This link to 22 “factsheets” about the Domestic Abuse Act was last updated last Wednesday, 28 July. You will search in vain for content in the “factsheets” which suggests reducing the domestic abuse of men by women is something to which the state’s resources should be targeted.

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Hi Everybody,

Interesting skirmish earlier this month over a police union submission to the federal inquiry into family law. In their submission the Queensland Police Union pointed out that false allegations of domestic violence are regularly used to gain advantage in family law disputes and that members of the police force are finding themselves on the receiving end.

Well, that was enough to prompt The Guardian to leapt into the fray, quoting ‘experts’ from domestic violence organisations to dismiss the claims as ‘factually incorrect’. The serve from The Guardian prompted Shane Prior, an executive from the Police Union, to hit back, pointing out that serving police officers spend huge amounts of their working days dealing with domestic violence problems and know a lot more about the issue than most women’s groups.

“We’re experts in DV too!” he wrote on his Facebook page. “We’re tackling the real issues that affect police like trying to fix broken and unworkable domestic violence laws and the ‘DV industry’ condemns us for it?’’

I loved seeing him reference the “domestic violence industry,” an expression I have long used to describe this huge, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle.

The term was originally used by the brave Erin Pizzey who started the first women’s refuge in Britain in the 1970s but was forced to leave the country following death threats from feminists when she publicly exposed the fact that domestic violence usually involves two-way aggression, involving both violent women and men.

As I pointed out in my  major article on the industry five years ago, the whole feminist DV edifice depends on a constant stream of propaganda downplaying the true causes of this complex social problem, denying women’s role in family violence and pretending it’s simply about dangerous men terrorizing women.

The image of big burly policemen having their careers destroyed by false violence accusations from an ex-spouse risks real damage to this carefully maintained facade. The feminists have good reason to be concerned if police go public with the truth about what’s actually going on.

Look at these comments posted by police officers on Prior’s Facebook page:

“I have heard countless women in my career advise other women, ‘Just say he raped you or bashes you and the kids. It works every time.’”

“I literally had a woman attend the front counter of a station and the first words out of her mouth were ‘I’ve been told to come and get a DVO against my boyfriend because it’ll stop him from getting custody of the kids’…  The system is broken and the legislation appears to be written by someone I wouldn’t trust to tie their own shoes.”

Augusto Zimmerman and the broken domestic violence system

Augusto Zimmerman knows all about that flawed legislation. Back in 2016 as a former WA law reform commissioner the Perth law professor was involved with assessing proposed DV laws for his state. Augusto and colleagues lined up legal heavyweights to warn of the dangers if women could simply claim they feared rather than experienced violence in order to receive apprehended violence orders. The government ignored the advice and went ahead, proudly declaring they were tilting laws in favour of victims and the rest of the country followed suit.

Given that the police are required to act as enforcers of these draconian laws, it’s hardly surprising that they are not happy. Almost three years ago Augusto was asked by the WA Police Union to address their members regarding these concerns. Augusto drew on his prior experience teaching police officers in Rio de Janeiro to explain to his very receptive audience that our police are being placed in an invidious position, used as instruments of oppression in a corrupt system.

My own correspondence shows the growing disquiet in our police force. Two years ago, I made a video with a retired chief inspector who contacted me wanting to speak out about women using false allegations to obtain restraining orders and destroy their ex-partner’s lives.

He was just one of many – here’s a sampling from some such emails:

“When I was a young police officer I learned to love and respect due process and presumption of innocence. Even if you thought that someone might have gotten away with it, it was weirdly comforting knowing there was a high bar set. Now all those principles and processes are being perverted for the sake of ideology. Good and smart men are letting it happen. And others are too fearful to challenge it.”

“As a victim of the most savage family violence as a child and adult, I understand the stand you are taking in relation to males as victims. My father never touched any of us children in his lifetime. The savage attacks were all from our mother,” wrote a retired veteran police officer, expressing his concern at the denial of female violence.

