Why we must save elderly victims of abuse
She set up Silver Line to help the lonely but the phone service has also uncovered horrifying tales of cruelty. Here, DAME ESTHER RANTZEN issues a heartfelt plea...
Violet was in tears when she rang the Silver line helpline. Frightened and helpless, she is 77 and lives alone. Her only child, her daughter Margaret, is 36, an accountant working as financial director in a very busy and successful local business.
Margaret gets very angry, and when they are together her temper flares up and she can become violent.
on New Year’s Day, they had an argument. Margaret slapped Violet’s face and, says Violet, ‘she chucked me out into the garden and locked me out. i am frightened now that if she comes back she will hit me again.’
We at the Silver line have an arrangement with the charity Action on elder Abuse that if a caller needs urgent help, we contact them, so we gently coaxed Violet into allowing us to speak to an expert at the charity to provide her with the protection she needs. But she took persuading.
it is such a huge step, referring her only child to the police and asking for help. it felt to her like a betrayal. Sadly, Violet is not an isolated case. i had no idea just how vulnerable hundreds of thousands of older people are, until we launched the Silver line.
the creation of a helpline specifically for older people was inspired eight years ago, when i first wrote about my feelings of loneliness.
i had lost my beloved husband Desmond and described living alone for the first time at the age of 71 and hating it.
My article in the Mail unleashed a tsunami of response. So many older people wrote to say that they, too, felt the numbness, the vacuum, the loss of identity that loneliness brings.
THERE is such a stigma about admitting to loneliness, and older people are so desperately anxious not to become a burden to their family and friends that they had kept their feelings to themselves.
From my Childline experience i believed that a telephone helpline could empower them to reach out for help. So we opened up the Silver line in November 2013, and the same tsunami hit us.
From the very beginning the majority of calls came in afterhours or over weekends and public holidays such as Christmas Day and New Year’s when no other services are available.
And for the past three years we have received an overwhelming 10,000 calls a week.
Until the Silver line launched, there was no free, confidential, national helpline for older people that was open night and day.
in six short years we have now received more than 2.5 million calls. the vast majority of our callers live alone, and ring to describe their isolation and loneliness but, from the start, among them, i was shocked to hear horrifying stories of abuse.
Gwen, for instance, was clearly desperately anxious when she rang the helpline, saying she didn’t know where to turn.
She and her husband Alan had been very close, but recently he had started to become aggressive: shouting at her and threatening to hit her.
the previous day, they had gone together to their GP but Alan refused to accept anything was wrong, and when the doctor tried to reason with him gently, he had stormed out.
Could she, Gwen wanted to know, return to the GP on her own and tell him how scared she had become? or would she have to wait until Alan attacked her? Was there any support for someone in her situation?
So often, it feels like a brutal choice between love and safety.
When your abuser is someone you love, or someone you rely upon, how can you protect yourself? there are steps you can take. For instance, register as a carer with your GP, then contact your local carers’ centre for support and advice. But it is crucial that for everyone’s sake you are not hurt. So the choices can be painful and difficult.
this is not a new story for me. From the very start of Childline, the children’s helpline we started 33 years ago, i realised this was the heartbreaking situation abused children were living with, the secret they dared not share.
they were being hurt by daddy, or mummy or a family friend, terrified that if they asked for help they would make everything even worse.
We on Childline’s helpline were the only people who knew about their suffering. our confidentiality gave them safety and confidence to ask for help.
Now the confidentiality of the Silver line, and the fact it is free and open 24/7, gives older people the same lifeline. it gives them a voice for the first time. Similarly, i have learned painfully over the past six years since the Silver line Helpline was launched that the same prison of suffering that encloses the children who ring Childline can lock hundreds of older people into silence.
And it is for exactly the same reason: that the abuser is someone close to them, someone they need and rely upon, a son, a daughter, a partner, a carer.
But there is a huge difference in the way the country looks after them. in theory, there is a network of child protection, although we know that tragically some of our most vulnerable children fall through it.
However, there is no network for older people. there are some valiant charities but no vigilant, protective structure.
Some older people have created nest eggs of savings, or own their own homes, so they become targets for financial abuse.
Not stranger danger, not the unscrupulous conmen who contact them by phone or via the internet, although, of course, that does happen. But Silver line callers talk about being targeted by members of their own families.
Derek told us that when he was in hospital, his son had sold his house, so he was homeless now.
Maureen rang to say that her daughter Alice had emptied her bank account of her only savings,
£2,000. She reported it to the police and they were going with her to the bank the next day to sort out what had happened. But in the meantime, she was deeply distressed.
Sheila said that her son and his family were living in her house and had moved her into an extension.
They wouldn’t give her the key to the main house and now they were asking her to pay the electricity bill, which she couldn’t afford.
She wanted to have her house, her only asset, back.
Many Silver Line callers are carers, looking after a partner. Some of those partners suffer from dementia, an illness that can make previously gentle individuals irritable, aggressive and sometimes violent. Their partners are caught in a terrible dilemma, knowing that they are in danger but fearing that if they report it their partner may be put into care.
Once again, asking for help feels like a betrayal.
From time to time, the media report distressing stories of abusive care homes, and although most of the Silver Line callers live in their own homes (residents in care homes are sometimes too frail to ring us, or find it difficult to find a confidential space), we do hear cases of worrying maltreatment.
For example, Anne told us she had been left sitting soiled in a chair for nine hours while workmen were working in her bedroom.
When she asked for help, she was told nothing could be done to change or clean her until the work was finished. With her permission, we reported this to the Care Quality Commission, the regulatory body for care homes.
One lady rang us on her mobile from a bathroom in her care home. She told us she was freezing cold because the heating had not been switched on, and residents were given very little food.
She refused to tell us her name because she was frightened of being made to suffer or being thrown out — but she did identify the home.
Fortunately, we had the advice and support of one of our foundertrustees, Gary Fitzgerald, then the CeO of Action on elder Abuse. We referred the case to them, so that they could act on it.
Gary warned us, however, that protecting older people and stopping abuse can be incredibly difficult. They are so vulnerable, and asking for help means making excruciating choices.
There are residents of care homes who may report abuse or ill treatment to their families but the families fear that if they take action, their relative may suffer even more. So what is to be done? It is a sad fact that if you look at Britain’s list of charities in terms of donations, you will find cancer and dogs in the top 20 but nothing for older people in the top 40. Age UK comes in at 44.
I believe things will never change until the Government appoints a Minister for Older People. We need evidence that our country cares about older people not just as a demographic, or a mounting problem, but as people who should be valued and protected from abuse and neglect.
CHARITIES working in the field have campaigned for this for years, with no result. The time has come to change attitudes, and make older people feel the nation cares enough to make a minister accountable for their wellbeing and safety.
Charities such as Age UK, Action On elder Abuse and The Silver Line are left to battle day in, day out, trying to protect the hundreds of thousands of older people who live with loneliness, neglect and abuse.
Theirs is a brave, independent generation which hates to ask for help and often suffer in silence.
They urgently need a determined advocate in the Cabinet to fight for them, give them a voice and provide the reassurance that as a nation we care for and value the older people to whom we owe so much.
■ NAMES have been changed to protect confidentiality. The silver Line is available free of charge to callers at 0800 4 70 80 90. The action on elder abuse helpline, also free, is on 080 8808 8141. If you have been a victim of elder abuse and want to share your story, contact us at Inspire@dailymail.co.uk or write to Inspire at Northcliffe House, 2 Derry street, London W8 5TT.