Alison Shaw still wakes up some nights convinced she's back in an Orangeville holding cell, her fingertips covered in black ink.

"To this day, I don't understand why I was put in handcuffs and put in jail overnight," says Shaw, 42.

The Shelburne mother of three isn't all that different from many women. As her nine-year relationship with her husband Steve unravelled around her last year, Shaw took to "venting" to girlfriends via email, joking with one that she wished she had a gun to put herself out of her misery.

"I even put LOL at the end," Shaw said in an interview yesterday.

But Shelburne police weren't laughing. Nor was her estranged husband, who took it as a personal threat.

Unbeknownst to Shaw, he had been monitoring her emails for months. Shortly after she threatened to leave him back in March 2008, and take their children with her, he took the emails to Shelburne police – along with a complaint his wife had punched him in the face a month earlier at a Legion dance.

Shaw acknowledged she has a lot of regrets, especially over hitting her ex-husband when "nine years of frustration and anger just got the better of me."

Her ex couldn't be reached for comment, but Shaw was ordered into an anger-management program by the court, which, she says, "has been really helpful." Ironically, she claims, the counsellor said she needs to speak her own mind and stand up for herself more.

After her husband saw the reference to a gun in her email, Shaw faced the same wrath that divorcing dads say they've been subjected to for years at the hands of police and Ontario's criminal justice system: Police arrived at her door, slapped her in handcuffs, charged her with assault and held her in jail overnight until her mother arrived to post $5,000 bail.

While Shaw would just like to put the whole ugly incident behind her, it's ignited concerns around Ontario's "zero tolerance" domestic abuse policy.

Over a year ago Ontario Court Justice Bruce Pugsley criticized Shaw's treatment in a family law decision and expressed frustration at how it's "too commonplace" for the criminal courts to be misused by one spouse – usually it's the wife, but in this case it was the husband – to gain custody of the kids, possession of the house and an advantage in divorce proceedings.

This week well-respected family law lawyer Phil Epstein, who sat on the committee that drafted Ontario's so-called "duty to report" directive to police and Crown attorneys back in 1979, said it's time to re-examine the domestic abuse policy and create some "limited discretion."

What happened to Shaw is almost textbook: She was questioned at the police station, searched for a gun, charged and held overnight. She was released on bail, on condition she stay away from her house and her computer. In effect, her ex was given custody of the kids.

It was days until she saw them, for just half an hour, she says, and 10 months until she could step into her own home. Her mother was allowed to go in, with a list of Shaw's personal items and clothes that she stuffed into garbage bags.

The bosses at the office where Shaw works were "very understanding" when she returned from her arrest unable to focus. They let her take two months off.

"I spent that time seeing lawyers, going to court and doing the things I had to do to get back on track."

Over a year later, Shaw is in a healthy, happy relationship, she says. Her kids are with her every second week.

While he wouldn't comment on Shaw's case, Shelburne police chief Kent Moore acknowledged that domestic abuse cases are among the most difficult for police. But "zero tolerance" is a bit of a misnomer, he added. It implies that police lay charges every time they are called, when, in fact, they investigate each case, looking for a reasonable level of proof that abuse occurred.

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Every suspect has to be handcuffed while in a cruiser, for the safety of officers, he stressed.

Shaw no longer has a computer.

"My girlfriend has moved to Hamilton now. We talk from time to time, but not by email. I don't talk to anybody on the computer anymore. I'm kind of afraid to."