OK, so this is, is a very brief overview. Obviously we have a lot of expertise in the room today and, and they will be going into more detail in their, their, their particular areas as we go through this afternoon. I just really want to start with, start off with a brief history of abuse.

So 1824 the RSPCA was set up, shortly followed by Scottish SPCA. And then 1874, we had this little girl, Mary Ellen Wilson. Mary Ellen was born and lived in the United States.

She was sequentially abused by her adoptive parents. And, and the reason I put her up to you is this is the first known case of somebody being prosecuted for abuse of a child. Interestingly, the, the person that helped bring about that prosecution was a man called Henry Burr, who was also responsible for setting up the American SPCA.

As a result of Mary Ellen's case, it led to the setting up of the New York Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children, and shortly afterwards, the NSPCC here in the UK, interestingly, we have this 60 year gap between the first animal welfare organisation and the first, child welfare organisation. And, and this case was almost 90 years before the, the medical profession really sat up and took notice. It wasn't till the early 1960s that there was, there were publications around, what was called at the time battered child syndrome.

But if we just start to look at that cycle of abuse, particularly with regard to the human animal bond, we know that some people don't understand why companion animals are so important to so many people. And that has certainly sometimes been a challenge, from a links perspective where. We've been dealing with human health professionals.

You and I know that, you know, for, for most of us, the family pet is literally that. They are a member of the family and therefore in times of illness, in times of bereavement, the feelings are just as intense. The challenge that we have is that er perpetrators of domestic abuse will utilise that bond to have power and control over their victim.

If you don't do as I say, I will hurt the family pet, or I've hurt the family pet, I've taken it to the vet. They didn't suspect anything, so there is no point in you telling anybody, because nobody is going to believe you. So it really is very important that we, we, we, we're, we're familiar with that link, and we can communicate, about that link to other professionals.

So why is all this so important? Well, animals, women and children have one thing in common, and that's that they're all easy to hurt. Now just to caveat this, we know that domestic abuse is a gendered crime, more than 80%.

Are victims are women, but that does not mean to say that men cannot be victims of domestic abuse, or indeed that domestic abuse, will also happen in same-sex relationships. We will see some stats a bit later on, but, the majority of victims by far are women. And in terms of that, this is intentional harm for pleasure to control or coerce a family member or as a response to external factors.

It, you know, this is intentionally, it's not neglect, it's not ignorance, it's intentional acts that we are dealing with here. In terms of commonalities, we also have a common denominator. Now, whether we are dealing with abuse of a human, be it adult or child or abuse of an of an animal, we will tend to find that the circumstances of the violence, the actions involved.

And the excuses offered are often very much the same, and that's because of that common denominator of the human perpetrator, and I'm, I'm sure that comes as no great surprise to you, and we'll, we'll certainly see a case with regard to this, in the next session. We just look at some basic statistics, more than 1 in 4 women, will experience domestic abuse during her lifetime, so that, that figure is on the increase. 2 women a week are killed, in England and Wales.

And certainly, again, my, my colleagues with greater expertise in this area will expand on this, but we know that that figure, increased quite significantly in those early weeks of the first lockdown last year. Over 3.5% of men experience domestic abuse over the year up to March 2020, so as I mentioned previously, men can certainly be victims of domestic abuse.

And then the impact on children, 20% of children have been exposed to domestic abuse and over 60. Percent of children in, in, violent households are also directly harmed. The other thing that we do know is that children that grow up in a violent household are more likely to be violent themselves.

So you can, start to, to, you know, imagine that the impact of growing up in a violent household. There's over 1 million calls to the police in England and Wales every year about domestic abuse. If we drill it down and base it on, on just 1 million, that's almost 2 calls every minute of every hour of every day.

The, these are not small numbers that we are dealing with. And on average, victims will experience 50 incidents before they get effective help. What we also know is that victims of domestic abuse would delay fleeing a violent situation because they do not want to leave their pets behind at the hands of their perpetrator.

Most refugees in the UK do not accept pets. There are very good reasons for that, and I'm, I'm sure, my colleagues will, expand on that a bit later on. But it is a concern, and, and this is why the pet fostering services are so important.

Is it an issue? Absolutely. This lady did not want to go into a refuge without her dog and leave her dog behind at the hand of a perpetrator.

And, and sadly, it cost her her life, because her perpetrator subsequently murdered her, and this is why the pet fostering services are just so incredibly important. I'm sure you can imagine, they are very resource heavy services. We are dealing with very, very vulnerable clients, but absolutely critical that we can offer these services.

One of the challenges I think we do have as a profession is that in terms of us seeing cases of animals being affected by domestic abuse or, or what we call non accidental injury, we are seeing the tip of the iceberg. If you just think back to the statistics we've just had a look at, compare that to our profession. Now, I, I, I do caveat this, but these are quite old figures now.

But these are, these are what we have. There is some work going on at the moment, which I'll, I'll, I'll allude to in a moment. So, in the UK, 48% of 400 and For practitioners.

This was the work undertaken by Helen Monroe, just over 20 years ago now, which I, I will mention a bit later on. And the personal communication, that was from, David Grant, who was former director of the RSPCA Harmsworth. David was probably seeing the thick end of the wedge, but still, you know, at 1%.

