The court hearing
June 10th 2022, is the day of the verbal hearing in the Civil Court in Cartagena.
I turn up at the court a little early. I’m wearing a long, blue, sleeveless silk dress with a long jacket to match. On entering the courthouse, there is police and security at the door; they take my ID, check things, and I have to walk through a scanning machine, and my handbag, plus a bag with a file of documents and other items, has to go through the x-ray machine.
I went straight into the ladies’ toilets. I didn’t want to be seen, and I didn’t want to bump into the person who was adamant about making me homeless.
I had been able to get the help of a court translator who had helped me in the gender violence court hearings in 2020 and 2021. He was there as an unpaid friend. We were eventually called into the courtroom. Someone came towards me and took my identity card. As we filed through, there were just chairs in the room, the judge on a bench at the front, my legal team on the left side, and the TV screen also on the left side. The ex-partner’s wife came into the room and sat at the back, and the ex had two men with him who sat near the front. I sat right to the left of the room, and the translator sat next to me.
Silenced In A Verbal Hearing
I had prepared a letter that I wanted to hand to the judge, and I wanted to read that letter in the court, so the translator would have been the person to read that in Spanish, and so I prepared two letters, one in English and one in Spanish. My solicitor spoke a few words of Spanish; it was not translated, and I didn’t know what she had said. Then another solicitor on the TV monitor said a few more Spanish words, which were not translated, and I didn’t know what he had said.
The judge then banged down the hammer. The person who took my ID walked towards me and gave my ID card back. I had that letter ready and went over to the desk where the judge was sitting. I put the letter down on the desk and walked back to my chair. The lawyer for my defence ran to the desk, picked up the letter and quickly handed it back to me. I stood in the middle of the courtroom and said, “What just happened? What just happened?” The judge pointed his finger towards the door and said, “Out, out.” Then he said he would call the Guardia Civil to have me removed. I was in shock and couldn’t believe what had just happened.
I had a translator with me, and no questions were asked. I was not allowed to speak. The plaintiff, Philip Holby, was not interrogated or questioned. The verbal hearing lasted all of 5 minutes. Why did the Court request him to fly from the UK to appear in person for what was meant to be a “Verbal Hearing” when he was not questioned?
The Letter For The Judge.
Dear Civil Court Judge,
I did not create this conflict. I just wanted peace.
I tried to negotiate with the ex-partner for a win-win outcome before I was going to be abandoned in Spain with no means of supporting myself.
We were meant to be ending things amicably. However, very soon, I was being blamed for having been disrespectful to him.
The person I fell in love with was a façade – he was a con artist. The person I fell in love with never existed. An abuser does not show up on the first date and verbally degrade you. An abuser does not begin to psychologically abuse you during your courtship. If they do, it is so subtle that you would not consider it to be abuse.
I did not consider it to be abuse. I did not see behind the mask until I was completely trapped. I was isolated, dependent and in a fog. In the beginning, the positives outweighed the negatives. Abuse is slow and insidious. It is hard for anyone to understand – unless they’ve personally been caught in the cycle of domestic violence.
I didn’t understand it either – until I lived it.
So, my ex-partner now wants to blame me for my role in trying to negotiate with him over the financial settlement he was offering me. He wants to evict me from the home because Spanish Law tells him he does not need to share the proceeds of a sale or honour anything he offered me in his letter or said in the recorded meeting we had.
I will stand before you and take ownership. I will take ownership of seeing the best in people. I will take ownership for being optimistic and hopeful. I will take ownership for being forgiving and kind-hearted. I will take ownership for wanting to live ‘happily ever after’ and for wanting to be loved and cherished.
I am guilty on all counts.
While I am guilty of those things, please know that I did not sign up to be abused in my relationship, or during the termination and separation, or in the Spanish Civil Court system.
While my problem may not be your problem to fix, I respectfully ask that you consider what type of man can do this to the woman that he was meant to love and care for. What type of man wants to destroy his former partner emotionally, psychologically and also financially?
You see, my only crime is that I fell in love with a man who showed me how kind and generous he was when we first met. I gave up a lot to care for him to support him to work in the background.
This Civil Court action is a game to him, and your courtroom is now his stage. For him, it’s about winning. For me, it’s about raising awareness of hidden emotional abuse and post-separation abuse.
My Life Partner
The man you see as the plaintiff is the man that I first met, the kind, caring and generous businessman that I thought would be my life partner, friend, lover and soul mate.
Your Honour, I ask for you to focus on his actions – and his spoken words, which he agreed that I could record while we were meant to be discussing the amicable resolution of the abrupt termination of the relationship we had.
What type of man reacts with punishment, banishment, devaluing, and discarding?
What type of man has no compassion, no empathy and will jeopardise the emotional safety, physical safety and psychological safety of a vulnerable woman whom he once claimed he loved?
Sincerely,
Loren Keeling
After The 5-Minute Court Hearing
– How I handed back items belonging to him.
As I walked away from the courtroom, I went downstairs. I saw the security guard, and I questioned him about whether there should have been a way to speak in a verbal hearing. He just shook in his shoulders; he couldn’t answer me. I was so angry at that point. I remembered that I had some items in the bag that I had taken into the courthouse. I decided to go back up to the floor where the hearing had just taken place.
I saw the translator, and he said I should go back to the UK. I should go back to my family, but he didn’t understand either. What family? I took the plastic bag out of the holdall. I took one of the items; it was a ball gag; it wasn’t mine, it was Phillips. I put it up to my face and I bit onto the Rubber Ball and showed it to the translator. He was shocked. I walked away.
The Red Bondage Rope
I could see in the distance Philip stood next to his new wife, the new Mrs Holby. They were talking to the two men who were in the courtroom. I walked over to where the four of them were in the building, which was a huge hall with windows on one side and the courtrooms on the other side. As I got closer, I took one of the items out of the bag. It was a red bondage rope.
I threw it in Philips’ direction, it hit his chest, and it bounced from his white shirt and landed on the floor. The man standing opposite him was obviously shocked and let out a gasp. I then tipped all of the items that were in the plastic bag onto the floor, and there was a loud clatter as the ball gag, two black wooden handled suede floggers, and an electric vibrator hit the floor of the courthouse.
I said “Thank you, thank you, thank you”, then turned and walked away. Only Philip would be aware that those words were the words that he groomed or conditioned me to say to him after we had sex, only I couldn’t say the full phrase that he had taught me to say because that was Thank you, Sir.
From the sequel to “Post Separation Abuse. Betrayal and Abandonment, What Type of Man?” Order Now.
Deceptions and Illusions Embroidered With Truth.
