A cop has gone on trial accused of a course of abusive behaviour towards her same-sex partner who was pregnant with her child.
PC Nicole Miller, 31, and her former partner had agreed to have a baby together by IVF, Falkirk Sheriff Court was told.
But her former partner, who already had a child of her own, said that during the last 16 months of their four-year relationship "short-fused" Miller had repeatedly shouted and sworn at her, repeatedly told her she was a bad mother, repeatedly forced her to leave their Stirlingshire home, tried to restrict her contact with her own dad, and hid her car keys when she tried to flee back to her mother.
Giving evidence from behind a screen, her former partner told the first day of a summary trial expected to run over a number of separate days, that she and Nicole had got engaged in November 2018.
She said: "Nicole had been through some issues in the police where she had been off long-term.
"I knew she really wanted a child, but she didn't want to carry, and I thought it would help our dynamic."
They both had treatment, but when she was 35 weeks pregnant with Miller's baby, there was "a disagreement".
She said she told Miller that she wanted to leave, finish her pregnancy at her mother's, and give birth there.
However she couldn't find her car keys.
She said: "I packed a bag but my keys weren't there. I looked for the spare set and they weren't there either.
"I asked her where they were and she said she wasn't going to tell me.
"She said I was going nowhere with her baby.
"She was almost taunting me about the keys."
She said Miller then "threw" her bag out of the house, and kicked a smaller bag so hard it went over their car.
She said: "I was really heavily pregnant, carrying two bags, and I had gone into really bad stomach pains."
She said of Miller's behaviour during their relationship: "She'd scream and shout and swear. She doesn't have control over herself. She has a really bad temper.
"I started becoming so withdrawn.
"I felt trapped, controlled and manipulated.
"I didn't know if I was coming or going sometimes.
"I just didn't no where to turn."
She said Miller told her she was a bad mother just a few days after she'd found out she was pregnant with their child, who was born in April 2020.
She said Miller also told her that her Dad didn't love her and he was "homophobic".
She said: "I didn't feel I was able to have as much contact with my Dad as I wanted to because of the fights that would come off the back of it."
She told prosecutor Sarah Smith that the relationship came to an end - "tearing her away" from her recently-born child - after an argument concerning her father.
Miller later sent her former partner a 16-page letter referring, among other issues, to the father.
It stated, "If you continue trying for a relationship with him, I can't have a relationship with you."
Miller's former partner said: "It made me feel like I had to chose between my partner and my father."
Miller, of Grangemouth, denies engaging in a course of domestic abuse towards her between April 1st 2019 and August 20th 2020.
The trial, before Sheriff Wyllie Robertson, sitting without a jury, will continue on April 19th (2022), when Rochelle will face cross-examination by Miller's lawyer.
