Domestic violence could be stopped earlier, says study

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abuse, abusive relationships, Children, coercion, control, coping, danger, domestic abuse, domestic violence, fear, harm, health workers, help, impact, isolation, murder, police, professionals, relationships, risk, serious injury, teenagers, training

Domestic violence could be stopped earlier, says study

Victims of domestic violence are abused for almost three years before they get the help they need, and some are subjected to more than 50 incidents during that time, according to a study of the largest database of domestic violence victims in the UK.

The figures from the domestic abuse charity SafeLives reveal that almost a quarter of “high-risk” victims have been to an A&E with injuries sustained during violent abuse, and some went as many as 15 times before the problem was addressed.

Analysis of the SafeLives database, which has records of more than 35,000 cases of adults experiencing domestic abuse since 2009, found that 85% of victims had been in contact with an average of five professionals in the year before they got “effective” help from an independent domestic violence adviser (IDVA) or another specialist practitioner.

“Time and time again no one spots domestic abuse, even when victims and their children come into contact with many different public agencies. It’s not acceptable that victims should have to try to get help repeatedly. This leaves victims living in fear and danger and risks lifelong harm to their children,” said Diana Barran, the chief executive of SafeLives, which was previously called Co-ordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse (Caada).

Barran said the study was “more shocking evidence” that domestic violence could often be stopped earlier. “Every conversation with a professional represents a missed opportunity to get victims and their children the help they need,” she said.

SafeLives estimates that there are at least 100,000 victims at high risk of murder or serious injury in England and Wales, 94% of them women.

The study found that victims and often their children lived with abuse for an average of 2.7 years. Three-quarters reported abuse to the police, and 23% went to A&E because of violence sustained in abusive relationships.

Frances Wedgwood, a GP in Lambeth who provides training on domestic violence to health workers through the national Iris project, said a challenge for doctors was that many women did not come to them to disclose domestic violence.

“Domestic violence is still a very hidden problem and in my experience women do not disclose if they are not asked,” she said. “We need to get better at asking people directly if they need help.”

The study sheds light on the long-lasting impact of living in a family coping with domestic violence. According to the survey, in about a quarter of cases on the domestic violence database the victim has a child under the age of three. The study estimates that 130,000 children in the UK are living with domestic abuse, and that children are directly harmed in 62% of cases.

Among teenagers who suffered domestic abuse in their own relationships, almost half had grown up in households where violence was commonplace, the study found.

Vera Baird, former solicitor general and the current police and crime commissioner for Northumberland, said professionals needed help and training to have the confidence to deal with domestic violence.

“Domestic abuse is not a one-off violent attack. It is deliberate long-term use of coercion to control every part of the partner’s life. Violence, sexual abuse, financial control, constant criticism, isolating from family and friends are all familiar tools,” she said.

“People in that situation do not find it easy to speak and need those who could help to be alert. The alternative is what these figures suggest: victims and their families locked unnecessarily into cruelty and ill-treatment for years.”

Case study

Rebecca, 34, lived with domestic abuse for eight years before she sought help

One time I was having a nap in the afternoon, the baby had been teething so I’d been awake all night, and I woke up he was standing over me with a mop handle carved into a point, like a spear. He was pushing it into my throat, accusing me of cheating. Then he picked me up and threw me against the wall. I ran downstairs but he followed me, kicking and punching me and split my lip.

I locked myself in the bathroom and called 999. When the doorbell rang I heard chatting, calm talking. There was one young male officer, and my ex-partner was telling him that I was postnatal, that I’d gone mental and he was just defending himself. I started shouting at the officer: ‘Why aren’t you helping me?’ I swore and the officer said people could hear me, and it was a public disturbance so I swore again. He put handcuffs on me. He wouldn’t let me put my shoes on, so I wouldn’t move, and he lifted me up by the handcuffs and put me in the back of the car.