And then these are figures for other parts of the world, like I say, really quite low figures, these are quite old figures now. There is some work being undertaken at the University of Edinburgh, just to, to repeat some of the work that Helen Monroe has done. The data collection has happened, they are now just writing up and analysing that data at the moment, so hopefully within the next few months, we may see some updated figures on that.

I think the other challenge that we have, as an organ as a profession is that I don't think that we see, all of the animals that are impacted by domestic abuse. And the reason I say that is the Lynx Group, did undertake some work with a group called Medics Against Violence. These are a, a, a, a team, a charity based in Scotland, maxillofacial surgeons, they're putting people back together, after they've been victims of domestic.

Abuse, and, one of the, the ladies involved with Medics Against Violence was a lady called DI Linda Borland from Strathclyde Police. She spent an afternoon, ringing her colleagues in other police forces, asking them if they've ever experienced any, animal, abuse when they were going out to domestic abuse incidents. And she very quickly came up with a long list, of which I unashamedly plagiarised part of it.

But if you look at these, these incidents, you know, and A number of these animals are already dead, and therefore, we're, they're never going to come across a threshold into a veterinary practise. So if you look at the almost 1 in 4 women, excuse me, over 1 in 4 women is going to be affected by domestic abuse. Compare that to, we know that, approximately 40% of, of households in the UK have a pet.

1 in 4 households has a dog. You can see there is quite a disparity there in, in, in the figures that we are dealing with. So just to, to touch on the linked group, this is where it all started, the, the linked group was formed as a result of, this first links conference called Forging the Link that took place 20 years ago in London.

Two keynote speakers, Helen Monroe, veterinary pathologist based at the Dick, and Dr. Jean Herbison, a paediatrician based in Glasgow. And the whole rationale for this, for, for the, the conference was that Helen had just undertaken, some research looking at non accidental injury.

In pets, from, from, you know, from her perspective as a pathologist. She did some the work alongside, supported by RSPCA and Scottish SPCA. And was able to develop some, guidelines to identify non-acidental injury in pets as a result of the work that she did, and, and we'll come back to that again in the next session.

But what, what was really found was that the huge similarities between NAI in pets and NAI in children, as we've said, probably no great surprise because of that common denominator of the human perpetrator. So what's happened since 2001, since the Lis group was set up, one of the really big things is the Royal College has changed the code of professional conduct. So until 2003, we could not breach client confidentiality in any circumstances.

Now we are able to do that, you, clearly there are, there are caveats around reports. And, and, Dave Martin will be speaking about that a little bit more in the next session. But basically the, the, the, the, the, the wording in the guidance is that if animal welfare or the public interest are compromised, then we can breach client confidentiality.

So this is a big step forward for us to be able to report our concerns on. The pet fostering services are, are available, we, we've got great representation here today, so my, my colleague, Amy from, from Dogs Trust, Mike from Cats Protection, we have Mary from Refuge for Pets who are based down in the South West. And these are just amazing services, and I, I, I'm, I'm sure you can appreciate how important they are, even with the, the, you know, the, the, the little bit that, I've discussed already.

Clinical veterinary forensics and forensic veterinary pathology expertise is now recognised and particularly that forensic veterinary pathology. The one thing I will say, and I probably not the the last time I will say it today is if as a clinician, you come across a patient that, that has died, and you suspect that, it may be a victim of non accidental injury. Please, please, please resist the temptation to undertake a postmortem in practise, because the sorts of postmortem that you and I undertake, will destroy the forensic evidence.

It's really important that we, we, we do acknowledge that forensic veterinary pathology is no less of a specialty than cardiology, orthopaedics, or any of the other specialties that, that, we deal with. We have developed a guidance document for the whole practise team. This has been kindly supported by BVA's Animal Welfare Foundation.

We're just reviewing it at the moment, but we're hoping that that, that new edition will be out, certainly in the next few weeks or so. We've also developed training courses through the Lins Veterinary Training Initiative, and again this has been kindly supported by BSAVA, really to make to to to to to give practitioners an in-depth understanding, not only of the issue but specifically give of the ARDR technique, which we'll, we'll cover later on. My colleagues, Wendy Sneddon and Vicky Betton have designed and implemented an online course for human health professionals, so that they can help recognise and assess the risk to an animal.

And, and certainly, the, the way an animal treats. Could well be an early indicator of other violence happening in a household. So it's, it's, it's an amazing resource and and certainly you, there, there have been significant numbers of individuals that have now gone through that course and and benefited from it.

And, and certainly one of the key things is to promote multi-agency working, particularly with our human healthcare colleagues and obviously the police domestic violence teams as well. I'm, I'm delighted that that er Women's Aid, the police are represented here today. And then last but not least, we've been running veterinary undergraduate training at most of the UK vet schools, for much of the last, sort of 16 years or so.

And this has been generously supported by MSD Animal Health all the way through. MSD have been. Total supporters of the Lis Group and our undergraduate training, since the group was set up.

And we're, we're totally indebted to MSD for that. It's only through their support we've been able to facilitate the training. This is one of MSD's, corporate social responsibilities, which are, non-commercial projects that add value to, to humans and to animals.

