Haha, thanks! I've probably forgotten loads of stuff but everyone's case is going to be slightly different anyway.
One thing I really had to get my head around was that, at first, I wanted to point out: ‘This is wrong, my ppu stopped me from…, this is disproportionate… ‘ etc but after seeking advice, the ‘recalibration’ of my mindset changed to the message being: “This stipulation can be removed from my order because…’
So with that in mind, disproportionate ones should be easier to discharge. This is a silly example, but if a stipulation was ‘don’t eat salmon’, it’s easy to get rid of that stipulation because I can say “I don’t like salmon, I’m not a fan of any seafood, I prefer eating burgers, sometimes with chips, and enjoy experimenting with different sauces.” Rather than just saying: “This shouldn’t say salmon!”
Believe me, I could put a whole load of gherkin stuff in there about PPUs and why I think it’s disproportionate but the police/judge won’t want to hear it. For me, this did take a while to sink in. Once I read my first draft, I was disappointed with it, thinking: “Is this the best of my last five years?” After the ‘recalibration’, the final draft is now much stronger and, actually, I’ve only mentioned the police once in the whole thing. It’s your order and you need to show you’re able to live positively without it to get it discharged.
With your SAR, have a look at if there’s any positive feedback from the leaders from the Horizon course. Yes, do another one if you think it'll help and you've made more progress since the last one. I can't guarantee it'll work but it was just an idea of being able to quote a source that the judge/police can trust. But also what is written might vary from force to force. Having had two forces I’ve had the ability to compare, Force A recorded positive steps and progress can be seen in the notes, Force B constant gaslighting and making stuff up as they go along, honestly, it’s like night and day, so this may not work for everyone, it’s just a potential free avenue for information.
As for overall cost, I’m sure someone on this forum did it all themselves and is currently in the process of… or had success. At the end of the day, you’re five years on, you may not even realise how much you’ve changed since before the knock. You’ve had to deal with a lot and will continue to do so. Yes, in certain ways we’ve brought it on ourselves but everyone deserves a chance to be able to move on.
===== Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.
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