I was in a cell for hours asking for a solicitor. The duty sergeant finally came and when he opened the hatch he could see I’d been attacked. He got the officer to come and apologise to me and asked me if I wanted to file a complaint, or if I wanted to press charges against my partner. But I said no. I was exhausted and my baby was at home with my partner, who’d been drinking since the morning. It got worse after that. He was sort of smug, saying he could do what he wanted. I know there’s more training for police now, but that put me off calling the police for years.

By 2003/4 the abuse was worse. We had two girls by that time. I was hospitalised with concussion after he’d kicked me in the head wearing steel-toe-capped boots. The police and the paramedics came and I was patched up and sent home. They asked me if I wanted to press charges but I didn’t want to go through all that, I thought it would make it worse. I didn’t know where the support would come from, where I could get help.

Another time I went to the hospital walk-in. I had a black eye and it wasn’t getting better. A doctor asked me what had happened and I said I’d been punched in the face. He repeated what I said: ‘You were punched in the face.’ I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. I was ashamed, I didn’t want to say my husband did this to me. If he had asked, I’d have told him. But he didn’t.

Social services got in touch because of the paramedics’ reports; he got put on an anger management course. But Christmas Day night he’d been drinking. He grabbed me by the throat and I stumbled and fell; he kept kicking me over and over again. My teeth went through my lip, my nose was bleeding, I couldn’t see. He picked me up and carried me to the bathroom saying: ‘Look what you made me do. Why did you do that?’ I crawled to the living room and phoned the police before he ripped it out of the wall.

I did press charges that time. He was sentenced to four months for ABH. He served two. We were separated, but we got back together. Why? I had such low self-esteem and he was always there, always pestering me, grinding me down. He’d be so nice, helping with the children and I was exhausted, I needed the help. I thought it might be OK.

It was OK for a while. The kids had been on the at-risk register because a couple of incidents had been reported, but they came off that and social services were visiting less. His behaviour just went back to the way it had been before, and that’s when I decided to leave.

I remember the exact moment when I saw the sticker for the Women’s Aid helpline: it was on the back of the toilet door in Asda. It took me a couple of months to call but when I did they offered me refuge. I didn’t even know that existed. They organised transport when he was out. It was quite surreal, but it was such a relief.

Women’s Aid were so helpful, they gave us so much support including counselling. My eldest daughter was seven when we left, her sister was three and their brother was nine months. That was the main reason I left, I was terrified for my kids.

I do think professionals should offer support. If they can’t support victims themselves, they just need to know who can. I think if I’d had that information I would have left earlier.

I was 16 when we got together; he was 23. By the time I was 17 we had a daughter. I thought it was a good relationship, he helped with the parenting and around the house, but about a year later, in 1999, slowly controlling behaviour crept in. He wouldn’t like certain friends, or me going out without him, wearing certain clothes or makeup. It was quite subtle at first, but then when we argued there was pushing, then hair-pulling – each time it was a little worse than before.

Soon it was normal to have slapping, kicking, punching, throwing things. At first I didn’t tell anyone; my self-esteem was very low. I just tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, I didn’t know anything about domestic abuse.

Lack of support for parents who live in fear of their teenagers, study shows

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domestic violence, parenting, parents, shame, stigma, support, teenage violence, Teens, violence

Lack of support for parents who live in fear of their teenagers, study shows

Parents living in fear of their abusive and violent teenagers are being left without support because of a lack of understanding of adolescent violence directed at parents, according to the first academic study into the issue.

Data from the Metropolitan police revealed that there were 1,892 reported cases of 13- to 19-year-olds committing violence against their own parents in Greater London alone over a 12-month period from 2009-10.

Dr Rachel Condry, lead researcher at the University of Oxford, which carried out the study, said there was little support for parents in such circumstances from police, youth justice teams or other agencies.

“The problem has, until now, gone largely unrecognised, which can mean that parents can find it very difficult to get help,” she said.

“The parents we spoke to said they were stigmatised and felt ashamed – they were experiencing patterns of controlling behaviour that were similar to domestic violence. One woman told us she would get up in the middle of the night to make her teenager dinner because she feared the consequences if she didn’t; others talked about walking on eggshells.”

