One million domestic abuse cases unreported every year, experts warn
Fears scale of male violence will overwhelm key support services as campaigners say only education can ease crisis in the long term
Up to one million incidents of domestic violence may go unreported in Scotland every year, according to experts, who warn the sheer scale of the crisis threatens to overwhelm police, prosecution and support services.
Police last year reported 33,425 alleged assaults to the Crown Office but campaigners say the true number of incidents of violence, verbal abuse and coercive control is far higher.
SafeLives, the UK-wide charity dedicated to ending domestic abuse, believe that before seeking help women endure an average of 50 incidents, and wait, on average, up to three years, suggesting Scots victims are enduring around 600,000 incidents a year without reporting them. Experts, however, fear that number may be even higher.
Dr Allan Moore, author of this year’s Survivors Voices report, which was prepared as part of the development of a new restorative justice programme for the Scottish Government, said the real number of incidents could be as high as one million a year.
He said: “My belief is that all of us, including the government and agencies who work in this sector, are loathe to admit or acknowledge the true scale of it because it is not only overwhelming, there is a fear of being accused of a failure to tackle the problem, when, in fact, they are doing good work.
“But, if we fail to confront the scale of it, the cycle will never stop.”
Moore, a criminology and criminal justice lecturer at West of Scotland University and one of the country’s foremost experts on victims of crime, said that, as a result, the very complex nature of domestic abuse, gender violence and intimate partner violence was hidden away.
“Evidence shows that those who suffer abuse tend to suffer multiple instances,” he said. “These can include anything from women feeling threatened by being whistled at or subjected to inappropriate comment, to being intimidated, coercive or financial control to physical or sexual violence.
“The most recent Scottish crime figures showed 16.5% of adults had experienced it, and that equates to around 700,000. When you consider most will have suffered multiple incidents, it’s easy to see the figure rise to over a million instances a year.
“There is no black and white proof of that figure. But all the circumstantial threads of evidence point to it being the truth. When you join together all those threads you get a very strong rope.
“We must recognise that we are now at a particular moment in time where all attention is centred on domestic and misogynistic abuse. We should seize that moment to bring in the changes that will give women a voice and allow them to be heard.”
Professor Jane Monckton Smith, a forensic criminologist specialising in homicide, stalking and coercive control, said: “I have no doubt the real figure of abusive behaviour towards women and girls will be around a million instances a year in Scotland. But the attrition of crime means there will be no official figure supporting that. People are afraid of the enormity of the abuse that goes on daily.
“Crimes against women and children are out of control. But official figures simply don’t reflect how bad it really is. I’ve studied hundreds of cases of female homicides that have been categorised as sudden deaths or suicide.
“If we can’t rely on police homicide figures, how can we possibly rely on their figures for domestic abuse and violence against women and children?
“Sexual violence against women and children is now at epidemic levels because of the easily accessed violent porn that is being considered to be the norm. It’s become so widespread we even find young girls believing it to be the norm.”
Monckton Smith welcomed moves to introduce a standalone offence of misogyny to Scottish law. She said: “Just the other day Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitted that misogyny was so widespread the police couldn’t possibly cope with it and that was why he wasn’t going to make it a crime.