
Speaker 2: and then I don't have to unpack it, I don't
Speaker 2: have to face it. So I got in the car
Speaker 2: and I remember just driving home thinking what the heck, crying,
Speaker 2: I would walk over broken glass for my four sons.
Speaker 2: I took men down in the street, like beating myself up, like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, you know you're weak, you'repathetic, Like why
Speaker 2: can't you speak? People are going to think you want
Speaker 2: to what are you going to say to? Are you
Speaker 2: going to say anything at all? And I got home.
Speaker 2: I remember going into my bedroom and just bursting into tears,
Speaker 2: going what the heck do I do with this?
Speaker 1: Now? Well, all those questions that you were asking of yourself,
Speaker 1: that's where, yeah, perpetrators get away with things because they
Speaker 1: put the shame on yourself. So I'm sorry that you
Speaker 1: went through that. I appreciate you talking about it and
Speaker 1: being open and honest about all the things that are
Speaker 1: going through your head when you've experienced something like that.
Speaker 1: We'll take a break now, if that's okay, And when
Speaker 1: we get back, I want to really have a deep
Speaker 1: dive into the freeze response because I think people need
Speaker 1: to understand that. And you've said that this is something
Speaker 1: that the court police don't understand. Why the public juries
Speaker 1: people just don't understand. I think the explanation that you
Speaker 1: give for it and the way that you describe it
Speaker 1: is worthwhile people are understanding because the and I'm playing
Speaker 1: devil's advocate here, the response from people would be, well,
Speaker 1: why didn't you tell him to stop? Why didn't you
Speaker 1: do this? Why didn't you do that? It's not that simple,
Speaker 1: is it.
Speaker 2: It's not simple at all. And I think unless we
Speaker 2: educate the public, the silence is going to continue from
Speaker 2: the victim and the bystanders are always going to be
Speaker 2: blaming the survivor, and we need to flip that around.
Speaker 2: So I think talking about why the body does really
Speaker 2: does will not only help survivors to be compassionate with themselves,
Speaker 2: to take the blame away, and to educate the public
Speaker 2: on how to have a conversation with a survivor that
Speaker 2: doesn't involve judgment, yes, and doesn't involve questioning like an interrogation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, important things. Let's have a break and when
Speaker 1: we come back in part two we'll talk about that
Speaker 1: and also talk about the important work that you're doing
Speaker 1: as well. Thank you, Jess, mm hm