‘Post-separation abuse should be part of abuse bill’
Victims left penniless, warns Baroness
RACTRESS Ophelia Lovibond gave a moving interview on Woman’s Hour this week, exactly a year after her great friend, TV presenter Caroline Flack, took her own life. We live in a culture where suicides tend to be quietly pushed to the sidelines and semi-forgotten: Lovibond’s joyous memories of Flack – her love of life, her ability to light up a room, her generosity of spirit – were uplifting and inspiring. A timely tribute to a lovely person.
BARONESS Newlove says victims of domestic abuse must still be protected after splitting from their partner – including from the financial injustice that leaves many penniless.
Some people, including highearning professionals, have been left hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt after breaking up with a spouse or lover who owes cash.
Now Baroness Newlove says the imminent Domestic Abuse Bill must be tweaked to safeguard them.
The former Victims’ Commissioner Baroness Newlove said: “It’s human lives we are playing with here.
“Post-separation abuse needs to be in the Bill – they are putting women in debt.
“They are absolutely making them penniless – there’s no class distinction. I do hope they will look at the criminal side and the civil side.”
She added: “We can’t say it’s an all-singing, dancing domestic abuse legislation if we are still fighting at the highest level.”
Post-separation abuse takes many forms, with a quarter of women reporting that their estranged partner still continues to harm and control them economically.
The charity Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA) is also battling for an amendment in the Bill to extend the existing legislation on coercive control to post-separation abuse.
Horrendous
Under the Daily Express End This Injustice campaign, the crusade has won a Government pledge to overhaul the Family Court system through the Domestic Abuse Bill.
We are also demanding further legislation to offer greater protection to those being abused.
Baroness Newlove said it was vital community services were at the heart of the Bill as it would protect lives.
They include phone hotlines, temporary shelters and help finding housing. The majority of domestic abuse victims use them.
The first pandemic lockdown alone led to an 80 per cent rise in calls to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline.
The baroness said: “The community service is a big win-win – if you do not have that in there, there will be more murders.”
Sickening figures show two women a week are killed by either their current or former partner.Thirty men die through domestic abuse a year.
Nearly a third of women aged 16 to 59 will live through domestic abuse. Some 1.6 million women experienced it in the year ending March 2019.
One in six men will be on receiving end in their lifetime.
It makes up 16 per cent of all violent crime and has more repeat victims than any other offence.
On average there will have been 35 the
assaults before a victim calls the police. Baroness Newlove said there needed to be greater investment than the £7million budgeted for bringing offenders to book.
She said: “We have 50,000 perpetrators but the money only deals with 2,000. No wonder we have a criminal justice system that is falling and collapsing.
“It’s horrendous, we need something that’s accountable and responsible. How much do we value lives?”
She said she shared the same view as criminal behavioural analyst
Laura Richards that agencies work together to help victims.
The baroness said: “It’s important we have a national approach with multi-agencies – the work of Laura Richards has been immense.”
The Domestic Abuse Bill heads towards the report stage at the House of Lords on March 8.
Baroness Newlove said there was still a way to go on the Bill. She added: “Non-fatal strangulation needs to be in the Bill, there’s post-separation abuse and a register. I am not prepared to have blood on my must hands. How long are we going to wait? There will be another 100 women who lose their lives if we do not put stronger laws into place.” She added: “We still have a lot of work to do.”
Safeguarding Minister Victoria Atkins said: Our highest-ever investment of £7million to target perpetrators and stop the cycle of abuse is in addition to the work that already happens in the criminal justice system.”
The Lord Chancellor has indicated non-fatal strangulation will be made a standalone offence this year, with a maximum sentence of seven years.
DO WE all owe Britney Spears an apology? Justin Timberlake, the troubled pop queen’s former boyfriend, last week addressed the harm he did her nearly 20 years ago. “I am deeply sorry,” he confessed. Singer Katy Perry and comedy star Sarah Silverman are among celebrities lining up to express regret for their past hurtful jibes.
Their mea culpas come as a legion of concerned fans, a powerful new documentary, and a recent California court ruling have combined to show Britney in a dramatic new light. The singer, who turns 40 this year, with hits including Oops!... I Did It Again and Toxic, is belatedly being revealed as a vulnerable woman in crisis who deserves understanding and support, rather than mockery and misogyny.