And I, I, I hope you'll see as we go through today, how, this really does fit into that. So, so a huge thanks to MSD for that. I think now, Mike, we're gonna go back to some polling, so if you're comfortable, I'll stop sharing and, and let you do the polling.

Brilliant, thanks Paula, and so, yeah, very succinct but quick introduction into both the link itself, but also some of the work of the links group. We've posted in the chat bar, a link to the links website as well, so actually if you want to find any more about the organisation and our work, then there's plenty on the website there. So we're gonna move to our second poll, and this is really to find out a little bit more around how much how how much you've been exposed to some of these situations.

So if we can have a 2nd poll question, please. Not sure the second poll question's come up yet. We might not be going to the 2nd poll question.

. Do we know if we've got a problem with that? Any chance we can get that question up? OK, we'll park that for a minute then, and we'll look into coming back to that question.

Like all things, we, we work to a contingency plan and Plan B. So, we've heard a little bit from Paula about the links group itself, and the next part of the session is really to introduce our panel, and we're really lucky today to have a wide range of real experts and specialists from both animal wel. Perspective, but also the human welfare perspective as well.

And so to start with, we're just, just gonna ask some of our colleagues from the animal welfare world, just to sort of introduce themselves and give a brief overview of their work in this area, and, and, yeah, the, the, the, the link, their work in this area and the role the link plays in, in, in what they do. So we can start with Doctor Caroline Allen from the RSPCA please. Thanks, Mike, and hi everyone.

Thanks for joining us today. So, yeah, my name's Caroline and I'm the chief of the RSPCA. I'm sure that, you know, everyone in practise is, is aware of the RSPCA as a charity and probably, you know, interacts with the RSPCA fairly frequently.

But, I think it's worth just sort of going right back to our charitable objectives, and reminding people that of those, which is to promote kindness and prevent or suppress cruelty to animals. So it really is around that sort of cruelty to elements, animals elements, which is our USP and obviously our inspector. We're a charity that covers England and Wales.

That's really important. And we've got Mike here, you know, representing a very close sort of colleagues and relationship with the SSPCA in Scotland. And there are some differences in the law which will probably sort of come to cover, a little bit later on.

But essentially, you know, we, we have our inspectorate officers and although we are a charity, and in England and Wales, we don't actually have any statutory powers, we are recognised as a kind of authority to, you know, who. Animal cruelty can be reported, and our officers are trained to investigate that, and to, look into that to see whether, you know, that is something that, you know, reaches the level of, the Animal Welfare Act being, being broken. So, Again, a lot of what you hear about the RSPCA might be around prosecution, but it is actually a small percentage of our work, and a massive amount there is around support, signposting, helping people who have got themselves into a different situation.

But yeah, we do, we do take forward some prosecutions when that is necessary, and we obviously work very closely with a lot of other organisations. You know, the these deals to be very obvious one. We also have relationships with services, local authorities with those situations.

I think the main thing is that that I wanted to sort of talk about a little bit now was about vets and reporting to the RSPCA. We could do something that I think particularly during this lockdown situation that. Anecdotally, we don't have the figures yet, but anecdotally, we are seeing some pretty, you know, an uptick in nasty, non-acidental injury cases, you know, which I think we would probably expect from everything you've heard so far.

But we are also finding that there, there is a real fear around reporting and a lack of understanding. You know, and, and sort of potential barriers, whether that be GDPR or the college that vets feel is, is there and it's really just to kind of reassure that the structures are there to allow you to report. To report suspicions, and I'd really urge vets to, you know, obviously, sure we'll cover it more in this presentation, but to go and have a look at the RCVS code, it really is very good guidance, and I think it makes it very clear, you know, the situations that you can report.

And if you have concerns about, you know, animal welfare, if you have concerns about the law being broken. Then you can report. And we've actually just written an FAQ that we're gonna be launching with college very shortly, which I hope's, you know, really gonna help and empower vets, because it's very distressing.

I know when you see these situations and you sort of want to do something, but you don't know how and, and you're fearful of what it's gonna bring on for yourselves. So, hopefully, we'll cover that later. But I would say, the RSPCA is the recognised sort of authority to whom you can report.

And I, you know, really urge people to report if you have concerns, you don't have to be judge and jury, you don't have to be sure. But, you know, suspicions is, is enough to report. And I'll put it in the chat box, but, you know, we, we, we have been incredibly busy.

There can be, you know, weights on our normal cruelty line, but there is a vet line, and I'll put that number in the, in the chat box, which is for vets. Please, please, please don't give it out to the public because you, you will then never get through. But I'll pop that number in the chatbox for, for the use of veterinary surgeons who do have concerns about, you know, animal abuse and neglect.

So yeah, I look forward to answering everyone's questions later. Brilliant, thank you, Caroline, and perfect prompt in that I was just going to remind people that, so yeah, if you did have any specific questions for Caroline or any general questions that crop up through when any of our speakers are talking, then please do add them to the Q&A box, and we will come to them at the end. So our second, guest today is Mike, Mike Flynn from the SSPCA.

Hello, Mike, thanks very much and thank you very much for inviting me. A very good introduction from Paula with a kind of history of, what's happened with the links group. I first became, I in the Scottish SPC first became involved in the late 90s following Helen Munro's research.

