Here is a testimony from a woman with significant mental health problems who received a CPW on the basis of false allegations. This shows how councils and police are taking minimal care in their use of CPNs against people with mental health problems, in spite of advice in the guidance that CPNs should not be used against vulnerable groups. It also shows how the CPN can function as a sort of ‘black mark’, encouraging others to target that person with harassment and further allegations. Such CPW interventions worsen neighbour relations, as well as substantially worsen the situation of the CPN recipient. Read the lady’s testimony below….
I was recently issued with a Community Protection Warning as a result of my neighbours making false allegations against me. I suffer from PTSD and severe depression, anxiety, and I have regular suicidal thoughts.
When I was issued with the warning, no evidence was produced. The CPW says that I shouldn’t play music that imitates the actions of others – I don’t know what that means. The police issued it and I phoned them numerous times to ask someone to explain this part of it, but they don’t know what it means either.
I’m concerned that I’m going to get a CPN because my neighbours will carry on making things up. I find the low bar of evidence so worrying, and I know for a fact they have no evidence it’s all hearsay.
I care for my severely autistic son who doesn’t really know what’s going on properly, as I hide it as best I can.
Both my neighbours have turned against me now. One of them, I used to lend them money, when I stopped lending them money they turned against me and started reporting me for all kinds of things. My ex-partner used to do target shooting in the garden – they said that he shot birds, which wasn’t true. All of a sudden, I had a message from environmental health, saying said that there was loud music, sex noises, and animal noises. Another of my neighbours is an evangelist, when he moved in he was friendly at first. But then he started telling me that if I have sex before marriage I was going to hell. I told him that it was getting too much, I didn’t want to talk to him anymore, and he turned against me. He started shining his torch at my window.
I told them that I’m suffering from my mental health – the neighbours both know it and they are playing games. They are stitching me up and the police won’t listen to what I have to say. The council housing officer lied to my support worker, and told them that he had evidence from environmental health, but it wasn’t true.
Now I’m creeping around my house. Say I’m doing the dishes, when the adverts come on, I run in and turn it down, in case they use that against me. My neighbours are banging on my walls saying that I’m schizophrenic and they are going to burn my house down. One of the conditions of the CPW is that I can’t complain about my neighbours to any organisation. If someone comes and dumps loads of rubbish outside my house, I can’t complain. I feel like killing myself. I don’t know why they can’t just stick to English law.