My worst neighbour ever

I (F20) was living with my boyfriend in a house in a town in the middle of nowhere, England. It was a nice house, nothing too fancy but it was ours. We lived there for about a year before things started getting really bad. <br><br>My boyfriend worked nights and I worked 6pm-2am Monday-Friday, so we would rarely see each other in the week. He also has a routine of going to bed whenever and sleeping until whenever he wakes up. I’d usually make him breakfast and we’d hang out and watch tv in bed together on our days off. <br><br>We were on day 4 of our annual summer holiday and were enjoying a day out at the beach when I started to get a strange feeling. It was as if something was off and we needed to go home immediately. <br><br>We rushed home and when we got there, our house was in shambles. The living room was completely ransacked, my boyfriend’s laptop was on the floor broken, the tv was smashed and our kitchen was a mess. <br><br>The police were called and when they arrived, we explained that we thought someone had broken in while we were at the beach. The officer who responded to the call was very kind and immediately made sure that we were safe and that we had somewhere to stay for the night. <br><br>He also made sure that the house was secure before he left and requested that we call him as soon as we woke up to let him know how we were feeling. <br><br>We ended up staying with family that night and returned to our house at around 11am the next morning to find that the police were there again with tape up and a forensic van outside. <br><br>The officer who came to our house the first day after we left for work was not present but there was a sergeant there who seemed to already know what was going on. <br><br>When we found out what happened, we were shocked. The break in was not a break in at all. My boyfriend had been sleeping (he does this a lot, we don’t really know why) and must have locked all of the doors and windows before he fell asleep. When he woke up, he couldn’t find me and called the police. They searched the house but couldn’t find me so they called my workplace. They told the police that I had worked my full 7 hours the previous day and that I had called in sick for the day. <br><br>The police then went around neighbour after neighbour asking if they knew where I was and if anyone had seen me the day before or that morning. <br><br>All the while, my boyfriend was going insane. He kept saying that I was out somewhere and that I would be back any minute. But the police couldn’t find any trace of me and were starting to get worried. <br><br>After about an hour of the police asking neighbours if they knew where I was, a lady across the road came up to my boyfriend and asked him if I was okay. She told him that she had seen me walking across the road the previous day and that she had seen someone following me. She didn’t think anything of it and assumed it was just a friend of mine. She offered to help find me if my boyfriend wanted but he just kept saying that I was fine, that I would be back soon. <br><br>The police didn’t believe her at first but when I still didn’t turn up, they went over and asked her to tell them what she saw. She told them that she had seen me walk across the road with someone and then I turned the corner and she never saw me again. She also mentioned that I looked scared and the man looked mean. <br><br>The police immediately searched the entire neighbourhood and put out an Amber alert. <br><br>When they found me, I was sitting in a bush at the side of the road. I was catatonic and couldn’t talk or respond to anyone. I was so badly shaken up that I couldn’t even remember my own name. <br><br>It turned out that the lady across the road had seen me being abducted by a man that lived directly across the road from us. He had been watching me for months. Every time my boyfriend and I would go out, he would follow me. He would always stay far enough away that I couldn’t see him. <br><br>When we realised what had happened, the police arrested the man across the road immediately and searched his house. They found pictures of me and my boyfriend all around his house. They also found a bunch of women’s clothing, shoes, belts and jewellery. They didn’t find my neighbours clothes because she was an active participant. <br><br>My boyfriend lost it when he found out what happened and why the police couldn’t find me. He said that I should have been found because my phone was in my hand when I was found and that I should have been able to track it. <br><br>I have since learned that if you are abducted and you are found with your phone, you cannot be tracked. This is because abductors will usually take your phone so that you can’t call for help or be tracked. But if you are found with your phone, it still can’t be tracked. <br><br>My boyfriend said that he was going to sue the police for their incompetence and I told him to go ahead and do it. <br><br>He did end up suing the police and he won. They apologised and promised to do better in the future and he received a pretty large amount of money. <br><br>I am doing a lot better now. I am still traumatised from what happened and I have a lot of problems but I am much better than I was. <br><br>The man across the road is in jail and will likely be there for a long time. He is also on the sex offenders list for life. <br><br>My neighbours, on the other hand, let us know that they are pregnant with their third child and they are praying that it’s a girl because they want her to be just like me. <br><br>Also, just to clarify things. Yes. My boyfriend and I are still together. He supports me 100% of the time. He is my rock and I love him more than anything. He doesn’t support me suing the police. He says that they did everything they could and that they didn’t do anything wrong. I agree and I don’t blame them for what happened. <br><br>Also, to clarify something else. The police didn’t search my boyfriend’s house. They searched our house to make sure that it was secure and that nothing else was out of place. <br><br>Also also. My boyfriend locked all of the doors and windows. He didn’t lock all of the windows because he fell asleep immediately after he locked all of the doors. <br><br>Also also also. I am not a sex worker. I don’t know why people keep asking me that.