Domestic abuse victims routinely try to protect themselves by doing what violent men demand. Credit: In Pictures Ltd./Corbis/Getty
When Kasabian singer Tom Meighan attacked his ex-partner Vikki Ager in April perhaps he thought nothing would come of it. After all, according to every scrap of evidence from domestic violence charities and national crime surveys, the majority of such incidents are never even reported. Indeed, in this case the victim, according to the judge, has not made a statement to police “and does not appear to support this prosecution”.
Meighan’s attack was sustained and vicious, including punching her in the face, pushing her into a hamster cage and threatening her with a wooden pallet while repeatedly knocking her over. A child witnessed the “sustained assault”, the court was told, and contacted 999 to report that a “domestic incident was taking place”. The attack was captured on CCTV and produced in court.
The judge, in sentencing Meighan, said, “I could have sent you to prison for this,” before handing down an 18-month community order and told to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work. So why didn’t he send Meighan to prison?
Because whether or not an abused woman speaks up against her abuser, there’s one thing that is indisputable when it comes to domestic abuse: the bodies in the morgue. Every three days a woman dies at the hands of her partner or ex-partner, and under Covid-19 lockdown that number has increased.
Five weeks into lockdown, the number of women killed by men was almost twice that of the average over the same time period during the past 11 years. The UN were so concerned they referred to domestic violence as a “shadow pandemic”. Even once lockdown lifts, and things go ‘back to normal’, almost one in three women aged 16-59 will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime.
This week, in order to address the problem, a ground-breaking Domestic Abuse Bill received its third reading in the House of Commons. It is a “once in a generation” opportunity to tackle the prevalence, protect the victims, and punish the perpetrators. It brings with it a new statutory definition of ‘domestic abuse’ and a range of measures designed to protect millions of victims. It is, for them, long awaited and will be celebrated.
But the Bill has limitations.
Karen Ingala Smith is the founder of Counting Dead Women which documents all women killed by men. For Ingala Smith, lockdown did not cause an increase in the number of abusive men, but it did give some a new tool with which to control women, and a further excuse for their behaviour.
“The normalisation and acceptance of men’s fatal violence against women is part of the problem,” says Ingala Smith, “and partly why it continues.”
She thinks that the bill doesn’t recognise sufficiently the fact that victims routinely try to protect themselves by doing what violent men demand — and often end up committing crimes. Many victims of domestic abuse also become victims of an unforgiving judicial system. A double blight.
Shockingly, almost 60% of women in prison or under community supervision are victims of domestic abuse, and for a significant number, domestic violence was a trigger to their offending. But current legal defences do not protect these women from prosecution or conviction.
Women being financially controlled by abusive men can often be compelled to steal food and other essential items. Others, some of whom I have met in prison during my work with Justice for Women, were coerced into benefit fraud; holding a weapon or drugs for an abuser; or defending themselves against their abuser.
Nearly half of women in prison report having committed offences to support someone else’s drug use, usually a partner’s. The Prison Reform Trust (PRT), presents evidence of how domestic abuse can lead victims to offend in its briefing, ‘There’s a reason we’re in trouble’.
That’s why campaigners are still fighting for amendments as the Bill goes to the Lords. One such is a proposal by the supported by the PRT and the Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) to address a significant gap in the law by creating statutory defences for survivors who offend due to their experience of domestic abuse.
The first clause would amend the law on self-defence, so that victims of domestic abuse acting in self-defence against their abuser would have the same legal protection that is already available to householders defending themselves against an intruder. The second would introduce a statutory defence for victims of domestic abuse giving them the same legal protection offered by the Modern Slavery Act for victims of trafficking who are compelled to offend (for example by being trafficked and compelled to work in a cannabis factory).
Jenny Earle from the PRT tells me that having specific defences on the statute book will ensure that fewer women are prosecuted and convicted of offences when they should instead be receiving support to exit a frightening relationship.
As this Bill progresses through the House of Lords, Baroness [Helena] Kennedy will be tabling these amendments. “Legislative opportunities don’t come around too often,” says Baroness Kennedy. “We should seize the moment and align the protections with those given to victims in other legislation.”
Sarah had taken out numerous non-molestation orders against her ex-partner. She had moved home twice to escape her abuser and had a panic alarm fitted. The police had been called to more than 50 reports of domestic violence at the address.
On the night of the incident, her ex-partner broke into her house, and ordered her to take off her clothes. Sarah stabbed him in the belief he was about to rape her. She was initially charged with murder, which was changed to manslaughter with diminished responsibility. Sarah was given a 7-year 3-month prison sentence. If the proposed new clause to self-defence was available might have enabled her to be acquitted completely or not prosecuted at all, like Richard Osborn-Brookes, a 78 year old man who killed a burglar he feared would harm him.
For self-defence to succeed, it is necessary to show that the defendant used force that was proportionate to the threat faced. The ‘householder’ defence was introduced following the case of Tony Martin, a farmer who killed a burglar who was trespassing on his premises. It was in response to public concern raised that a person who is defending his property should not be punished for doing so. The defence allows for a disproportionate, but not ‘grossly disproportionate’ response, recognising the level of fear and hyper-vigilance that may be experienced by the victim of the burglary could lead to a disproportionate use of force,
In fact for women in domestic violence relationships, that level of hyper-vigilance combined with their knowledge of the repeat pattern of behaviour, can and often does equally apply.
“There can be no justification for more favourable treatment in law for the householder,” says Harriet Wistrich, Director of the CWJ. “It is discriminatory and imperative that a similar defence should be available to victims of domestic abuse. Women should not be punished for totally understandable reactions to violence.”
The second defence, modelled on the Modern Slavery Act would provide a defence for women compelled to offend by their abuser.
