This Sask. woman called police for help after a fight with her ex. She ended up getting charged

WARNING: This article contains details of domestic violence.

Tasha Dobni says she doesn't feel safe calling the Moose Jaw, Sask., police anymore. That's because the last time she called them for help after a former partner assaulted her, she ended up getting charged herself.

"I was crying because I kept saying to them, 'I called you to protect me,'" Dobni said. "I won't ever do that again. I'll phone a friend, I'll phone a neighbour, but you people are the last people I will call if I'm ever in a situation." 

Dobni said she called police to her home on Oct. 1, 2024, after a fight with her former partner ended with her pinned under him. When police arrived, they spoke to her about being in a 'toxic' relationship, charging both her and her partner with assault. Both parties' charges have since been stayed due to not meeting prosecutorial standards and there being no reasonable likelihood of conviction. 

Dobni's ex declined to comment.

Experts say they have pushed for police to lay mandatory charges when they're responding to domestic violence incidences, in the hopes it would lead to better protection for women. They say that push has at times been used against women in danger, with both women and men involved in altercations getting charges laid against them.

It's a situation that happens more often than people might expect, says Elizabeth Sheehy, professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law and author of Defending Battered Women on Trial, which examines how police and courts respond to domestic violence.

"It's completely wrong, but it persists. It's a way of saying 'you want equality, you got it. Here's how we're going to interpret these scenarios, right? We're going to interpret women as violent, equally dangerous, equally implicated,'" said Sheehy. 

Statistics Canada self-reported data shows that women and men both report having experienced physical assaults from partners at similar rates (23 per cent versus 17 per cent, respectively), but Sheehy points out the nature of those assaults and their impact are often vastly different. 

The data shows women are considerably more likely to experience the most severe forms of intimate partner violence, including more devastating physical injuries and emotional suffering. 

Women are also four to five times more likely to die at the hands of their partners than men are. Saskatchewan's 2024 Domestic Violence Death Review Report found that 83 per cent of homicide victims were female and 82 per cent of perpetrators were male. The review also found that when it comes to the perpetrators' history of violence, 64 per cent had prior police involvement with the victim.

Studies show that women's use of force is often in self-defence and in response to a pattern of sustained violence. 

Still, Sheehy writes in her book that women's acts of resistance and self-defence, like pushing a man away, throwing a plastic water bottle or biting a partner that is pinning her down, can become the basis for assault charges.