A letter published in the Daily Mail on 30 January, a few days after a piece in the paper reporting an increasing number of men are victims of domestic abuse:
“Having suffered myself, I can identify several reasons why an increasing number of men are victims of domestic abuse. In my experience, the police tend to treat male victims as if they deserve it. The Crown Prosecution Service doesn’t like to prosecute women and the Government and local authorities don’t provide the same amount of help or number of safe houses as they do for women.
I fell ill and ended up in hospital needing an operation, but while my back was turned, my (now former) wife was cheating on me with several men. When I confronted her, she came at me with a metal lamp. I raised my right arm to protect myself, but ended up with a split head and two broken bones. She was arrested while I was in hospital receiving treatment.
On leaving hospital, I attended a police station to give a statement, but a women police officer arrested me and shoved me in a cell for a day. I asked for a solicitor and in my police interview the female officer made it very clear that she took the side of my wife. She claimed my injuries were self-sustained. My solicitor and my father had to show her how those injuries had been sustained.
My former wife hasn’t been charged. I’m told it’s ‘not in the public interest’. The IPCC upheld my complaint against the police, but the officer involved hasn’t been reprimanded. I obtained a non-molestation order against my former wife and the judge said it was a clear case of GBH for which she should go to prison, but the police and CPS refuse to act.”
Why is it more ‘in the public interest’ to prosecute male perpetrators of domestic abuse than female perpetrators? Apart from anything else, we know most perpetrators of unreciprocated domestic abuse are women.