Annie is one such woman. Having been coerced into assisting her abusive partner to evade the police after he committed a murder, she was charged with perverting the course of justice. Following the murder, the perpetrator called Annie and demanded she drove him to his lodgings, and to give him money and a pay-as-you-go mobile.
For Annie, the mental torture was far worse than the physical abuse. She is now diagnosed with serious emotional disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder. “Because of his abuse I had turned off every emotion to protect myself, and I would have done anything he asked me to,” she says. “But the CPS are carrying on the abuse and I feel I’m still under his control.”
The CPS accepts that she was not involved with the murder at all, and that her actions did not help him evade the police, and he has since been convicted of murder. But it still intends to put her on trial for her actions following the murder.
“I did nothing wrong,” says Annie. “He held a knife at me the whole time I was driving him, threatening me the whole way, and yet I am the one that committed a crime?”
Irina is a Romanian woman who came to the UK on the promise that a Pakistani man she had met online would help find her work in the UK once they were married. In fact, he wanted to marry Irina so that he could depend on her for a spousal visa, as his was about to expire. The abuse began immediately: he did not help Irina find work and treated her like a slave throughout their 8-year marriage.
Irina had made previous allegations to the police about his abuse, including rape, but police took no action against him. Irina became very distressed one day and hit him with a cricket bat. She was charged with assault by beating. Irina has a psychiatric diagnosis of PTSD arising from the abuse but nevertheless, the CPS have decided it is in the public interest to prosecute her.
These stories are rarely heard — these stories of women trapped within the criminal justice system. Instead, we read about high-profile celebrity cases and men who are spared such incarceration by the silence of their victims.
But what about those women who are compelled by their abusers to break the law? What about the prisons teeming with those victims of domestic abuse? Isn’t it time we heard from them? So while the Bill is to be welcomed enthusiastically, offering a lifeline, literally, to so many women — there are still so many who need to be rescued.
Names of victims have been changed.
Julie Bindel is an investigative journalist, author, and feminist campaigner. Her latest book is Feminism for Women: The Real Route to Liberation. She also writes on Substack.
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SubscribeI hope the South Africans bring the whole rotten covid grift crashing to the ground. At this point it cannot be believed that the “eliminate covid” brigade are acting with one scintilla of sincerity. This virus has done what every virus in history has ever done. It’s mutated into an essentially non-lethal form for reasons of pure Darwinian survival — a dead host is useless to it. People need to stop worrying about displaying their virtue, wake the hell up and start smelling what’s being shovelled by the political caste.
Very well said. Be sure that there are South Africans (many of the middle class ie these people have money) who have enthusiastically joined in creating a climate of maximum fear, calls for lockdowns, restrictions, vaccine mandates and the like. These are obviously the people who have the majority voice in the corporate media and much of social media – the poor don’t have a voice and the middle classes who speak out are responded to as nutters and conspiracy theorists who don’t care about human life.
However more and more seem to be joining the ranks of the sceptics. Omicron is way less deadly, crime is on the rise again because of lockdowns and hence people are being shaken awake.
The overriding concern all along was to prevent overwhelming hospitals, esp ICUs and that has been achieved. Eliminating the virus was never an option but may have been an aspiration or a hope. We cannot condemn anyone for all that.
In my village a small stream can become a raging torrent in 30 mins: 30 mins after that its level drops to safety again but in that time ot wreaks havoc to the village.
The solution was to construct 20 small dams along its steep course. The stream still delivers the same quantity of water in heavy downpours but it takes twice as long to flow through the village and so achieves only half the depth and half the flow rate. Success. We could never stop the flow: of course not. But we could slow it’s progress.
The efforts to cope with Covid were the same. And they did work.
You will figure out in due course that the money lost by damaging lockdowns (that actually don’t work), will negatively affect the health industry further. I can remember being in the UK 20 years ago and the NHS was overwhelmed and people were in passageways. Address the problem – which is the NHS.
Talk of superstition – what rubbish! Nobody with an iota of common sense would take these so-called vaccines given their dangers and given the tiny deathrate from a flu virus for anyone remotely healthy. Well done South Africa for resisting I say.
indeed, …. rationality in medicine often gets it very wrong, instincts tend to get it right for individual cases.
The difficulty is how to fit health policy in this which has a large political side to it…. ah politics
And your relevant qualifications are? ..or do you think the opinions of ignorant amateurs are just as valid as those of experts?
Plenty of experts are cautioning against the vaccines.
Removed
“Public distrust for government has been exacerbated by past corruption, mishandling of other crises, and cultural divides”. Boris et al – are you listening?
Indeed, I think Freddie and many are underestimating the level of distrust that the handling of covid has generated. Interestingly, yesterday I was reading the SPARS document from John Hopkins. You can clearly see that their disregard for people’s rights. They really just think of us as cattle. All they care about is maximising compliance, no matter the long term harms.
Living in SA and I am not vaccinated, I got Omincron. 44 yrs old / 22.9 BMI / 10 – 12 hours exercise per week and virus lasted all of 5 days. 18 days now and I feel great, actually worked out well as the virus gave me a chance to rest for a week and work on some other projects. Like a cold on the worst day. I know not everyone has the same experience but the way this vaccine is being pushed and forced on people is disgusting. Any company who would take away a job from a person for not having a vaccine in a country where there is 30% unemployment is just appalling. How many people work and support big households and now you give that person a “choice” to lose their job? Golf Foxtrot Yankee. I even sold my car to support families affected by the lockdown. Anyone pushing that vaccine, how many households did you support during the lockdowns?
Bless you Freddie! Great interview once again. I learned a lot. It was well balanced and ever so reasonable. Everything that legacy media no longer provides.