‘Hubby cop beat me up’

AN eight-month pregnant wife of a police officer claims that he assaulted her after she found out that he was having an extra-marital affair, The National reports.
As people nationwide were observing “White Ribbon Day” last Friday, and reflecting on its significance in fighting violence against women, the 26-year-old woman visited The National to show the injuries she had sustained from the beating she received from her policeman husband.
The woman sported a broken right arm and she wore a cap to hide a 2cm cut on her head where she was hit with a piece of timber.
The woman, who is expecting twins, said this was the third time she had been beaten by her husband since their marriage last year.
She said she reported her second beating to police when her husband used a knife and cut her on the right side of an eye above the eye-brow, but no action had been taken against him.
“He would drink, womanise and then come home and beat me up, blaming me for little things such as not washing his uniforms or cooking,” she said.
The woman claimed her husband, a probationary constable, attached with the police commissioner’s chief-of-staff, was having an affair with another woman at a policeman’s home at 9-Mile.
She said she caught them red-handed last Monday when she was on her way to work.
She said she reacted by attacking the woman but she was held back by another policeman, and her husband pulled the timber from her hand and started beating her.
“By the time it was over, I was covered with blood.
“Their boss came and they jumped into the vehicle with him and drove away.
“They never bothered to take me to a hospital,” she said.
The woman said she was still covered in blood when she went to the 6-Mile police station around 8am to lodge a complaint. She was told by the duty officer that her attack was “serious assault”.
Police internal affairs unit director Supt Tony Duwang said he was not aware of the assault case but would follow it up.
“It is quite serious. I will make sure the matter is investigated and the officer implicated dealt with,” he said.
The victim said after laying her complaint, she went back to her family home at Bomana and asked her parents to help her seek medical treatment.
But they refused saying that “your husband has injured you so he should take you to the hospital and pay for your medical bills, not us”.
She said she could not stand the abuse any longer and had come out publicly about it.
She urged other women suffering in silence from continuous harassment and beatings from their spouses to tell the public.
The woman is the third wife of a policeman to go public about her ordeal.
The first was Joy Wartovo, the wife of Const Simon Bernard, and the second was Artkeria Painap, the wife of Chief Insp Christopher Tamari.
Duwang had said police would lay criminal charges against Bernard as soon as he was caught and that Tamari would face disciplinary and criminal charges as soon as his files were ready.