Nausea Inducing News - Issue 1

Whilst today offers a wealth of possible winners for the NIN award (the cost of the Pope's visit to the UK, the appalling way that some humans treat animals, or the ongoing erasure of rights, decency and diversity in France), I'm going to start with something close to my heart: the disgusting way that people with histories of mental health problems are treated in this country.

This story about police refusing to believe that a woman had been seriously sexually assaulted in her own home twice, because of her history of mental health problems, makes me feel physically sick as well as making my blood boil. I wish I could say that I cannot believe that it took her family and GP to intervene before the investigation was carried out properly, but unfortunately I can believe it. I'm actually more surprised that the GP actually weighed in on her side; I don't think ours would do the same.

I'm also pleased that this woman has family who will go into battle for her; so many people with complex mental health histories either do not have families who would be prepared to fight for them, or their families do not have the resources or social capital to take this kind of action. And it often is a fight; if you love a person with history of mental health problems, you become discountable by association. That this woman's family has been able to get notices served to 11 officers in relation to their conduct in this case is impressive. I wish that were not something to be impressed about.

I cannot begin to imagine how it must have felt for this woman to be assaulted in such a manner and have the sense of safety in her own home destroyed. To then be told by police that you must be lying because, well, you're mad, just compounds the damage. Can you imagine being dismissed about something so serious, despite the physical evidence that you can provide? Can you imagine having something in your history or from a completely irrelevant part of your life used to prove you can never be believed? Can you imagine what that would do to your sense of your own perception of the world? Can you imagine how worthless that could make you feel? Don't you think that that might make any mental health problems so much worse?

I hope whoever she is and wherever she is, the eventual conviction of her attacker and this IPCC ruling might have gone some way to helping her heal. And I wish her peace and safety.

And, Essex Police, you are the winners of today's Nausea Inducing News Award. The word despicable does not begin to cover what you've done.