Britain’s incoming director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, warned last month that teenage violence in the home was a hidden aspect of domestic violence: “There is a lack of respect and a lack of regard for authority. When I was growing up the thought of striking a parent was beyond the pale. Is that peers? Is that TV? Is that the general environment in the house? You are not born to commit domestic violence.”

Nicola, a mother in West Yorkshire who did not want to be named, said her daughter first started to behave violently towards her when she was 13. “She’d push me, punch me, lose her temper and smash the house up – it got to the stage where I was scared stiff,” she said.

“I thought it was me, my mothering skills. People were asking me why I couldn’t control her, but what was I supposed to do? Beat her up?”

Nicola was sent on a parenting course, but felt there was no one to help her. “I’ve got three other kids and none of them were like this – it wasn’t like I didn’t know what I was doing,” she said.

The study, co-authored by Caroline Miles, found that 87% of suspects in the London study were male and 77% of victims were women, although fathers could feel more reluctant to report the issue, said Condry.

The study found that, in the reported cases analysed, 60% of victims were classified as white European, while 24.3% were African-Caribbean. It says: “Families reporting adolescent-to-parent violence are likely to be at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale”.

Of those who recorded a profession, 46.7% were unemployed, 11.6% described themselves as housewives, while 3.4% were teachers and 2.9% were nurses.

Condry said it was a problem that could hit families in any demographic. “It is not the fact of being a single parent that is causing this issue, but parenting an adolescent is difficult and perhaps if a parent is on their own there is more potential for things to go awry.” The study found that a range of issues, including exposure to domestic violence, peer influence, mental health issues and drug problems had played a role, but there was no one reason for adolescent violence against parents.

“There may be issues around what we think of as poor parenting but many families we spoke to did not have those type of histories – that is uncomfortable for society, but we have to get a handle on the complexity of this issue,” she said.

When asked what she thought had provoked her daughter’s behaviour, Nicola said: “She has always seen me dominated, but I’m having counselling now and I’m starting to stand up for myself.”

Eventually she got support from the Rosalie Ryrie Foundation, a charity that deals with family violence. “They were fantastic; they showed me different techniques and it’s much better – she still loses her temper but she’s not as violent,” she said.

“It’s hard to ask for help. Other people should remember that it’s easy to say stand up to them, but it’s much more difficult when you are in that position.”

Condry said: “We want our victims to be entirely blameless. We think parents should be in control of their own children – but this is not an issue that can simplistically be blamed on bad parenting.”

Domestic violence: ‘As a man, it’s very difficult to say I’ve been beaten up’

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abuse, domestic violence, embarrassment, men, partner abuse, stigma, taboo, violence

Domestic violence: ‘As a man, it’s very difficult to say I’ve been beaten up’

An inch under six foot tall, Dave, a gardener with a deep, gravelly voice is not most people’s idea of a domestic violence victim. But he suffered two years of abuse at the hands of his girlfriend and was too embarrassed and loyal to report her to the police. He slept in his car for weeks before speaking to his local council, who found him a place at a men’s refuge.

He struggles to keep it together when he recalls the day his girlfriend smashed a bottle of Jack Daniels across his head, leaving him bleeding on the pavement: a deep scar is still clearly visible on his forehead. But when the 45-year-old from Essex describes the relief of being believed by the authorities, he breaks down, his broad shoulders heaving beneath his rugby shirt.

“When help finally comes it’s an emotional thing,” he says, sitting on the sofa at a safe house in Berkshire where he is being helped to rebuild his life. “As a man, it’s very difficult to say you’ve been beaten up. It seems like you’re the big brute and she’s the daffodil, but sometimes it’s not like that.”

He is one of the lucky few to get help. His refuge has two new requests every day to take in men from across the country who are fleeing violence. The home, which can accommodate three men and their children, is already full.

One in three victims of domestic abuse in Britain is male but refuge beds for men are critically scarce. There are 78 spaces which can be used by men in refuges around Britain, of which only 33 are dedicated rooms for males: the rest can be taken by victims of either gender. This compares with around 4,000 spaces for women. In Northern Ireland and Scotland there are no male refuges at all.