Another retired officer commented: “When I was a policeman, we attended many domestic violence calls. Often 5-6 per night shift. What I saw was, in the overwhelming majority of cases, it was the female who would initiate the violence. Usually by throwing things. The man would respond and, being bigger and stronger, inflict the greater damage. Then, he would get arrested. But when we went to pub crawls, the first question was always, ‘Who threw the first punch?’ That’s who would get locked up. I could never understand the two different policies.”

Different laws for different genders.

That last comment is a very good illustration of how brilliantly the feminists have rewritten the script and changed the rules of how we respond to domestic violence. It’s no longer relevant who initiated the violence, they say, claiming that women are only ever aggressive if they are goaded into it by years of bullying and coercive control. Only then will women hit out in self-defence unleashing men’s dangerous anger, they claim.

But that’s not what research tells us. Decades of international studies show most interpersonal violence is two-way, involving violent women as well as men. Here’s a 2012  bibliography from psychology professor Martin Fieberg listing 286 scholarly investigations, 221 empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their male partners.

A chapter in the Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health by psychologists Deborah Powney and Nicola Graham-Kevan from the University of Central Lancashire details research showing women are more likely to strike the first blow. Given that women who participate in physical violence are more likely to end up injured, these authors point out that denial of this reality is contributing to harm experienced by women. “It is of note that this data has been available for as long as the women’s movement has been actively promoting the gender paradigm, yet due to concealment and denial, most organisations and individuals are unaware of these findings,” they rightly comment.

The public discourse promoted by the huge government-funded industry remains governed by distorted feminist narrative. It’s not surprising that police are unhappy about being compelled to enforce that false narrative, unfairly punishing men and failing to provide assistance for violent women needing help to control their dangerous behaviour.

Police officer speaks out about being a feminist enforcer

This week I had a live chat on thinkspot with Evelyn Rae, a conservative political commentor and former police officer. She confirmed growing disquiet in the force about being complicit in promoting ideologically driven injustice against men.

It was fascinating listening to her speak about the false domestic violence reports now taking up so much of police officers’ time. “We are fed by media, politicians and domestic violence resources that false allegations aren’t a thing. But I can tell you that with all my years of experience I have seen and investigated more false allegations than I have real crime,” she says, speaking about both domestic violence and sexual assault investigations.

Her own impression was that at least half of domestic violence allegations she dealt with during her 12 years in the force were false. Having retired a few years ago, she checked prior to our interview with colleagues still in the force and they confirmed this remains the case. They told her when they do attend violent homes, “Most often it’s the women are instigators, but men are copping it because of their physicality.” As Evelyn explained, in two-way violence, women are more likely to be injured because men are bigger and stronger and hence the men are inevitably the ones charged.

Police aren’t happy, reports Evelyn. “Police are fed up with it. They are in a precarious position and cannot act the way they believe is right and in good faith. They have lost the ability to use their discretion.”

She believes that discretion should include taking action against people making false allegations. Evelyn reported that in her time in the force she came across many allegations which were proved to be false but never charged anyone. “We are not allowed to because this might deter real victims of crimes,” she said. She reports only three “genuine rape cases” amongst the many she investigated. Most turned out to be based on false allegations or were murky consent cases unsupported by any proper evidence.

Please listen to this important conversation and help me circulate this video https://youtu.be/IzP_qExJGRQ

With YouTube making it difficult for people to access my videos, it would be wonderful if you all could like, subscribe and help me circulate my efforts.

The domestic violence industry is causing immense harm in our community, using their powerful resources to demonise men instead of properly addressing the real causes of this complex social problem. It’s very encouraging seeing people like Evelyn Rae and other brave members of the police force exposing this disgraceful rort. Help me get her message out there.

