Northamptonshire Police – Freedom of Information requests
Male victims: Average Number of 2004/05/06 4,500
Female victims: Average number of female victims 2004/05/06 6,900
Number of males arrested 2006, 1,500
Number of females arrested 2006 575
Average number of female victims 2009,10,11, 2817.
Average number of males arrested 09/10/11 1,700
Average number of male victims 2009,10,11 741
Average number of females arrested 09/10/11 468
Press Release: 1
From Temper! Domestic Violence reg charity 1081139
As part of the strategy to protect women and girls from violence we read and hear all the time about refuges and female support groups needing ever more money to support female victims and girls. What about the boys? We seldom hear of work with domestic abusers. Which is also needed to stop or reduce Domestic Violence and abuse to those women and children.
About 35/ 36% of DV is by women against men, which of course children of the family will also witness or be involved with. We hear virtually nothing of those female abusers with whom we have worked for the last 27 years . Why do we not hear about that?
Our new National Help Line for female abusers/perpetrators, matches our work with male abusers and perpetrators, the needs of both groups can be combined in one programme. The female helpline number is 0203 286 4482 and the website www.Mytemper.org.uk open Mon-Fri 10.00-12.00 and 2.00-4.00.
Our last Derbyshire case involved a fairly typical young , married couple with a new baby and quite a lot of mutual family involvement, mainly partisan.
The couple were from similar backgrounds, similar ages, probably had similar hopes and expectations about what their relationship would become. The couple were romantically attached, but of course both had come from completely different families with different family expectations about how families run. The woman left the man several times and returned, expressing that she loved him.
Very pleased and no doubt proud when they discovered that the woman was pregnant, very sadly the relationship didn’t survive these early stresses. Decent couple help would have probably enabled this couple to remain together, overcoming the immediate stresses of having a new baby.
Couple counselling is “trumped” by a very loud media narrative which makes men the villains, ignoring the facts that more than 35% of domestic violence is by women. Covid has illustrated very clearly the intense stresses which can envelope individuals, couples and families.
This young woman faced many of the stresses involved in carrying the baby, the discomfort, the minor (and major) panics, all of which have the underlying worry: “will the baby be all right?” What’s going to happen to my work, my career? What will the birth be like, will it be easy or very difficult? The transition, with a first baby, from the position of “looked after daughter” / princess to “responsible mother” is an enormous sea-change. In this case there was no indication of post natal depression – which evidence now establishes affects both adults.
Bodies beautiful very often become large and distorted, with pregnancy, stretched and scarred with birth. Feelings of unsightliness to the point of shame, can arise in women as their self image is radically altered.
For the men, too, the changes are enormous. Often very competent wives and partners give way to anxious potential mothers, with whom many men do not understand how to cope: sex can become difficult. Worries begin to multiply about providing, about adjusting, about sharing household responsibilities. Disturbed nights, feeds, nappies etc and working out how to cope with “who does what” are the new realities.
Like many couples, locked into the expectations of their own family’s survival mechanisms people don’t have the skills with which to cope. There is very little, virtually no non-partisan help for them to learn those skills, particularly if there is no money available to pay for the help.