- One in six men will be the victim of domestic violence
at some time in his life, the most senior female judge in England and Wales
told an audience of law reformers at 10 Downing Street.
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- Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, president of the Family
Division of the High Court, said she was concerned that 10 per cent of
young women "thought it was acceptable to hit their partner".
The equivalent figure for young men is 20 per cent. Dame Elizabeth said
it was "crucial" that such attitudes for both men and women were
reversed.
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- The judge acknowledged that the majority of victims of
domestic violence were women, but added: "It must be said there is
significant violence committed by a minority of women against men."
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- She said: "The term domestic violence covers a wide
range of unacceptable behaviour within the family and may take many forms.
Violence can take the form of emotional or psychological abuse as well
as physical assault. Indirect violence (threats, verbal abuse and denigration)
may, in certain cases, be as detrimental as actual violence."
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- Although one in four women, Dame Elizabeth said, would
be a victim of domestic violence, and 120 women were killed by a current
or former partner every year, 30 men were killed each year in similar circumstances.
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- In an unprecedented speech by a senior judge, she said:
"Clearly whilst social awareness of this issue may have been on the
rise, offending rates are still far too high."
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- Her speech, supported by Cherie Blair and Harriet Harman,
the Solicitor General, was given to a selected group of judges, lawyers
and social reformers early this month, but was only made public by Downing
Street yesterday. It was the latest in a series of addresses at Downing
Street titled the "millennium lecture series".
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- Dame Elizabeth said tackling domestic violence was the
responsibility of everybody in the community. "Domestic violence is
a social evil with implications for society as a whole. We must acknowledge
that serious domestic violence causes harm to the wider community."
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- She said it affected grandparents and neighbours as well
as the community at large. "The fact that these crimes occur in the
home does not make them any less serious; if anything, it makes them more
serious by virtue of the abuse of trust involved. We must be absolutely
clear in the message the public hears: we cannot shut the door on the home
and say it is not 'our business'; violence is violence wherever it takes
place."
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- Dame Elizabeth said that her office was working closely
with the Crown Prosecution Service to find ways of sharing information
between criminal and civil proceedings concerning cases of domestic violence.
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- She concluded that she supported many of the Government's
proposals to reduce domestic violence, adding: "Ultimately, domestic
violence is a problem with complex causes. Whilst we should continue to
punish and deter the crime, we must also be looking to its causes if we
are to move forward. This problem belongs to society as a whole."
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=446449
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