Implacably Hostile

Send us Fan Mail Episode Eleven: Release Less than one per cent of cases end this way. This was one of them.   The final hearing. The judge. The report. Two years of fighting distilled into a single room and a decision that will define the rest of their lives. Episode Eleven is the end of the legal battle — and the beginning of everything else.   Four voices this episode: The story of the verdict,...

Send us Fan Mail Episode Ten: Dr Rob She handed her daughters to a stranger and waited. The hardest thing she had ever done.   The court has appointed a child psychologist. His name is Dr Robert Radcliffe. He is kind, patient, and experienced. He is also about to hear things from two small girls that no child should have to say. Episode Ten follows the assessment process — the box exercises, the w...

Send us Fan Mail Episode Nine: In Court Her friend suggested she hire a male escort to take to court. She did it.   Episode Nine is the court hearing everything has been building toward. Vanessa faces the judge, faces Clive across the table, and argues her case with research from three countries. But first — the escort. Because sometimes survival requires performance, and the whole system is theat...

Send us Fan Mail   Episode Eight: The Push She stood up in front of a judge  and told him what was best for her children. She wasn't a lawyer. This was her life.   Clive has been released from prison. He is riding his bike along Kings Lane. Vanessa is documenting every sighting, every date, every time. Episode Eight follows Vanessa to a legal conference where she speaks in front of judges and...

Send us Fan Mail Episode Seven: Fighting Fire She had been fighting for herself. Now she was fighting for all of them.   Episode Seven takes Vanessa to London, to a park, and to a woman called Dawn Austin— an activist whose story has already changed the way Vanessa moves through the world. This episode is where personal survival becomes collective action. Vanessa joins AMICA — a grassroots movemen...

Send us Fan Mail Episode Six: Locked Up and Set Free He went to prison. She was still not free.   Clive is in prison. The welfare officer arrives with letters from him for the children. Charlotte tears hers into pieces without reading it. Episode Six follows Vanessa as she changes her solicitor, begins divorce proceedings, and finds a new home and a new job — all while the system continues to reac...

Send us Fan Mail Episode Five: Gayle She had been fighting alone. Then she met the women who had mapped the system before her.   Episode Five is where the story widens. Vanessa meets Gayle — a woman who has been through the same battles, who knows the same dangers, and who carries knowledge that the official system never offered. This episode introduces the underground network of women sharing int...

Send us Fan Mail Episode Four: The Phoenix A cat woke her up. A cat saved their lives.   In the middle of the night, something woke Vanessa. By the time she understood what was happening, the house was on fire. Episode Four covers the night everything was lost — and the morning something new began. It also contains the moment Vanessa sat across a kitchen table and heard the truth about the fire fr...

Send us Fan Mail She needed to keep the electricity on so the panic alarm would work. So she sold roses.   Episode Three is where survival gets practical — and sometimes almost comic. With Clive gone, Vanessa faces homelessness, empty meters, and a legal system that has a word for mothers who protect their children. That word is implacably hostile. This episode introduces the family court presumpt...

Send us Fan Mail Episode Two: The Sorries Every abusive relationship has a cycle. Vanessa knew it so well she had given it a name. The Sorries. The remorse, the promises, the performance of a man who wants you to believe this time is different. This episode goes inside that cycle — the hope it creates, the trap it becomes, and the night everything finally changed. We also hear from the police offi...

Send us Fan Mail This is a true story. A true story, thirty years in the making. Chapter 1 begins on Christmas Eve, in a churchyard, where a mother hides with her two children and pretends they are playing hide and seek. This podcast combines storytelling, personal reflection and lived experience of domestic abuse, family court and survival after leaving. It is not perfect. It is not polished. But...