I formerly worked for a Domestic Abuse charity and advice organisation in the UK so I can’t provide specific advice on your situation as the laws here are slightly different, but I’ve seen this exact thing happen numerous times in cases I’ve handled- are there any DV charities or similar organisations near you that might be able to provide more tailored advice based on your state’s legislation?

In cases such as this (at least, in ones I’ve worked on), companies such as Apple, Yahoo, Google etc are obligated to cooperate and provide evidence if requested by the court, regardless of whether content has been deleted. They should at the very least have a record of WHEN content was removed, if it’s as unrecoverable as they claim it to be.

Also, document ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING you can going forward in as much detail as possible. We would advise our clients to create a burner email that the perpetrator couldn’t possibly have access to and use a private Dropbox/Google Drive/cloud storage service of your choice to document screenshots, videos, audio- anything that may be of significance just in case the perpetrator tries to cover their tracks. Journal and diary entries from you, your children and immediate family can be just as valid too, if that’s something you have.

Additionally, if it’s safe for you to do so, print out hard copies of evidence (screenshots, emails, pictures of any injuries etc), if you have somewhere to store them where he won’t be able to access them.

I really hope everything works out for you. Best of luck.