Domestic abuse must be met with outrage and a demand for change
COLUMNIST
NOT a fun column this week, but a really serious one. For the second time in a month and a half I have interviewed a woman who has been a victim of serious domestic violence.
In both cases the women were from the Cardiff area and in both cases it was their own incredible bravery that put their abusers behind bars.
One of the women, Jodie Tague, was the victim in one of Wales’ firstever successful convictions for coercive control.
She secretly recorded the abuse she suffered on her phone.
The 36-minute audio recording was harrowing. Her brutal abuser can be heard spitting at and slapping Jodie.
However, this recording was vital evidence in securing a conviction.
My second interview was with perhaps the bravest woman I have ever spoken to.
In 2013 Charlotte Rooks was involved in what the judge described as “the worst case of domestic abuse” he had ever seen.
Over a period of about two months, a pregnant Charlotte was beaten, tortured and made to eat photos of her deceased loved ones by her then partner.
She only got out of her imprisonment, and raised the alarm, after running out of the flat when the doors were left unlocked.
With both of these women I conducted sit-down interviews where they recounted the most painful moments of their lives.
It was difficult because during both interviews I felt physically sick at what I was hearing. I felt a mixture of anger and revulsion about what these brave women had been put through.
And, professionally, it was humbling to interview them.
You expect to have to probe and draw answers out of people as a reporter.
In these two cases none of that was needed. The women were so dignified, so courageous and so determined that they were able to recount incredibly difficult memories.
Their bravery cannot be overstated, and could not be met with anything other than compassion and empathy.
The reason they both decided to tell their story is because they wanted to give other women in abusive relationships the courage to seek help.
They wished for some good to come out of their suffering.
I tell you about them now, not just to pay tribute to them.
Their courage speaks for itself and does not need me to spell it out.
I tell you now to draw attention to observations I made while working on their stories.
Firstly, the similarities in their abusers. In both cases these men always played the victim.
According to the cowardly perpetrators, they were the ones who were hard done by (woe is them).
Secondly, both of these women were pregnant. Before she retired and started living a gluten-free life of fun, my mum worked as a psychologist. She told me that pregnancy is often a trigger for escalating violence from male partners.
The third thing I would like to draw attention to is how the public reacted.
The vast, vast majority of comments were supportive and full of praise for these two women.
However, there were some who expressed a different view.
Obviously you get the usual bile and curse-riddled tripe that you expect when you put something online. That I can ignore, because they are just trolls who like to snipe from their bedroom in their mother’s basement.
There were some commenters who were more articulate, though. They said, “you talk about domestic abuse against women but why aren’t you talking about men?”
When I read them I cannot help but feel exasperated. Why does focusing on an issue have to be framed as ignoring another issue?
I wouldn’t write on a story about a house fire “you talk about house fires but what about the shortage of nurses?” Clearly domestic abuse of men is an issue that should be addressed, but why is that some people’s first takeaway when they hear these women’s stories?
Women being murdered by partners is a national epidemic.
If it was terrorism or a flu outbreak there would be outrage.
Every week, two women in the UK are killed by a partner or ex-partner.
Bear in mind that this statistic does not include these two women because they escaped their situation. Imagine the suffering that is going on behind closed doors across Wales.
The vast majority of those suffering are women and, in my opinion, the reaction to that should be outrage, revulsion and a clamour for change.