Alan Gibson, an independent domestic violence adviser for Women’s Aid which runs the men’s refuge in Berkshire that is helping Dave, said: “Four organisations phoned us today looking for places for four different men. They’ve been attacked and abused, but there is only one room available in the country and someone will have to decide which of those four men is most in need.”

More married men (2.3 per cent) suffered from partner abuse last year than married women, according to the latest British Crime Survey. Yet help is still much harder to find for men.

Mark Brooks, chairman of the men’s domestic abuse charity, the Mankind Initiative, said: “Support services for male victims remain decades behind those for women. This is not helped by the Government and others having a violence against women and girls strategy without having an equivalent for men. Everybody sees domestic violence victims as being female rather than male. This is one of Britain’s last great taboos.”

The Mankind Initiative helpline receives 1,200 calls a year from men or friends and family calling on behalf of men. Stigma and fear of being disbelieved, among other factors, make men much less likely than women to report abuse to the police. The British Crime Survey found that only 10 per cent of male victims of domestic violence had told the police, compared with 29 per cent of women. More than a quarter of male victims tell no one what has happened to them, compared with 13 per cent of women.

The human cost of ignoring the problem is stark: 21 men were murdered by a partner or former partner in 2010/11.

Kieron Bell very nearly became one of those grim statistics. He is also one of a handful of men who has successfully prosecuted a partner for violence. The 37-year-old bouncer from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, had to have emergency heart surgery after he was stabbed in the chest by his wife, Sarah, in 2009. She had been violent since the start of their marriage in 2006 but he did not want to turn to the police at first, initially because he still loved her and later because he thought they would never believe that a 5ft 2in woman would be subjecting a bulky 5ft 10in bouncer to a reign of terror.

After the stabbing, his wife tried to claim that Mr Bell fell on a knife but, while recovering in hospital, he decided to report her to the police. In 2010 she was charged with grievous bodily harm and was released from prison only in May last year. “I was scared to call the police. I’m a big bloke and I thought I’d get laughed at,” he said. “I think there needs to be more information out there for blokes. If I’d known what the signs to look out for were before, I could’ve done something sooner. But I loved her and because of my child I stayed with her.”

Nicola Graham-Kevan, an expert in partner violence at Central Lancashire University, said: “Society is blind to women’s aggression. The biggest disparity is women’s ability to seek help which makes men very vulnerable to false allegations. People often won’t believe that men are victims. Men have to be seen as passive, obvious victims with clear injuries, whereas, if a woman makes allegations, they are believed much more easily.”

Dr Graham-Kevan believes the system needs to adjust to make it safer for male victims and their children, who can end up with an abusive mother. “The biggest thing for me as a parent is that children are being placed in significant positions of harm. It sounds anti-feminist, but I think we’re allowing women too many rights in the family court, because courts assume that the women are the best parent as a starting position, rather than looking at it equally.”

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “We recognise that men are victims of domestic violence, too, and they deserve protection. In December 2011, the Home Office set up the Male Victims Fund to support front- line organisations working with male victims of sexual and domestic violence. We also fund the Male Advice (and Inquiry) Line.”

Names have been changed to protect identities

‘My wife attacked me 11 times. I didn’t think the police would believe me’

Tim, 59, has severe learning difficulties and is now living in a men’s refuge in Berkshire after his wife assaulted him repeatedly during their short marriage

“My wife attacked me 11 times through our marriage. We were married for 18 months, but, being a bloke, you don’t know where to go to get help.

“She tried to strangle me and she used to bite me. She also stabbed me in the hand with a fork. I’d been on my own for 14 years and she seemed like the right woman for me when we got together.

“The violence started in the first three months of the marriage. She would go for my throat if I wouldn’t do certain things.

“She wouldn’t let me see anyone. My family were trying to help me cope with my disabilities, but she wouldn’t let them come round. On New Year’s Day, she threatened me with a knife and I was frightened. Then the other day she tried to strangle me again.

“My sister said I should call the police, so I did.

“I didn’t think the police would believe me because she always seemed to twist things, but they want me to press charges and make a statement now.”