On 23rd July 2024 the College of Policing and National Police Chiefs’ Council published the first National Policing Statement 2024 about Violence Against Women and Girls.
The very first sentence in this significant report describes violence against women and girls (VAWG) – including domestic abuse – as having reached ‘epidemic levels’ in the UK. It refers to the data that informed the Statement as ‘staggering’. It goes on to say: “At least 1 in every 12 women will be victims of VAWG per year (2 million victims) and we expect the exact number to be higher”. One in twelve. It is time we heard their voices and challenged that reality. Here is one of those voices.
Hayley’s Story
“I was desperate when I first contacted Women’s Aid – I really didn’t know which way to turn and felt like life was not worth living. I had been separated from my little boy’s father for quite some time but I think maybe he thought we would get back together. When it dawned on him that we wouldn’t, then he started turning up at my home in the middle of the night – threatening me. He said he would like to beat me with a hammer and kill my family. He said some really horrible things – things that I just couldn’t repeat – about what he would do to me if I went out with someone else.”
It wasn’t that Hayley’s former partner wanted to see his child – he hadn’t bothered to attend the court hearing about child contact and didn’t seem to be interested. All he wanted to do was to make her so scared of him that he could continue to control her life.
Hayley had left him once before but he wouldn’t leave her alone and manipulated her into letting him back into her life. Hayley told us:
“That whole year we were together he financially abused me and terrorised my neighbours and then I had issues with them because of him. He would wake me up and make me make his food at 11pm at night. He shouted and threatened me when I didn’t give him money or do what he wanted. If I said no to him he would blame everything on me and it was my fault when he would disappear and lie to me about where he was. It was horrific.
I reported him to the Police but they were not sure if there was the evidence to enable them to do anything. I was being terrorised in my own home and I sometimes felt like ending it all – I just couldn’t cope with being so scared all the time. Women’s Aid gave me advice in applying for a move to another house – one which he wouldn’t know about where I could be safe. But we knew that would take a while.
When he knew that I was taking some action, he broke into my home to try to scare me into keeping quiet. He was arrested for this, and that made me feel that people were really on my side. I had come to really believe that I didn’t have to put up with being frightened any more. WMWA supported me to get legal protection from the courts – to stop him from stalking and threatening me. Once he could see that I was not alone and that the authorities were prepared to help me, then he wasn’t so bold and stopped coming round and contacting me.
I really do feel like I can start planning for a future for me and my son now. I still need some support – someone to talk to and help me to deal with the mixture of feelings about what has happened to us. I have joined a group of other women and we share our experiences – until you do that, you can feel like you are the only one that this is happening to. Now I know that other women have had the same challenges and survived too.”
See the full One in Twelve series here