When it was first raised at a police conference in Tayside, it was actually covered by Panorama. BBC did a one hour special on it. And I'm really pleased to see that the links group is beginning to grow and grow arms and legs.

Caroline, explained very well on the RSPCA's position, and we are very much along the same lines. We do have statutory powers in Scotland under the Animal Health and Welfare Act. And what I've always said to vets is that there's always been a clear, exemption in the data protection legislation if you're reporting something to detect or prevent a crime, and animal cruelty is a crime.

And Carly made a very good point. Reason of suspicion is not saying somebody's guilty. It's reporting it so that the relevant authorities can look into it.

One thing I've found over the years with domestic violence situations, and it's not just women. That are vulnerable to us. We've had several cases where same-sex partners or the male in the partnership has been the person that's been abused.

One thing we have found is that a lot of domestic violence ladies will not report the violence themselves, but if approached, they will see what happened to the animal. I don't know exactly why that is. And the society works very closely with Police Scotland, women's aid organisations, social work departments, and a variety of other bodies.

And we're just, a lot of the time just a conduit. We can, investigate concerns that you've raised to us, and what happens there. As a lot of the times when a perpetrator turns up a vet, it's very much like paediatricians had 30, 40 years ago.

They were fishing about going to different hospitals and doctors so that there wasn't a kind of recognised link between injuries to their child. That's it still happens today. You will get people going from practise to practise so that there doesn't appear to be a kind of link to previous instances.

We can kind of break that link if it's brought to our attention. One thing I've said to a few vets in the past that's been wary because of the Royal College about reporting is if they took them. Away from being a vet and just being a member of the public, would they report it.

If you heard your neighbour getting the living daylights knocked out, would you phone the police? If you saw a child with severe injuries that just weren't explained, would you report it? And a couple of said, well, it's, it's the Royal College, or the fear of the Royal College, which I think Caroline's adequately explained, is kind of mis mistaken.

Caroline and David will be able to explain far better than I will on that one. So as I say, if you've got a suspicion, raise it. When people come to you as a vet, quite often an abusive person will have a rehearsed story.

And one thing that has shown over the years, and a lot of the instances that Paula, highlighted about cats and budgies getting microwaved and animals putting on fires, we've seen them. We've seen them, face on, seen them on site. .

As I said, they come to you, they've got a rehearse story. And if a lot of the people we deal with, they know it's an offence not to get vetary treatment. So they turn up there with the partner, and then that's another excuse for them.

I've harmed the animal, I've been to a vet, nobody can touch me. See, I can get away with this kind of stuff. And you've got to imagine the fear that some of these people live in.

And it, it must be, must be terrifying. We've been involved as a society in some horrendous cases, and some which have resulted in lengthy prison terms, for perpetrators. But the main thing is to try and help the people that are involved in that at the time and stop it going on.

We've had a massive education programme for years, and an offshoot of that is something called Animal Guardians, which is run by Gillian Mendes Ferrero, I think's in the background here somewhere. Fantastic service, and that's a 1 to 1. And it's for, parents, foster parents, social workers, head teachers to report.

And since where an animal, has been harmed by a child, we originally started it thinking it would be about rough handling. You'd be amazed at how many animals are killed by children, and I'm talking about age range from 4 year old to 15. We've had well over 100 through that 1 to 1 individual, and that links everything up.

It involves the teacher, it involves the social work, and it's just another link. And quite often a lot of social workers try to get children into programmes, and there just isn't the resources there, and you hear an animal who's involved, and then that gets us involved and that can kick the process off. So, like Caroline, I'm happy to answer any questions.

As I say, I've been involved in this for well over 25 years, and prior to that, I was the youngest ever person on the Children's panel in Scotland, which is the, juvenile justice system up in Scotland and works works very well. So thank you very much for inviting me, and I'll be more than happy to answer any questions if needed. Thank you, Mike.

Brilliant, thanks, Mike. And I should have mentioned at the beginning that, apologies, there's 3 mics on our panel, including myself today, so we might use refer to Mike a little bit interchangeably. I've also heard that we will be able to go back to do the polls as well.

So, what I plan to do is I'm gonna invite Doctor Dave Martin to speak next, and then that'll be Three animal welfare veterinary practitioners that have joined us today, and then we'll do the poll at that point before we move on to some of our human welfare guests. So, Dave, please. Hi, thank you.

Right, I'm a, a clinical director at Brama Vett Group, which is a mixed practise on the Shropshire North Wales border, part of the IVC Evidencia group. From where I've been running for the last sort of 20 odd years, an animal welfare consultancy, an expert witness service through the practise, covering a wide range of organisations and clients, but with a special interest in non accidental injury, across the different species, not just limited to dogs and cats. As part of my, that role, I'm also a member of the IVC in the UK's Welfare Committee.

And we have, for in the last 6 months been running a large scale non-acciental injury project across the business, offering support to all our clinics, both IBC clinics and also the Vets Now Network as well. And I'm being responsible for part of the support organisation for that. I'm proud to say that on Monday I will also become the first group animal welfare adviser for IPC Evidencia, and as part of that responsibility, I'm gonna be running the NRI project out across all our European clinics as well as our UK clinics over the next sort of months or year or so.

