June 2022 & July 2022

 The Push Before the Performance

June 2022 is where my solicitor offered diplomacy not to shield me, and my cub but to manage me while preparing to hand me back to the people we feared most

June 2022 was where the solicitor I engaged offered diplomacy — not to shield me and my cub, but to manage me.

While preparing to hand us back to the people we feared most.

The month began with silence.

I checked in.

I waited.

I reminded her I was at breaking point.

And still — nothing.

Not urgency.

Not reassurance.

Just absence.

She ghosted me.

Not fully.

Just enough to make me fret.

Just enough to make me question whether I’d done something wrong.

And when she finally replied, it wasn’t to protect us.

It was to say the Defendant had rejected our settlement offer again —
and that now might be a good time to instruct a barrister.

I was exhausted.

My son was terrified by the word “barrister.”

I had just come back from caring for my father.

Still, I kept my tone measured.

I gave instructions.

I sent payment.

I cooperated.

But threaded inside those polite exchanges was something much colder:

They wanted access again.

This time, not just for the expert — but for the Defendant, his solicitor, and their lay witnesses.

Into our home.

Again. 

I Was Clear. She Was Softer.

I wrote back clearly:

“It is not a desire to avoid access — it is not happening.”

“We will not be present during the visit of the Court’s chosen expert.”

“If the Court’s expert has questions, they can email me, and I will reply.”

—Me, June 2022

I listed it all:

• The keys withheld
• The threats made
• The intimidation logged
• The work left dangerously incomplete
• The room we could never use
• The fear that still lingered long after they were gone

And then I asked a direct question — one I still haven’t had answered:

“If access is being forced, I will be asking which Law is being used that states that anyone, including a Judge, has the right to give access to the injured party’s home.” — (Me, Email June 2022). 

She never answered that.

What She Did Instead

• She acknowledged my concerns… but with the language of deferral
• She said the Judge would “ultimately decide,” but never confirmed what rights we had
• She promised to argue against access “as strongly as possible,” but said it all softly — as if boundaries were up for discussion
• She asked if I could provide more police reports “in case it would help”
• And she thanked me, gently, for the money

All roads pointed back to this:

The people I’d feared the most —

The ones she knew had already harmed us —

They we’re being offered a back door in. 

This Wasn’t About Access. It Was About Power.

They didn’t need to inspect anything.

They needed to stand inside our home again.

To prove they could.

And she, the one who should have shielded us, positioned herself as neutral interpreter — while quoting for another barrister, another invoice, another sidestep from accountability.

On 21 June, my solicitor forwarded the Draft Directions submitted by the Defence solicitor.

Among them:

• Access to our home — not once, but twice
• An inspection proposed for the Defence solicitor, his client, and lay witnesses — excluding us, the owners

And though she promised to “object,” those clauses were already being treated as reasonable steps — not re-traumatisation.

The Defence solicitor submitted his Draft Directions almost immediately after my witness statement was filed.

He knew I’d refused access.

He knew the full extent of the intimidation.

He knew the police reports.

And still — he proposed that his client, his lay witnesses, and he himself  be allowed back into our home.

This wasn’t about inspection.

It was about control.

About power.

About proving that no matter what I said, they could still walk through our door.

And I?

I was writing emails at 5:38 AM after arriving home past 11 PM.

Supporting my son.

I trying to help support my sister.

Waiting on my sister’s cancer results.

And still — still — I was expected to respond with legal clarity to a man who treated my trauma like a scheduling conflict.

July 2022

  The Month She Rewrote the Past and Softened the Present

Where our clarity was recast as confusion, her past praise became present blame — and the door creaked open again

We entered July raw but responsive.

I was transparent. I again supplied documents, timelines, crime reports, GP letters.

I alerted my solicitor to every concern — again — and still assumed she’d stand between us and what was looming.

Instead, she met me with neutrality.

And polite distance.

We Challenged the Barrister. She Rewrote the Record.

Back in 2021, my solicitor had praised our Particulars of Claim:

“I do not consider there is any real problem… very well prepared for a lay person.”

— (Solicitor, July 2021)

But now, in July 2022, as she teed up the same barrister for the August hearing, she said:

“The Particulars of Claim… were not drafted appropriately… his hands were tied.”

— (Solicitor, July 2022)

A quiet rewrite.

Not to support us — but to excuse past failure.

And to recycle representation we no longer trusted. 

We Raised Safeguarding. She Offered Neutrality.

We said:

“We are being evicted from our home to allow the people who harmed us to walk freely through it.”

Not by judicial order. Not by ruling.

But by the Defence solicitor’s pen — his Draft Directions written as if our consent didn’t matter.

And my solicitor didn’t object.

She prepared us for it.

We weren’t resisting the law.

We were resisting being erased from our own home by the very people who had already harmed us.

“We need to know the barrister will fight this.”

— Me, July 2022

She replied:

• “The barrister will be fully aware.”
• “The judge will decide.”
• “Ordinarily, the other party would be afforded the opportunity…”

That last point?

Not correct.

Not under safeguarding.

Not under neutrality.

Not under the role of a Single Joint Expert.

I wasn’t present when our own expert conducted his inspection.

That was standard. That was safe.

Now they were requesting something far greater:

Private access. Multiple attendees. No supervision.

And my solicitor framed it as “ordinary” — when even her own drafted Directions said otherwise.

There’s nothing ordinary about letting the people who damaged your home inspect it for themselves — Especially when they’ve already claimed it was “fit for purpose.”

That’s not procedure.

That’s performance.  

We Were Asking for Protection.

She Was Preparing for Procedure.

We were preparing for a hearing.

She was preparing for a compromise.

We wrote our own Directions.

She softened the objections.

In confusion, we drafted our own court Directions — raw, honest, uncertain.

She redrafted them — tidier, quieter.

“Proposed Directions aren’t for arguments,” she said.

“Just dates. Not objections.”

— (Solicitor, July 2022)

So, the GP letter, the police logs, our trauma — they were boxed away from the file that defined what came next.

We asked:

Will this be heard?

Will it be seen?

Will it matter?

She said yes.

Later.
Maybe.
At the hearing.

If the judge allows.

That’s not advocacy.

That’s distance polished into diplomacy.

And we weren’t asking for elegance.

We were asking for safety.

She Resisted Gently. Then Relented — Without Conviction.

• She said maybe the expert could decide for himself
• She said he might not even need contact at all
• She said don’t worry too much, telephone should be enough
• She said she’d told him no… but softly, and only once

Then, when I pushed again — formally, firmly, unmistakably —She finally wrote:

“I have already objected to this suggestion in my email of 7 September.” —Solicitor, July 2022

But it never felt like a line in the sand.

It felt like something she’d revisit — if asked nicely enough.  

And Then She Billed Me Again. Full Price for Soft Focus.

• £1,200 for previous under-quoted work
• Another £2,400 requested for upcoming prep
• Total requested: £3,600
• Plus, the barrister’s fee recap — although that hearing felt like a ghost at this point

This Was the Month I Realised: I’d Given Everything

And Still Had to Defend the Basics

• Safety
• Control
• A fair inspection
• Basic contact rules

I wasn’t resisting inspection.

I was resisting being set up — again.

And slowly, I was starting to see that the only person holding the procedural line… was me.

I wasn’t resisting inspection.
I was resisting harm.

I didn’t withhold cooperation.
I withheld trauma.

And while they softened the record,
I sharpened the truth.

June and July didn’t bring protection.
They rehearsed the performance.

And the next page?
It doesn’t just hold the hearing.
It holds several visible fractures
Each one used to escalate harm against those already at risk.

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