![]() ![]() ![]() He gave me hope.”Īfter this visit, Lumb phoned most days. He said he couldn’t believe it was still happening. He’d call West Midlands police about Rimell himself. He said he’d got it all wrong and would make it up to me. “I showed him the abuse live as it was happening,” says Brookes. Lumb emailed, then phoned and then visited. “The actions of one abusive police officer are what led me straight to another one.” “If it wasn’t so serious and tragic, it would be bloody funny,” says Brookes, 54, who lives in Brighton. ![]() Only one person responded: Inspector Tony Lumb. By now she had been diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety and depression. ![]() On one desperate day in 2016, Brookes emailed every officer from the Metropolitan and Sussex police forces who had ever touched the case to tell them how let down she felt. (Rimell said he had “learned a salutary lesson”.) He was given a “final written warning”, allowed to keep his job and faced no criminal charges. In a 2013 misconduct hearing, he claimed he had not intended to offend, only to make “comical” remarks. One turned out to be Lee Rimell, a serving West Midlands police officer, who posted abusive messages about Brookes. A lack of police action led her to launch a high court battle (her lawyers acted pro bono) which forced Facebook to reveal the identities of the trolls. Not surprisingly, she was terrified and began to sleep with a knife under her pillow, rarely leaving her flat. Brookes lived alone and was newly disabled she had recently been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and had her colon removed. ![]()
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