CONTENT WARNING: This article contains descriptions of psychological, physical and sexual violence, as well as references to suicide. Helplines can be found at the bottom of the page.
A woman who complained to police about being stalked by her ex-husband only discovered Corrections had allowed him to travel near her hometown when she found a threatening message stashed in her letterbox.
The hand-delivered envelope contained magazine cutouts of words such as “murder”, “kill” and “nightmare” along with photos of spades in dirt.
“At first I was like, ‘What is this? Is this mail that I’ve missed?’ I sort of looked at it, then I saw the words and my hands started shaking,” said Emma, whose name has been changed to protect her safety.
Corrections has apologised to Emma after failing to notify her about her ex’s plan to travel in the area. He was sentenced to prison for breach of a protection order and abuse of a child.
Emma wrote in a letter to government ministers and advocacy groups that she shouldn’t have found out her ex had been granted permission to travel for her district “after threatening material appears in my letter box”.
Emma was in a relationship with her ex for several years, and said it was marred by abuse from early on. She told the Herald she vividly remembers the first time he physically attacked her.
“I don’t think I’ve lost any sight of that memory. It has really stuck with me,” she said. “I guess it’s probably the ... basis of my fear of him because I know exactly how far he can go and how strong he is.”
The pair were having an argument and he would not let her leave, she said.
Eventually she fled outside and hid in a shed, hoping he would go to bed or leave the house.
After 20 minutes in hiding, Emma ventured back inside, only to discover her partner was hiding behind the back door.
“He pinned me up by my neck, and he’s choking me, and as I’m struggling to breathe I can feel the constriction against my Adam’s apple and I think I’m going to die,” she said. “He’s like, ‘If you ever do that to me again, I’m going to kill you.’”
While much of the abuse after that was emotional or psychological, Emma said there were still instances of physical attacks to remind her of the threat he posed to her safety.
One such incident happened when she was holding her week-old baby at home, she said.
Emma said they had argued about finances, and her partner, who was holding a freshly brewed takeaway coffee, threw the drink over Emma and the newborn.
“In these moments, there are little things that stick out. You just don’t forget the look of the coffee streaming down the kitchen window, or the fact that you’re holding this just over a week-old baby and ... you’ve had boiling hot coffee thrown at you.”
Thankfully, the baby was swaddled at the time and Emma was able to shield the child from the burning hot liquid, but said she suffered some “pretty horrific burns” herself.
Over the course of the relationship, Emma said, her partner would pressure and control her, questioning her when she spoke to men, pushing her to quit breastfeeding and switch to bottle feeding, and coercing her into postpartum sex, saying it was her “biblical duty”.
“Over time, I learned not to look up when out in public together, in case I was accused of having eyes for someone else. To this day, I remain acutely aware of how I look at or talk to men,” she said.
She also alleged he sexually abused her, which she often endured in silence to avoid waking children.
Things did not improve after the pair broke up. He would drive past or sit across the road from her house, sending messages asking about who was visiting her and why, she said.
Her ex would also show up at places Emma went, like the supermarket or park, and appeared to be tracking her movements.
“Once he messaged asking if I ‘really needed that second coffee today’, revealing he knew I had visited a coffee cart earlier and returned for another.”
In April last year, he appeared in a central North Island court for sentencing on multiple charges of breaching a protection order and assault on a child.
Sentencing notes showed he had broken into Emma’s house about 2am one day, appearing in her bedroom as she slept next to a child.
“I just heard my name being called and I woke up and he was there with a backpack on and a hoodie on,” she told the Herald. “I kind of froze, I didn’t know what to do.
“I had concerns about what he had on him or what his frame of mind was in that moment.”
She described that incident as the most “terrifying hour of my relationship with him” as she tried to convince him to leave while avoiding waking up the child. He eventually did, but Emma said she did not sleep for the rest of the night.
The sentencing notes also referred to an incident where the man had punished a child for a tantrum by holding their doll over an open flame until it turned black.
A Family Court judge had commented once that the doll was symbolic of Emma, who had gifted it to the child not long before, she said.
He was eventually sentenced to 22 months in prison, and after his sentence moved to a town more than five hours away from Emma.
But even that distance was not enough after she found a threatening envelope wedged between other pieces of mail in her letterbox.
“I don’t think I slept properly for 10 days,” she said, adding that she has increased home security and adopted a police dog that hadn’t made the cut to join the force.
“I don’t want to be one of those statistics,” she said.
The man was allowed to travel to the area twice because he was given temporary approval to enter the “exclusion zone” while supervised by a third party to collect some personal belongings, Corrections told the Herald.
In cases such as these, Corrections arranged for registered victims to be notified, but this did not happen in this case, spokeswoman Victoria Burgers said.
“On these occasions, a staff member did not follow the correct process, including sign-off and victim notification on both occasions. We acknowledge how important it is for victims to be informed if an offender will be temporarily allowed to enter an exclusion zone and sincerely apologise for not notifying the victim in this case.
“It is important to Corrections that our actions don’t cause further distress to victims, and we will be issuing a reminder to staff about the importance of always following victim notification processes. We will also reach out to the victim and apologise for this oversight.”
Emma said she was disappointed and that it was “not good enough” that the mistake had happened.
Police confirmed they’d received a report of an envelope containing newspaper clippings left in a letterbox.
“While no evidence was located to confirm who placed the envelope there, police are currently reviewing the matter and speaking to relevant parties,” Inspector Phil Ward said.
Emma said she was told the envelope had since been destroyed prematurely by police.
Police said it was photographed then disposed of because it was deemed to have little further evidential value, but Emma said it was supposed to be sent away for fingerprint analysis.
Family violence educator Debbs Murray said the lethal risk attached to coercive control needed to be recognised. It included acts of non-physical violence that created a risk of suicide, homicide-suicide, and familicide.
“This isn’t myth, this is a reality in Aotearoa New Zealand, and every single homicide and suicide is preventable with the right tools and knowledge,” said Murray, who founded Eclipse Family Violence Services.
Often abusers would use the courts to continue to hold levels of control over victims, for example through custody battles.
“This can continue years after a primary victim has escaped abuse.”
Coercive and controlling behaviour was clearly defined in the Family Violence Act, but there was no legislation criminalising coercive control, Murray said.
“Intentionally and deliberately taking away someone’s identity, autonomy, and agency of self, until they live in fear of even breathing too loud – this is called entrapment, and it is debilitating."
She said victims were not hopeless and helpless, but many reached a point where they had “nothing left in the tank to continue the fight”, which could at times drive people to suicide, “which is why it is so important that we recognise suicidal ideation and suicide as a very real consequence of family violence, so no more voices are lost.”
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 12 years.