It’s because I care so much about domestic abuse that I have continued to comment on this thread. My opinion is informed by forty plus years of working in the field of domestic abuse, both paid and voluntary work. I (and I assume Fiona Bruce has too) have first hand knowledge, experience and training of how language is used to minimise the experience of abused women. Iam also has professional experience of working in this field, so it’s no coincidence that she and I share the same understanding about the language Fiona Bruce used.
I’ll say it again. Fiona Bruce had only to say that SJ was alleged to have broken his wife’s nose and need not have said one more word in order to have fulfilled any legal obligation for the BBC. She did not need to repeat the excuse given by SJ’s friends that the assault was a ‘one off’. To do so was unnecessary, but she made the decision to say it anyway.
She offered her resignation almost immediately and I applaud her for it. She knew that what she had said was inappropriate. The charity, Refuge, accepted her resignation; again, that was in acknowledgement that what she had said was inappropriate. Charities do not lightly give up sponsors and ambassadors, they didn’t in any way ‘throw her to the wolves’, they simply had to accept that her words caused harm to the discourse on domestic abuse and act accordingly; their first duty is to their client base, many of whom were deeply upset.