Acceptable time frame for reporting domestic violence?

I'm in an abusive relationship. I haven't really been able to leave as we live in the middle of nowhere and I can't afford a moving truck. It's got to the point where I can no longer handle living with this, so I'm planning on leaving this week.

Fuck, as I write this he's literally yelling at me about how I don't clean enough etc, and threatening to "give me a hiding"

Over the years my partner has been caught a few times beating me up, and sentenced to minor punishments for it. There's been a lot of incidents that didn't get reported, including a lot of verbal and sexual abuse. There's also been some instances where I told the police I didn't want to press charges (out of fear of the consequences) and they respected that.

If I talked to police and there was some evidence against him, would they be willing to look into it?

Note I am also most likely going to apply for a protection order when I leave, not that it will help at all.