So that's, that's where I come to from this. I, I help the links sit on the links group and help them out with some, in practise veterinary advice and support, and, and assistance with things like reporting and giving support to vets to make those decisions so that they can report in safety. Brilliant, thanks, Dave.

And yeah, as ever, any questions for either Mike, Caroline, or Dave, start putting them into the Q&A box and we'll come, to them a little bit later on. So we're gonna try and go back to the poll that we're gonna start beforehand, as I said, before we, hear from our human welfare, colleagues. So can we have the second poll question, please?

Brilliant. Again, we'll have 30 seconds to to answer this question. OK, thank you.

So 58% of people, have answered the question, yes, they have, you have been concerned about a case that has, been a non-acidental injury. And just to be very clear, obviously these are anonymized, so, don't feel that you're disclosing anything when you ask these questions. So, you know, over, over half of our, participants today, which shows the scale, I think, of, the issues that we're talking about today.

So can we go to the next question on the poll, please? And so 33% of people, or only 33% of people feeling confident about how to report a case. So again, you know, 2/3 of people that have experienced, suspicions in the past, not knowing what to do with those.

And as Paula mentioned earlier, you know, one of the key initiatives that the links group delivers is our, our vet vet training, which focuses on some of those processes in terms of what to do when, when you have those, concerns. And so if we can just have the final question as part of the poll. And so 60% of people not reporting the case to the relevant authorities, 40% have done, so again, understanding.

Not, not just what to do, but then who to report to and how we take that forward in a clear, development need I suppose in terms of looking across, the sector as a whole and our, our, participants today. So, obviously, you know, we've been talking about the issue of animal abuse and human abuse and the link, and we've heard from people working on the animal practitioner side, but we're really lucky today to also have some key colleagues, working on the human, support side, who, through, through work with the Lynx group, have a greater understanding of the role that vets can potentially play in that. But we're gonna hear from them a little bit about, their work and, and how that refers to link.

So the first, I'd like to invite to be part of that is Emma Rawlings from Women's Aid. Hi, can you all hear me? Everything OK?

Good, brilliant. OK. So I've got some slides to show you, but just a huge thank you for inviting me along today.

It's really, really, really an important thing, this, and, you know, I, it's music to my ear to hear that we, there are, you know, veterinary groups who are taking this really seriously and doing something. About it and spreading the knowledge and the education and that the RCVS is obviously putting this into legislation as well to support this. So from our point of view, what I want to do is bring a Women's Aid charity.

I work for Swindon domestic abuse support services, and there are many charities like ours up and down the country and obviously the National. And the National Women's Aid Federation, which we are part of, we are endorsed by them, and we have accreditation from the Women's Aid Federation England or commonly known as WAFF, they are the quality and the level of our service meets the national standards. So, that's one thing to look out for that, any.

Women's Aid charity is WA accredited. So I'm going to bring to you what a Women's Aid charity does and talk you through that, and I'm gonna show you also a small video clip about a victim who became a survivor and the impact of domestic abuse upon somebody's life. And it's really, really quite moving, so, I get ready with the tissues at the end.

So let me share a screen. OK. Can everyone see that?

Can I just have a couple of nods from that? Yeah, lovely. OK.

Some of those stuff that's what Paula put up earlier and there some of those are from our own data analysis that we draw upon every single month. And we've seen recently that the level of abuse has increased, the complexity of abuse has increased, and the amount of time that a woman has been experienced domestic abuse has increased. Back in 1975, this most amazing lady, Jenny Manners MBE, was a victim of domestic abuse, and she started the charity, and she bought one property in Swindon, and she rented it, and she managed to save women's lives.

She then bought the property next door and she into one as one bigger property, and she was able to save many, many more lives. That was she did that right up until 2012 when she managed to get the funding from Swindon Borough Council as a commission service to deliver domestic abuse as as a as part of a core contract. With that in mind, we then, they then sat around the table with a housing organisation and a purpose-built refuge was then planned and built in Swingdon.

Obviously it's a secret location. This was the first, sorry, back, back in 1975 when she started, it was the first women's refuge outside of London at that time. Jenny, unfortunately passed away in 2012 and she didn't see the new refuge actually completed.

But our refuge is one of the biggest in the country. It's self-contained. We have staff on site and it's manned 24 hours a day.

So we've now gone to a new image and we've called ourselves Swindon Domestic Abuse Support Services. And that's to recognise and to be able to reach out to men male victims as well because obviously Swindon Women's Aid, as it was originally called, puts off men and male victims calling our helpline for help. So we changed our image and we changed our branding to support that.

We actually support about 2% of our 2% of our victims are males. And we, that's us the Women's Aid organisations up and down the country have a website, and there's a lot of information on them, for how they can get in touch with us and also for professionals so that they can make referrals to us. So what is domestic abuse?

There are many, many different types of domestic abuse. These are some of the main ones. So we've got coercive control, which is intimidation, degradation, isolation and control, and like Paula said earlier, it is all about them having control, the perpetrator having complete control over that family, that woman, the children, the pets, etc.

It's psychological and emotional abuse. It's physical abuse. there's also financial abuse, sexual abuse, harassment and stalking, and online and digital abuse.

