25%
of perpetrators of
domestic violence
will go on to repeat
their actions with
another partnerI
t’s half past three on a Tuesday afternoon and
a man is sobbing on the phone to a stranger.
He says he has been accused of holding a knife
to his partner’s throat and is awaiting trial on an
assault charge. He has lost his house, has not seen
his children in months and he has called this helpline,
operated by Respect, a charity that works with
perpetrators of domestic abuse, because he has
nowhere else to turn.
“I am trying to be a man. I don’t talk to anyone. I am
so confused,” he sobs down the phone. For the victims
of abuse this can be the most dangerous moment —
when the person who has been hurting them has
nothing left to lose. This phone line exists to try and
intercept, to prevent further harm. Calls are free and
confidential; it is a resource for people who abuse
and want to know how to stop.
For five days I have been listening to calls like this
one. The people on the phone have heard a recorded
message warning them that a journalist from The
Sunday Times is listening. They can opt out but few
do. Not all are at the same point of desperation but
all are calling because something has to change and
that presents the people answering the phone with
an opportunity: to steer them into a programme that
might stop their abusive behaviour.
Violence against women has been one of the defining
issues of the past two years. Lockdowns intensified
violence in the home; calls to the National Domestic
Abuse Helpline rose by 65 per cent between April
and June last year compared with the previous three
months. In March the murder of Sarah Everard by the
police officer Wayne Couzens set off a tsunami of anger
as women across the country expressed fury about the
many ways in which they are still not safe to go about
their lives. It is against this backdrop that a growing
number of people are calling for a radically different
approach, one that tackles the problem at its source:
treating the men doing the damage.
“The way we think and talk about domestic abuse is
part of the problem,” says Davina James-Hanman, an
expert in this field who has advised police forces and
the mayor of London. “We are always talking about
what the victim is doing or not doing and we leave the
perpetrator out of it.” Someone “commits an act of
terrorism”, she says, but “women ‘experience domestic
violence’. Where is the perpetrator in that sentence?”
After months of lobbying from domestic abuse
charities, campaigners and welfare professionals, the
home secretary appears to agree. In a few weeks’ time
the government will publish its first perpetrator strategy,
an attempt to pull together a coherent plan for an area
of social care that is underfunded and controversial.The idea of engaging with perpetrators of abuse
in order to stem their violence is not new, but many
believe it is an underused approach in this country.
Only 1 per cent of perpetrators involved in domestic
abuse incidents go on to have any kind of structured
intervention at all. Yet one in four perpetrators of
violent domestic abuse will repeat their actions
with someone new, and some go on to abuse as many
as six different victims. In a “call to action”, a group
of charities including Respect and SafeLives,
which supports victims of abuse, puts it plainly:
“Opportunities are being missed to stop a perpetrator
abusing their current victim and prevent them from
moving on to their next.”
One reason for this is an entrenched view that violent
men don’t want to change. Yet Respect’s phone line
shows that some will not just accept help but actively
seek it. Just as calls to victim support services shot up
during lockdown, so too did the number of people
calling the Respect phone line with concerns about
their own conduct. In a normal year the charity receives
about 6,500 calls, texts and web chats — the vast
majority from men. From April to June last year, phone
calls went up by 200 per cent, web chats by 400 per
cent and website traffic by 500 per cent.
When I was listening the calls came in dribs and
drabs. Some days there were a handful, on others the
phone was ringing nonstop. Some men had been
ordered to seek help by a judge, others directed by
a social worker; but most were calling of their own
volition, having found out about the helpline on the
internet. There were teachers, nurses, single dads.
One man was worried about having his right to remain
in the UK revoked. All said they wanted to be good
partners, good dads.
“I’m glad I’m out of the relationship,” says a man
waiting for emergency accommodation after his wife
had made him leave the family home. “I don’t want to
mess my next one up and I don’t want my girls thinking
of me like that. I don’t want them looking at me like
that.” Many of those who call are confused; some, like
him, seemed to have no one else to talk to. “We’ve only
had three arguments in 12 years, all in the last six
months,” he says.
When it comes to the violence, I notice that the men
talk about “shoving” or “shouting”, not punches and
bruises and broken bones. Some see themselves as the
victims caught in a spiral beyond their control. “I have
done nothing to deserve it,” one man says in tears. Even
those who knew that their behaviour was wrong often
fell back on tropes — their girlfriends were “pushing
buttons” or knew “exactly how to wind me up”.
Another caller, Steve, believed his ex had been
cheating on him. In the ensuing arguments he lost
control. “I adore the ground she walks on,” he says.
“But if I’m late for work and you are going to meet
your ex-boyfriend, I’m not happy about it. Granted,
I probably am being abusive. But when the same thing
keeps happening, how do you deal with it without
being abusive?”
The call handlers, who have all received specialist
training, have to tread a fine line. They are not there to
excuse the violence in any way, or to sympathise, but
to try and make sure the people around the perpetrators
are safe, and to make it clear that it is up to the callers
to stop. “You always have a choice and you are always
responsible for your behaviour,” the woman on the end
of the phone says calmly. Then she talks about the
various perpetrator programmes around the country.“I want to be able
to say that I’m not
abusive,” Steve says.
“That I have realised
when I am doing it,
so I can stop it”
38 • The Sunday Times Magazine