Until next time, Tina

Bettina Arndt
E: bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au
Website: www.bettinaarndt.com.au
Mothers of Sons website: www.mothersofsons.info
MOS Facebook: www.facebook.com/MothersOfSonsMOS
MOS Twitter: www.twitter.com/Mothersofsons1

Last year, we submitted evidence to a consultation by the Law Society of England and Wales about the law governing harmful, threatening, and false communications, telling the Commission we thought the existing law was far too censorious, particularly the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and section 127 of the Communications Act 2003. (It was this section which resulted in the prosecution of the comedian Mark Meechan for being “grossly offensive” after he made a YouTube video about his efforts to teach his girlfriend’s pug to give a Nazi salute.) We urged the Commission to scrap those offences and we’re pleased to see that it is following our advice. In a report published last month, which refers to the evidence submitted by the FSU repeatedly, the Commission recommended replacing those offences with a new “harm-based” communications offence, whereby it would no longer be enough to show a communicant caused annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to secure a prosecution; in future, the Crown would need to show that they deliberately intended to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm. In addition, we urged the Commission to exempt journalists and media companies from communications offences and it has followed this advice, too.

While we’re glad to see so many of our recommendations adopted, we do have some reservations about the Commission’s proposals. We’re concerned about overly broad definitions of the word “harm”. As a bare minimum, no one should be prosecuted for a given communication unless it can be shown beyond doubt it caused real harm to a person of reasonable firmness. On a platform like Twitter, for instance, which has 330 million monthly active users, a message may cause one of those individuals non-trivial psychological harm because they are particularly psychologically fragile. But it wouldn’t be fair to prosecute a communicant on that basis.

You can see our press release on the Law Commission’s proposals here. Andrew Tettenborn of our Legal Advisory Council has written for the Critic about the Commission’s report, and FSU Research Director Dr Radomir Tylecote spoke to GB News about what the proposals would mean for free speech, highlighting some of the absurd cases that have come before the courts in recent years.

Hatun Tash’s rights must be protected

Following the knife attack on the Christian preacher and FSU member Hatun Tash at Speakers’ Corner last month, we have written again to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick CBE, urging the Met to do more to protect Ms Tash’s right to free speech:

We accept that policing the capital with necessarily limited resources is a difficult job. As such, we recognise that there is a practical limit to the protection the police can offer to Ms Tash. However we believe that the duty in Fáber v. Hungary is clearly engaged in this case. The Met must therefore make clear to Ms Tash, if it hasn’t already, the steps it proposes to take in order to facilitate her right to speak in Hyde Park. In addition, the Met should make clear to the public, in general terms, how it proposes to carry out its positive duty to protect freedom of speech against intimidatory violence from those seeking to silence others.

You can find a record of our correspondence with the Met about Hatun Tash here and watch her being interviewed on GB News by former FSU Director Inaya Folarin Iman here.

Free speech and the war over sex and gender

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kathleen Stock, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sussex and author of Material Girls. We spoke about the transgender debate and the silencing of gender critical feminists who speak out in defence of women’s sex-based rights. One of the most revealing things she talked about was what she referred to as “reverse Voltaire”, whereby her colleagues would support her in private but side with those condemning her in public. It was the opposite of the principle that’s usually attributed to Voltaire, namely, “I disagree profoundly with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In Kathleen’s case, it was, “I agree profoundly with what you have to say, but I will defend the right to no-platform you for saying it.”

The entire interview can be seen on our YouTube channel. FSU members are invited to all of our regular Speakeasies. The next one, scheduled for September, will be with comedian Graham Linehan.

Gender critical women forced out of politics

We are continuing to support our member Natalie Bird, who was barred from seeking office by the Liberal Democrats for 10 years after she wore a t-shirt bearing the slogan: “woman: adult human female.” The Lib Dems decided this statement of fact was “transphobic” and Natalie is now raising money to fight a legal battle against the party. Women who oppose trans ideology are being silenced, threatened and hounded out of politics. Help Natalie fight back by contributing to her fundraiser here.

