Nigella

Well he has got a shed load of money to lose! Probably vastly more rich than she is.

Perhaps he should have thought of that .

hope she does well out of it .

Interesting research into bystanders intervening in public fights. Seems in Toronto at least people are more willing to break up a fight between 2 men than between a man and a woman.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130723155048.htm

I remember policemen saying that 'a domestic' was a problem because when you interfered you often ended up with two opponents...

Indeed? That's not my experience from working with abused woman, but then the police were (some still are) notoriously sexist and most people wouldn't bother repeating such rubbish let alone believe it.

Hopefully the police have stopped making such excuses feetle

Working alongside GMP for many years leads me to conclude there are more good people than bad in the police when it comes to the police response to domestic abuse situations.

A few years ago, GMP posted a bobby near a woman's house because her imprisoned husband was being released that day. There wasn't a DV Unit in those days, but GMP were on the ball. That officer saved her life when he noticed movement near the house and found the husband inside trying to strangle her. It made the papers because the husband was a prison governer.

Yes things do seem to have improved - I remember 25 yrs ago my mother knew someone who was killed by her ex. He went to the house with a knife and stabbed her. He had military training so knew what he was doing. He got a few years for manslaughter and the poor grandmother, who was caring for the children, was terrified when he was released. Police no help then.
But this study, posted above, is about the behaviour of bystanders in bars etc as in the Nigella scenario.

Just responding to your last point to feetle' Jess

AKA - how do you make out that that was 'sexist'? It usually takes one of each sex to have a 'domestic'... talk about cry wolf...

I was a saxist, but I didn't hate my saxophone... well, not often...

Of course it takes two to have a 'domestic' as the abuser needs a punch bag.
Of course feetle the woman is quite a happy participant in having her teeth knocked out and her eyes blacked and her jaw broken. She's obviously 'asked for it' hasn't she?
So yes, if that's what you truly think then you're part of the problem.

And if you think it's a joking matter then that proves my point.

Good gracious feetle that is an incredibly sweeping and judgemental statement re "takes one of each sex". I am gobsmacked at your insensitivity.
As someone who has been the victim of domestic violence I am affronted. Are you suggesting that women (and the occasional man) who are regularly attacked by their partners are equally to blame for the incident?
And you presumably cannot see that the mere term "domestic" as used dismissively by police forces in the past was a way of dismissing violence against women.

I remember that the wives who were attacked often refused to press charges, and I think that is what feetle meant.

ella the few who refuse to press charges are often too afraid to do so. 1By quoting that urban myth put about by certain police officers feetle was implying that the women were complicit in the assault and when the police interfered in a 'domestic' (which way of describing it is in itself perjorative) they found themselves being harangued by both the abuser and the abused. Complete and utter balderdash.
Jess says its 'incredibly sweeping and judgmental' too right it is. I have met women who have fled the house after an assault when the police officers have allowed the man back into the marital home with a sort of 'cool it mate' attitude.

For the record, it doesn't have to be the marital home that the police let the man back into. My house belonged fully to me (not even a mortgage) but the police suggested I should leave if I "wasn't happy" and refused to do anything about my violent partner.

That just about says it all absent

To be fair, I have (in the past) witnessed the odd incident where the woman involved not only verbally, but occasionally physically attacked the police officer who was trying to calm the situation down. Usually alcohol was involved, but I do know that in the 70s and 80s the police were warned against 'interfering' in domestic incidents and were often powerless to act unless the woman (or man) made a complaint.

(My post was in reply to Aka's)

That's the problem Ana because the odd couple would get drunk and start shouting and beating up on each other and then turn on the police when they turned up, it perpetrated the urban myth that feetle has quoted. In these odd cases it may well be that this was a drunken 'domestic'...but not to be confused with the very real violence which is present in the vast majority of cases of assault. At least two women every week die at the hands of violent partners and that figure hasn't fallen in 15 years, even though with new laws and police training one might have expected a decrease.

Aka I don't dispute what you and absent say about the actions of some police officers, but that was the way it was before womens' rights started to be acknowledged.

However, my oh and I were both police officers, and I can assure you that it was fairly common for beaten and abused women to refuse to press charges,
which was frustrating for the officers trying to help.
Yes, they were afraid of their abusers, thankfully things have improved a lot, but not enough.

I don't disagree with you Ella and I'm pleased you acknowledge why many woman refused to press charges, through fear. And I don't doubt that you and you OH we're the types of officers who genuinely wanted to help. There were, and still are, many lovely people in the force.
I'm objecting to feetle's using the opinion of an unsympathetic officer as the truth and then digging a deeper hole in his next post. It ranks with the other sexists myths such as 'well she must have asked for it'.

I remember in the 90s, abused women waiting for their spouse to be bailed from court where I was on duty. She would know what to expect if she wasn't there, showing the world he was really a 'nice man.' The man would have in his hand a bail sheet bearing the condition 'not to appoach x directly or indirectly' and he would have broken bail before walking out of court. Police would be informed, no action woud be taken other than to police bail him and add breach of bail to his charges, and this would be addressed next time he appered at court, by which time she would have been assaulted again. Police were helpless to do anything other than follow the guidelines they had at the time.

It was only when the whole system was able to operate without the testimony of the victim, once her injuries had been photographed and she had made her initial complaint, if she was too frightened to continue, that prosecutions started to have some effect. The abuser would at last be seen as a high risk offender, victim protection was heavily resourced, and women started to have confidence in being able to free themselvesf from their abusers.

and of course those cases where police get called are tiny tip of iceberg. With many men just one or two blows in any single incident, not a prolonged beating.