Vocal Voices

http://www.gmp.police.uk/content/WebAtt ... ooklet.pdf

The law is named after Clare Wood who was murdered by her violent ex partner. It allows partners, relations, friends, neighbours - just about anybody - who suspects that an individual in a relationship could be violent to check with the police and have any information disclosed.

It is obviously well-interntioned, but in its current framework [see link] it is bound to be abused for either frivolous or malicious reasons. As for the police, goodness knows where the time and manpower will come from to spend on this one law especially when it is itself abused.

The irony is that Clare's law would not have saved Clare. She got out of a violent relationship (with a person known to police for violent acts against women) only to have her ex-boyfriend cause criminal damage, harass, threaten to kill and sexually assault her. She reported him to the police on numerous occasions and even had a panic alarm fitted. Despite all of that, and even after being arrested for breaking into her home, the ex, Appleton, was let free and eventually murdered her.

No, what would have saved Clare would have been decent sentences, properly imposed against such a dangerous and violent man

Kaz wrote:No, what would have saved Clare would have been decent sentences.

Those days have gone, Kaz. Criminals have "human rights" now.

There should be more refuges for women suffering from domestic violence, and Kaz is right, proper sentences for men who beat up women.
My friend Ernie used to work for a firm which had a contract to maintain different sorts of social housing; one type of which was refuges for women. He said they were always full, and the phone was always going. Presumably to find out if they had room for one more.
It's a rotten crime. Bullying and physically ill treating someone weaker than you always is. It's especially bad when the abuse is coming from someone who should be showing love.

It is even more dreadful to think that if she had killed him with a gun or knife, she would have got a life sentence.

We (the authorities) seem to have a cultural blind spot as far as domestic violence is concerned - whip the wife and the walnut tree. Perpetrators quite literally get away with murder. Stranger on stranger ABH or GBH is treated somewhat differently and a lot more seriously: why? Even Tweets or postings on FB. some of which are pretty tame, are now treated as criminal offences and the full weight of the law is thrown at the abusers. The system is a joke and a mess and this new law will do nothing to change that.

Sadly as stated the beater more often than not gets away with the violence. Women more often than not who have low esteem blame themselves for the assaults and mental cruelty that is imposed on them by their brutal partners, I went through this for three years in my late teens. Black eyes, broken nose, living in permanent fear. "But I Loved Him" I must have been mad!! my heart used to skip a beat when I heard his footstep on the stairs. I have discovered that women and even men who are abused mentally and physically often witnessed a parent who suffered abuse. I also have a daughter
Who suffered at the hands of a drug crazed (in my opinion) maniac. He thankfully has met his maker.