In today’s news we hear that the police are failing the victims of domestic violence by not taking them seriously, not investigating their circumstances or gathering proper evidence on which they can prosecute and that the Home Secretary is so concerned about it that she is going to take personal responsibility for putting this right.
While it might well be the police you turn to as a first port of call in a crisis situation there are lots of other types of help available to those who suffer violence or other forms of abuse from their partner or somebody else who is close to you – be it a man or woman. And the good news is that Legal Aid is very often available to take the perpetrator to court. You can ask the court to make a variety of injunctions which include to stop him (or her) from harassing or intimidating you or from threatening to use violence or getting someone else to do this on their behalf. You can also ask the court to tell the perpetrator that he (or she) must leave the house and go to live elsewhere or even to stop them from coming close to the house. If such an order is breached then the police have no choice but to get involved and may well arrest the abuser. This could ultimately lead to a criminal record and a prison sentence.
Sadly, children often get caught up in domestic abuse. Courts are also willing to make court orders setting out who should care for the children, who should be allowed to see them, when, where and for how long and even whether that contact should be supervised or simply considered not to be appropriate at all.
We at Taylor&Emmet deal with these issues every day and are happy to help. Every case is different so it is difficult to generalise. Please give us a call and we will let you know if there is something we can do to help you.
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