The simple truth about domestic violence

I am at a conference on domestic violence today, entitled Stand up to Domestic Abuse, listening to story after story of violent men murdering women they had professed to love. Men who slayed their victims because they had the audacity to attempt to leave them. I hear the dreadful tale told by Luke Hart, whose mother Claire and sister Charlotte were shot dead by his controlling, narcissistic father.

The conference room was deathly silent when a 15-year-old girl spoke about her mother being murdered by her violent husband. The woman that organised this conference, the redoubtable Rachel Williams, was shot by her ex-husband after enduring 18 years of abuse at his hands. Later that day he took his own life. Rachel survived, but weeks later their son, unable to deal with the trauma, killed himself.

Yesterday, the failure of the state to prosecute rapists was all over the news, and today it is the increase in the number of deaths due to male violence.