For the past two decades she has been viewed as a cautionary tale: the provocatively sexualised schoolgirl singer taken on a roller coaster fame ride that went horribly wrong.
She suffered a mental breakdown, was locked up in psychiatric units, and made repeated trips to rehab. She has struggled through two failed marriages, custody battles, a career collapse and comeback, and clung desperately to fame with a lucrative lounge act in LasVegas.
Shocking images of Britney are engraved indelibly on pop culture: shaving off her hair in a self-destructive act of rebellion, swinging an umbrella wildly at the paparazzi who haunted her every move, and strapped to a gurney being wheeled away to a psychiatric ward.
Deemed unfit to care for herself, her life, health care, career and finances have been under a court conservatorship – an American order similar to a British Power of Attorney – which has been controlled by her father for the past 13 years.
But in recent weeks she has been revealed as the victim of sexism and snobbery, betrayed and exploited by those who should have had her interests at heart, including her family, lovers, a rapacious music industry and a prurient American media.
“Does anyone making money off her being sick want her well?” demanded singing legend Cher, calling Britney a “golden goose” who worked hard for those controlling her. “Someone who doesn’t want anything from her should look into her doctor.”
CHER also accused the star’s conservators of giving her “just enough meds to keep her working, but not enough to have a life.” During a concert in Memphis, Tennessee, singer Miley Cyrus yelled out: “Free Britney!” echoing the battle cry of Spears’ army of fans, who have been campaigning to get the conservatorship overturned.
Spears herself highlighted the movement in court papers, saying it was “far from being a conspiracy theory or a joke.”
Long considered a victim of her own poor choices – in men, management, and behaviour – she is finally being acknowledged as a casualty of a fame factory that chewed her up and spat her out.
The years under her father’s control have taken their toll.
She has confessed that she has not spoken to him since August, and says she is “scared” of him. Many fans believe he is doing very nicely out of his percentage of her earnings. Whatever the final legal outcome, Britney has decided to turn off the cash tap, vowing not to perform or record again as long as her father remains conservator of her affairs.
She has already been to court several times to demand his removal, in vain, although she recently won the right to have an independent trust share control of her affairs with her father.
But she has not performed live since October 2018, cancelling a lavish new Las Vegas residency planned for 2019, and it is unknown if or when she will return to work.
Jamie, aged 67, who insists that he is only protecting her best interests, says: “I love my daughter and miss her very much.”
He claims to have lifted her out of debt and amassed a £45million fortune for her, but his repeated sealing of court files has raised fans’ suspicions. Kim Kaiman, marketing director at Spears’ early label Jive Records, recalls: “The only thing Jamie ever said to me is, ‘My daughter is going to be so rich, she’s gonna buy me a boat’.”
As the #FreeBritney movement gains strength on social media, a new documentary, Framing Britney Spears, produced by The New York Times, has given credence to fans’ fears.
The film presents evidence that she has been forced into legal agreements against her will.
There is speculation that she only agreed to the conservatorship out of fear that without it she would never see her children again.
The documentary looks back on a lifetime of exploitation and chauvinistic abuse endured by the singer.
She first appeared at the age of ten on American TV show Star Search, where host Ed McMahon noted her “adorable, pretty eyes” and asked if he could be her boyfriend.
She rocketed to fame at 17 portraying a sexually charged teen with her hit music video for ...Baby One More Time, only to face TV interviewers asking if she was a virgin and whether she had breast implants.
She dated NSYNC boyband star Justin Timberlake, and they became pop’s power couple, but when they split after three years in 2002 he accused her of infidelity and casually revealed details of their sex life, contradicting her assertion she was still a virgin. Spears became a laughing stock, while Timberlake’s career soared.
The music industry “was unashamed of how cruel it was then,” says former MTVVJ Dave Holmes, who recalls “the intense misogyny that Spears and other young female pop stars and celebrities had to face”.
Timberlake, now an actor and producer, apologised last week for benefiting “from a system that condones misogyny” and confessed: “The industry is flawed... As a man in a privileged position I have to be vocal about this... I do not want ever to benefit from others being pulled down