Incidentally, it isn’t just women who are punished for raising doubts about militant trans ideology. Another of our members, James Esses, has been sacked as a volunteer at Childline and kicked off his five-year psychotherapy course for expressing reservations about encouraging children who identify as trans to undergo irreversible, life-changing medical procedures. He is now raising money to bring a case against his course provider. You can read about James’s case in the Mail on Sunday and contribute to his fundraiser here.

FSU member Rebekah Wershbale labelled “transphobe” in Labour Party training material for wearing “woman: adult human female” t-shirt

We have written to Sir Keir Starmer urging him to intervene after a member of ours, Rebekah Wershbale, discovered she is being used in a Labour Party training course as an example of a “transphobe” because she was banned from a pub for wearing a t-shirt saying “woman: adult human female”. We assisted Rebekah in securing the training material in question, which was produced by the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights, Momentum, The World Transformed, and the Labour Party LGBT+ Network as “trans political education” for party activists. The course appears to have been used all over the country by constituency parties.

Once we secured the training material, the course’s creator tried to stop Rebekah from sharing it on spurious copyright grounds – even though her name and photograph were used without her permission.

Rebekah said: “When the seriousness of the situation dawned on me I was horrified. To be singled-out as an example of a transphobic bully by someone I’d never even met or even interacted with was very disturbing, especially given that they used my name and photo. We know very well what happens to women in those crosshairs. We receive actual, real threats of violence and threats to our livelihood. Not just the vague threats of potential ‘misgendering’ or dogwhistling we’re accused of. How many people have gone through this course and seen my name and photo as an example of ‘transphobia’?

“My question is, who is being bullied here? I had no idea my name and image were being used in this way. Accusations of ‘transphobia’ have turned women’s lives upside down. I’m alarmed that this has been greenlit by the Labour Party, knowing what the potential backlash is for women in my position who refuse to play the game of pretend, and who stand up for women’s rights and biological reality.”

You can see Rebekah being interviewed about this on GB News here.

FSU member Nick Buckley talks to GB News about cancel culture

Last year, Nick Buckley MBE was fired from the award-winning charity he founded after he wrote a blog questioning the ideology behind the Black Lives Matter organisation. With our assistance he was reinstated, and the trustees who had forced him out resigned one by one. He spoke to Colin Brazier and the comedian Andrew Doyle, a member of our Advisory Council, on GB News about his experience of cancel culture.

FSU New Zealand wins plaudits

Our New Zealand sister organisation has won plaudits for commissioning research on public opinion about the country’s proposed new hate speech law (similar to Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act.) Forty three per cent of New Zealanders support the proposals, with 31% opposed and 15% undecided.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand FSU has taken up the case of Dr Raymond Richards, an historian at the University of Waikato who faces disciplinary action after he referred to flat earthers as “cranks”. A student complained and the HR department wrote to him saying it did “not expect to have a repeat of these matters”. An open letter from the New Zealand Free Speech Union has defended Dr Richards’ right to academic freedom.

Free Speech Champions attend Institute of Ideas event in Westminster

The Free Speech Champions – a group of young free speech advocates jointly sponsored by the FSU and the Battle of Ideas charity – were out in force at Open For Debate, a one-day festival organised by the Academy of Ideas on 31 July. We offered our members special discounted tickets to the event and FSU representatives were there on the day to meet attendees. The FSU and the Free Speech Champions sponsored the closing discussion of the day entitled: “How can we combat campus cancel culture?” The FSU will be collaborating with the Academy of Ideas on a two-day festival in October.

Keystone Law Legal Insurance Scheme

We have now put a legal insurance scheme in place for FSU members. All members will now be entitled to ‘free to access’ legal assistance when it comes to breach of contract claims. That means a free consultation with a legal expenses firm called Keystone Legal Benefits Ltd to consider your options. If they fancy your chances, Keystone Legal will offer you legal insurance on a straightforward ‘one stop shop’ basis. You’ll pay nothing unless you win, in which case you’ll pay 25% of any damages awarded. If you think you might need their help, email Keystone at FSU@keystonelegal.co.uk. If you provide your contact telephone number and brief details of your case, one of their experienced underwriters will quickly get back to you.

