Labels – It is by no mistake that the labels “Victim” are applied to “female victims” and the word “perpetrator” is applied to men who have allegedly caused harm to somebody.

We can quite easily work with and change an idividual’s behaviours by building into him or her a range of new responses, a repertoire of new skills. It is impossible for us to change the label imposed by and maintained by others. They would need to do that themselves, and, of course, they have not the slighest motivation to do so. A consequence is that society is left with “female victims” and “male perpetrators” – and, of course the male perpetrators become a “toxic masculinity”.

Letter to Mike Reader Labour MP for Northampton South

To Mike Reader

Labour MP for Northamptonshire South

Dear Mike,

I write as one of your constituents, NN3 5ED N0 10.

Three issues;

Firstly, FYI in case you or your officials get questioned about the lack of Perpetrator programmes with which the children of individual men can potentially regain some contact with their father after his completion of a programme

I write to inform you of the charity I lead, Temper Domestic Violence which was set up in Northamptonshire and which has worked with domestic abusers,  mainly males, to the Heart of England model which a colleague and I, Mrs Denise Knowles, have devoted the last 30 years of our lives to.  In the face of all of the violence against women and girls initiative, with which at one level we have absolutely no problem, we have completed 36 hours of therapeutically informed work with more than 1300 men and more than 120 women.  

You might be aware of the recent decommissioning of, and essentially the closure of, the domestic abuse perpetrator programmes which were so-called “accredited” and known as DAPPs. The accreditation  was by a radically Feminist inspired organisation,  the charity RESPECT which essentially wanted to accredit the programme which the leadership had set up and which was essentially designed to complete as little as possible effective work with the men they purported to work with.  We were never going to be accredited; we saw from an early stage the utter ineffective nonsense of the work they were requiring.

Our programme has stood the test of time. Theirs is now, with luck, dead in the water. 

Secondly, I’m writing today in connection with two other situations: the tainted blood scandal– I was a residential house master at the school in question, Treloar’s in Alton,  from 1976 until 1986. I would urge you to hasten the government’s efforts to pay the compensation deemed necessary to those people involved in a much more accountable way than is currently being practised. At that time, the two sons of a constituent of yours, one of them in my house, both died at later dates of the aids virus.  If you follow up on the subject you’ll see that Richard Warwick, who talks freely on the subject was also one of the boys in my care.

The third thing I would bring to your attention is the following:

It concerns:  The   Removal of Presumption of Parental Involvement in Child Arrangements”

The government, in collaboration with the domestic abuse lobby, seeks to remove the presumption of parental involvement from the Children Act 1989 in relation to child arrangements after parents separate.

Their intent is to immediately stop an alleged abusive parent from having contact with their child(ren). On the surface it sounds like a good aim but I’m concerned such a change would:

Go against attachment theory which causes both children and parents harm, particularly the children. I do not know what engagement the government has had with professionals in the attachment community but the paper The Effect of Separation from Parents on Children [2023] and the book Raising Parents may provide vital information and inspiration to get better outcomes for children.  This little cartoon clip gives a lot of quick and easy insight into attachment theory.

• Fear for both parents is already involved in involvements in the family courts and therefore it is likely to generate even more conflict at a time when they, and their children will already be under very significant stress.
• Cause longer delays in potentially re-establishing contact between a good-enough parent/child where false allegations have been made, by which time significant harm may have occurred.
• It will widen inconsistency within public law cases where parents are given the opportunity to change their behaviours in cases where abuse has been confirmed. And it will very significantly damage cases in Private Law cases where the best interests of the child, as ruled by the Family court,  is quite simply ignored by a resident parent who chooses not to follow the judgment. 
• The child’s best interests is in the vast majority of cases to gather support from both parents after meaningful efforts, such as ours, have been concluded  to support parents and help parents improve their parenting and understanding of the needs of the children.  The vast majority of the men we work with demonstrate very considerable ability to change their behaviours –  in contradiction of the previous “Respect accredited” nonsense which was being required which quite simply attempted to disenfranchise all those men.  
• As it stands the current provision is to assume contact is in the best interests of the child, unless proved otherwise. That appears in line with children’s needs for attachment as outlined by attachment theory, thus securing the child’s human right to a relationship with both parents.

We have all, hopefully, just witnessed the ending of the transgender nonsense. 

In terms of domestic abuse On the subject of “who does what” please find attached FREEDOM of Information gathered from the Northants police in 2004, 5,6   and 2010,11,12.  Linked here.

You will notice the very marked decline of police involvement with domestic abuse in Northamptonshire.  The original police call outs were to, in  round figures, 7,000 female victims  and 4,500 male victims.   Valid research from 2002 indicted 7 men per 1000 and 5 women per 1000 being Intimate terrorists.   

More recent research indicates just under 60% of DA  being bi-directional.  Research by Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling establishes greater female abuse of male partners than vice versa.

I can produce all the research.

Yours sincerely,

David Eggins  

Northamptonshire Police – Freedom of Information requests in 2006 the Northamptonshire police introduced an arrest somebody

Male “victims”: Average Number of 2004/05/06       4,500 average 2009,10,11 741

Female “victims”: Average number 2004/05/06    6,900 average 2009,10,11 2,817

Number of males arrested 2006,      1,500 Number of females arrested 2006   575  

Average number of males arrested 09/10/11      1,700 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.