It isn't that a victim will suffer from just one of those. It will be a it could be a combination of those. So I've got 22 women in our in our refuge at the moment, and it starts off with the control.

It starts off with, why are you wearing that? Where are you going? Who are you texting?

Why are you going to see your family? Why are you going to see friends? You don't want to see friends.

You need to stay here with me. And then it then it may progress and become sexual and physical and financial, etc. And if they, if they leave their perpetrator, it then may go into stalking and harassment.

There's also an underlying current of Online and digital, because they will be sending also text messages, WhatsApp messages, all of those other things that they will be using to control those women. I've got women in refuge at the moment who are still being controlled by their perpetrator who is in prison. OK?

And they, it's absolutely shocking. And you wouldn't believe it would happen, but it is still, it happens. They are still fearful of that perpetrator, even though they have left them, and that perpetrator is in prison.

Our service offers a 24 hour helpline. Not all refugees do, but obviously there is the national helpline that the number has been put up earlier I saw come up on the chat. So that number is there for all of you that you can access to get to any level of advice and guidance.

We also give advice and guidance to professionals. So we have an emergency refuge accommodation, a 24 hour helpline. And that is manned by a trained advisor who would be able to give domestic abuse advice over the phone for day and night 365 days a year.

We also have a community outreach service and some a lot of the, domestic abuse services up and down the country will also offer these, these elements as well. So the IDFA, which is an independent domestic abuse adviser, will go out and meet with women on a 1 to 1. We've got them based at the Great Western Hospital and across GP surgeries across the, across Swindon.

At the moment we're in 10 GP surgeries and what we've seen that that service has been running for 18 months, and since we've been running the GP service, we've had over 200. Older people come through asking for help on domestic abuse. OK, so obviously it's recognised that that older people find that a safe place to talk to a professional and they've got the time and the space and it's a time when they can make a safe disclosure.

What you've also got to think about is when they are in a Vary practise with their animal, if it is the victim in front of you, they may have the opportunity at that point to make a disclosure. And it's about thinking of how you're going to deal with that, how you're going to react to that, your own emotional intelligence as well. But also, you might also be faced with having the perpetrator in that veterinary practise with you as well at that time.

And I'm sure that will be covered throughout the session of what are the signs of domestic abuse before your very eyes when they're in the practise with you with the animal. Our refuge is a safe, is a safe haven for our women and like I said, we've got 2022, 20 flats, which are self-contained flats with 12 and 3 bedrooms. All of them have a living room, a fully fitted kitchen, bath and a bathroom.

And then we've got two bedsits which are for just real emergencies, women who just need to, the police often bring them in the middle of the night, and they can just come in and, you know, be safe. But the whole point is about them being safe. We have an outdoor space, we have a garden and it's all secure and everything is covered by CCTV.

All of the downstairs, all of the ground floor, windows are bulletproof and because obviously security is absolute paramount for our, for our ladies. Here's a couple of pictures of inside, so as you can see the corridor, there are, there are two flat doors there, so they have their own front door and they can come and go as they please. But the main front doors is there's two door process to leave and enter the refuge, and that is controlled by a buzzer by the reception.

So nobody has a front door key to get in, and it's all very controlled because obviously we don't want perpetrators getting into the refuge. I know some of the flats as well. So they're, they're very comforting.

They're not, obviously it's, we try to make it home from home, they're very clean, and they're they're very quite basic. So what we saw last year, it's a refuge, we saw 136 referrals, and as you can see, most of those referrals were from women aged between 21 and 30 years old. 5% were over 60 and 4% were 16 to 20, and there was obviously other percentages or in the other age categories, but those that were the most prevalent ones.

So the different types of abuse, as you can see, most of them, most of the ladies who come in are are is domestic abuse. We've got FGM, we've got honor-based violence, prostitution, rape, sexual exploitation, stalking, trafficking, yeah, and that's it. Sorry I just had to move all the cameos of the of you will be to see the other side.

If we drill down on domestic abuse. We can see that most of the women of that of that number were suffering from emotional, domestic abuse. And then we've got jealous and controlling behaviour, physical abuse, financial abuse, surveillance, harassment and stalking, and then sexual abuse.

And like I said, it might be that it's a combination of two or three things there. What we've also seen is a lot more people coming through with mental health, very complex, high needs women coming through in those referrals. So 17% of those ladies had mental health problems, 6% had physical health needs, 5% alcohol addiction, 4% drug addiction, and 2% had previous offending.

So. It's, it's not just straightforward, it's all of these things behind it that we have to work with other agencies and support these women in these other issues as well. So it is a holistic approach, and we work very, very closely with the police and the other agencies, like I said, to put that complete care package around them, to help them become a survivor.

Obviously attached to the, the families, we have got a lot of women. So last year, overall, we had 123 children stay in our refuge. Most of them were 0 to 5 years old.

7% were aged 16 to 20 years old. We take children up to their 18 years old, a lot of refuges will only take them up to 14 years old. But my, my motto is, I do not want to split a family up.

They've been through enough trauma and we need to try and keep them together as much as they can to aid in their complete recovery, that's the children and the, the mum. 29% of those children had children's services involvement as well. Like I said, our, our helpline is there 24 hours a day.