The Workers of England Union

A quick reminder that if you’re worried you might be put through a disciplinary procedure at work because your beliefs are at odds with your employer’s, you should consider joining the Workers of England Union. The WEU has won tens of thousands of pounds for members whose philosophical beliefs have been discriminated against. More recently, it has helped a number of people who have been threatened with the sack if they don’t get vaccinated against Covid-19.

We’ve negotiated a deal with the WEU whereby you can become a member for a fee of £25. Unlike other unions, the WEU will go to bat for its members as soon as they sign up. If you’d like to take advantage of this offer, you can join online here, but don’t forget to email them here first, letting them know you’re a member of the FSU.

Affinity

We also have a relationship with another independent trade union – Affinity.

Affinity represents thousands of people working in a wide range of industries including banking and finance, accountancy, retail, manufacturing, education, the law, hospitality and travel and tourism. Its members include teachers, bank staff, IT consultants, financial advisers, academics, local government staff, lawyers and civil servants.

Currently in its centenary year, Affinity is different to most trade unions in that it has no party political affiliations, is not a member of the Trades Union Congress and has no ties to the employers it deals with, leaving it free to protect the rights and interests of its members without fear or favour.

Many of the problems Affinity’s members face at work involve free speech issues and the union will be lending its support to the FSU’s campaigns.

It is offering members of the FSU three months’ free membership (normally £7.65 per month for full time staff), which includes:

• Access to its dedicated 24-hour Advice Line
  • Representation in all formal meetings with your employer, such as disciplinary hearings and grievances. Last year, Affinity supported over 2,500 members in cases of all different types and everyone was represented by a full-time Affinity official not a lay representative.
  • Access to a market-leading ancillary services package, including free CV writing, free will writing, free travel insurance, free income protection insurance, free personal accident insurance, free contract checking, free consumer rights advice… and more!

To find our more, visit workaffinity.co.uk or call Affinity on 01234 716005. Its membership lines are open 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday.

Note: the FSU does not receive a commission if any of our members join the WEU or Affinity or become a client of Keystone.

Thank you for your support of the FSU. We’re aiming to reach 10,000 members by the end of the year, so spread the word.

Kind regards,

Toby Young

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Our last general election manifesto is here.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who read this gave us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. £5.00 monthly would entitle you to Bronze party membership, details here. Benefits include a dedicated and signed book by Mike Buchanan. Click below to make a difference. Thanks.

Nobody connected with J4MB has ever drawn any personal income from the party’s income streams. If you’d like to support Mike Buchanan financially, you can do so via his Patreon account or through Bitcoin, his account address is 1EfWxqDAtgJDCR3tVpvVj4fXSuUu4S9WJf . Thank you.

Video #116 is an interview (video, 1:06:41) of Professor Dennis Hayes by William Collins and Elizabeth Hobson.

ICMI20 was very ambitious in scale – 126 speakers and interviewees – and many people haven’t caught all of the videos. To help remedy that, we’re publishing one video per day from early April until mid-August, so people have a reasonable chance of catching all, or most, of the material. Think of the videos as a daily Red Pill.

The videos are being published in the order in which they were originally published on our YouTube conference playlist. Paul Elam’s YouTube channel has 103,000+ subscribers – a few more than our channel – and also features the playlist.

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Our last general election manifesto is here.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who read this gave us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. £5.00 monthly would entitle you to Bronze party membership, details here. Benefits include a dedicated and signed book by Mike Buchanan. Click below to make a difference. Thanks.

Nobody connected with J4MB has ever drawn any personal income from the party’s income streams. If you’d like to support Mike Buchanan financially, you can do so via his Patreon account or through Bitcoin, his account address is 1EfWxqDAtgJDCR3tVpvVj4fXSuUu4S9WJf . Thank you.