A vulnerable victim has been protected from an abuser thanks to the diligent work of an officer from Nottinghamshire Police.
John Redfern pleaded guilty to common assault and coercive control and was sentenced to twelve months in prison at Nottingham Crown Court on Wednesday 22 July.
The sentence came after PC Laura Sunderland spotted a pattern of behaviour following an incident on 29 June.
Officers were called to Wellspring Dale in Stapleford to a report that Redfern had threatened an elderly relative and put them in fear of violence.
Redfern was arrested on suspicion of common assault and taken to the Bridewell Custody Suite. Once there, the officer dealing with the case looked through police records and noticed that over 20 similar reports had been made to police about Redfern in the preceding two years.
Between 2018 and the incident in June 2020, police had been called over twenty times to similar reports that Redfern was drunk and threatening or scaring his relative.
Because people can only usually be held for 24 hours when arrested, PC Sunderland had only a matter of hours to compile the evidence to show that Redfern had been a perpetrator of coercive control, so that he could be charged and prevented from going back to the victim.
PC Sunderland said: “When I looked at the case and saw so many calls where Redfern was really scaring a vulnerable person, I thought it amounted to coercive control.
“Before this incident, the victim had not wanted to pursue matters so I really wanted to make it count now they had decided that enough was enough.
“I went through all previous police incidents in order to present a case of controlling and coercive behaviour to the Crown Prosecution Service, which they decided to charge.
“I’m so pleased for the victim that Redfern has been put behind bars and will have to pay for his actions. No one should have to live in fear of a loved one.”