It's not a machine. There's you you will speak directly to a woman, and the first question we ask any woman is, are you safe to talk now? If she's not, we will make her, we will end the call, and we will then arrange another time when it is safe for her to call.

It's all about minimising the risk of her coming to any harm or injury. Helpline calls. Now, obviously I've worked very, very closely with Wiltshire Police on what the numbers look like and what we saw, if you can see the top line is 2019, the darker blue, and the lighter blue is this year.

COVID has had a massive impact on how women access support for domestic abuse, and in April, obviously the lockdown was announced on March 23rd, we all of a sudden, you know, it changed it changed everything to be quite truthful. We saw first of all, initially, a lot of younger women phoning through. So what we put that down to when I spoke to the police, the PPD department at the police, is that we, we recognise that it was probably and obviously there was underlying issues in terms of domestic abuse and we then saw these numbers, these people and women phoning us up asking for help.

It then went, as you can see, a slight increase, then it dropped down again. And in August, because the schools had gone back for a week or two at the end of July, and then obviously the school holidays started in August and we saw, as you know, across the nation, everybody ended up in Devon and Cornwall trying to get some sort of holiday and . We saw this huge decline in helpline calls.

And this mirrors, when I plotted the numbers that were incidences that had been reported to Wiltshire police, they were actually, they ran the same trend. So it wasn't just us. I was really worried at one point, it was just us.

But as you can see, we've seen, we saw then the, as the schools went back in September, we saw that spike go up again and there was a slight sort of a decrease and we are where we are at the moment. In January. But obviously, I think once lockdown is lifted, we will see that number increase.

Go back to the refuge, I also have a hotel that I'm working with because at certain points, we were absolutely full up. I could, I had no capacity. So I worked with the hotel very closely and I have had women very safely placed in a hotel so that they are safe where we can support them and get them out of a violent situation.

There's a graph to show in those referrals. Community services not requiring refuge, so we had 7733 referrals to, community services. Different age group, 21% of those were 31 to 35 and 16% were 26 to 30, and there were other percentages across the other age groups.

96% of those were females and 3% of those were males. 227 children were involved and 37% of those children were involved with children's services. Like I said, we've got a great in the Great Western Hospital.

That's been running for just over 18 months again as well, and we've seen 3335 referrals coming through, accident and emergency, maternity fractures, sexual health, etc. So obviously, domestic abuse will present itself in those, those key areas and departments across that across the hospital. And again, a completely different age, a different age group, making disclosures while they are in hospital.

And the GP surgeries, like I said, lots and lots of Dropping sessions that we take, which take place, we've had 80 referrals, and again, 23% of the biggest age group there is 23% with 41 to 45 year olds. And as I said earlier, 200 older people have have actually made a disclosure. We also got a Children and Young People's team and they support children across the community and in refuge, and that's things like moving moving schools, settling in, sorting out their options and working very closely with children's services.

And we run a healthy relationships workshop in colleges and schools about making sure that they understand what domestic abuse is in these newly formed relationships once they start college and obviously in the more senior years at schools. And obviously we do a great lot of fun activities and going out, taking children out, making sure that they're happy and the children have as much fun and laughter as possible. We run two recovery programmes, so one of them is the recover RTK and that's a 12 week programme for adults and young children, and for younger children.

And that's about understanding domestic abuse, understanding the cycle of domestic abuse and what's happened, and then understanding that they can become survivors and helping them to become survivors. And of Route 66, and this is more towards the end of their programme with us, and it's about their next steps. What are they going to do next?

Training, education, starting their own business or volunteering. We are also working with the Probation Service on the DAS, which is the domestic Abuse Serial Perpetrator programme. It's a 6 month pilot programme and as Paula mentioned earlier, it's about breaking that cycle, breaking that cycle of abuse, helping them to understand their behaviours and what the impact of their behaviours upon the the victim and the children if there's children involved and supporting them to.

Basically break that cycle and become better people. And that's running until the end of June that prior programme. Right, so I'm going to show you a video now of our where's it gone?

Oh yeah, there is. I'll get you a video. Her name is Tracey.

She's very open about talking about her, her situation and what happened to her as a victim and how she'd become a survivor. She is our ambassador and she does a lot of talks for us, for us, but obviously we have this on video so that we can use it in, during lockdown and through Zoom. So it's about 12 minutes.

It was . Very out of the blue, actually, very unexpected. I just got a phone request and the message popped up.

And it was general chit chat. And before I knew it we were meeting up for a date. And The date went really well.

I thought we really hit it off. We had a lot in common on reflection. It was probably suspiciously too much in common, but at the time I thought wow, you know, this, this, this is a male version of me.

Then things progress really fast, and I mean crazy fast. And it was very full on and it was grand gestures of romance and just sweep me off my feet and I'd never had that before and I was. I wasn't prepared for it because I wasn't looking to meet anyone, I wasn't looking for a relationship, I was happy as I was.

Well, domestic abuse isn't always limited to physical violence. It knows no boundaries. For no reason at all, he started having an issue with me having male friends on Facebook.

You know, he, he'd glanced over my shoulder and see my phone and see I had a notification. Oh, aren't you gonna open that? Like open it while you're here with me, let me see what it is, kind of thing.

And in the early days, I stood up for myself, but of course that would cause arguments, which he'd always win, . He said that I made him insecure. If I just showed him my phone, he wouldn't act that way.

I tried to get my point across, I tried to stand up for myself, but every time I did, I'd be punished. Then there was, you know, and these things, there were so many subtle, subtle things, there'd be. A comment about what I was wearing.

Or a comment about how I did my hair. And it started to sort of chip away at me actually. So I ended up.

Worrying more about my appearance and spending longer, getting ready, because I thought, oh he doesn't like me to look like that, I've got to do it just right, I've got to be just so. I just wanted a normal, happy. Relationship.

I just wanted somebody to. Love me. I started to feel that I wanted to end the relationship.

And he agreed to Round I was in trouble. He came storming in And he grabbed me, shoved me on the sofa and stood over me and pointed his finger at me while he was standing and I was sitting like this, just terrified. And he said, now listen here.

You need to be more submissive to me. Things that I used to love doing. I couldn't remember the last time I watched one of my favourite TV shows.

I couldn't remember the last time I listened to some music or I sang. Things continued with. The ups and downs, the put downs.

It was almost like He he knocked me down so that he could build me up into what he wanted. But he said, we can do something special, I wanna treat you and all that, so I thought oh that's lovely, you know. He said he had this, this posh hotel and it was right out in the sticks.

We went up to the room and like I said, it was, it was really cold and I was really, really tired. We'd had a long day, we've been up early, you know. Was tired And I, I got under the the cover as well, the sheet.

Cause it was so cold in that room, I couldn't figure out the thing on the wall. And I kind of just wanted to go to sleep, to be honest, but I knew that wasn't gonna happen. So he he he's.

Started wanting to be intimate. And by now I've been kind of used to that. But I was really tired and I was really cold.

He was aggressive Forceful. You didn't kiss me once. So I asked him to stop.

And I tried to wriggle away. And I was trying to get away. I couldn't I think at some point.

I don't know what happened, but whether I blacked out. Oh. Shut my eyes and removed myself from my body.

I don't remember. But I felt like my spirit left my body. He, he had me pinned.

He wrote to me I just sat on the edge and I was just shaking. And I, I got the waste paper bin that was in the room and I was just sort of leant over it, and I was just wretching and wretching and wretching. And he was just laying there, like, ignoring me.

He turned round and said, You know what, babe, I'm done with you now. And he goes, look babe, I don't love you. I never have.

I've been forcing myself to be with. Broke, that that was the moment my soul. Left my body was.

Right, there's nothing I felt really dirty. To the point where I didn't think I could tell anyone. Each year, 2.4 million adults in the UK will suffer some form of domestic abuse.

2/3 of those are women. I went online, I Googled Women's Aid. I went on the website and I started reading for the first time.

Signs of abuse, try to make sense of it. And and it was, it was a lot, it was a lot, it was overwhelming. The acknowledgement of that, and I broke down and I was just on the floor.

I doubt Swindon, Swindon Women's Aid, Swindon, domestic Abuse and Support Services number. I kept thinking, well, I don't, I, you know, he hasn't hit me. You know, do I still qualify for.

That help And I hung up before they answered the first time. Cos I didn't think that I deserved to phone. Hello, can I help you?

Please just let me tell you what's been happening and I need you, a professional opinion to tell me whether this is wrong or not. Next thing I know, A lady called Natasha, contacted me and she said that she was in Idar. Never heard of one before.

She advised me what to do and I needed that, you know, she gave me the emotional support that I didn't have from anywhere, cos I was very much on my own. Not only did they help me to break free from that terrible relationship, they opened my eyes. They believed me without judgement, gave me support.

They did offer if I wanted to go into refuge, but there was no pressure there. Once everything settled down and I was sort of, you know, finding myself back again, a little bit, they offered, if I wanted to do a course that they run, and it's called Recovery toolkit. And it was so, like, refreshing to meet other people that understood.

Exactly what I was sort of went through and where I was at. And then afterwards there was another one that came up called Route 66, which is more about where do you go from now. And I thought to myself, what, what, what do I do now for me, you know?

It was one week I was sat there and they had a guest speaker from Wiltshire Police come in, and she came in to speak about opportunities of volunteering. I applied for the police, did the, all the formal applications. She text me one day and said, congratulations, you've got in.

And that was amazing. I can now sort of volunteer for the police, and help make a difference in the world and help make a change. My soul has now come back to me, it's come back to my body.

The essence of who I was before it's come back, but actually it's come back stronger. This year we'll be taking the domestic abuse bill through Parliament, and I'll be spearheading those efforts. Why?

Because we want to make sure that the victims of domestic abuse and their families are protected from perpetrators in the most effective way possible. The police job's going really well and I'm making friends and I'm finding who I am as a person in the workplace, completely change of direction for me. But also I've continued with the singing workshops.

And now I'm actually writing my own song. Thank you, everyone. Yeah, that's a true story and, what a more remarkable lady, and I'm so proud of her.

But I think the message is there, out to you all, if you've got any suspicion is that you could actually save a lady's life. Thank you.