Police release 999 call Stephen Searle made after murdering his wife (

Yes, that's my experience too.
I've never known an accused (of DV) be shunned by anyone . I don't know why .... Certainly it's nothing like being viewed as a paedophile.
I'm just listening again ...
"Never mind" he says of killing his wife , yet the Mp still finds him to be fundamentally decent.
Wow Wow . What the fuck.

My ex used to hit me in front of people on a night out, his friends included. There was very much a 'turn the other cheek' mentality... I must have wound him up. Not one ever helped me, not one ever talked to me about it.

Kellie Maloney

I don't think that men who are accused (or even convicted) of DV are shunned at all

Stan Collymore, Mike Tyson, Paul Gascoigne, Chris Brown, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Boy George... Just off the top of my head

"The issue is ensuring women have the confidence to report, or maybe to just leave " is rather a big issue though isn't it. Mammoth in fact.
I agree that awareness advice for the first listeners would be good, but the disclosure is so often quite abstract. Played down, abbreviated versions. A sad fact is that many people still won't believe there's any domestic violence occurring without seeing a big black eye or a bit of blood. Sometimes it takes other women to recognise what's going on, because for the victim, it's normal.

Hoover then the issue is ensuring women have the confidence to report, or maybe to just leave. Or awareness for the listener, who gets that first disclosure: "when you hear her talking herself out of her own fear and pain you know there's a problem" or similar, in an advertising campaign.
You suggested social isolation based on an accusation. Women make up crap about other women all the time. Just because domestic abuse is depressingly common, doesn't mean what is being said about a man is true. I don't want to sound like an MRA here but you initially suggested acting on hearsay and I have to disagree with that as it is inherently unfair (and I wouldn't want it to happen to me). The paedophile reference in an earlier post was intentional. Nobody defends an accused paedophile in case he turns out to be guilty. It's the worst crime imaginable for many people and they disassociate themselves from the accused quickly. So the accusation, whether genuine or groundless, is weaponised. If I call up your workplace tomorrow and tell them you are a paedophile how would it affect you? One phone call, from a total stranger.
Nonibaloni you might be right there, people say they are very anti domestic abuse but are not keen to intervene. However people are anti mugging and rarely intervene in that either. Is it acceptance of domestic abuse or general apathy/reticence?

I’d disagree that people are shunned at accusations of domestic violence. I can’t think of 3 people at work who hit their partners on nights out in front of an audience and walked into work without backlash. Very much not our business mentality. First time I encountered someone I thought to be hitting his gf (my friend) I was cold to the point of rudeness. People couldn’t believe I was so rude.
It’s a weird world but that’s how they get away with it.

@Turph I've been thinking about your comments. The stumbling block for me is that in the first instance when a first disclosure is made, it's rarely to the police, or even a professional. Usually it will be to a friend or family member, who will often be begged by the victim not to tell anyone. But after a domestic incident that a perpetrator feels he's 'got away with', he'll
Often ramp up his efforts to maintain the good guy persona, often doing extra favours for the victims friends/ family / associates in an effort to isolate her from a support network. So this time between family/friend disclosure and eventual disclosure to the police, is critical and important. Especially because it is in this window that a woman can be discouraged from reporting abuse, because she'll genuinely think no one would believe her. And if they don't, she knows what he's capable of, so the thought of him being questioned but not charged is frankly horrifying for a woman that has seen his 'side'. So what can be done here?

I'm also shocked at his fellow Kipper politician, for minimising an evil crime and equating victim wih murderer.

Butteredparsn1ps I've been in that situation and my conscience wasn't pricked one bit by not hiring the person I was unsure about. Hiring, like dating, is inherently discriminatory in the purest sense. You don't pick the most hard-done-by candidate, or the one who needs the money the most, you pick the best person for the job. In so doing you have to be able to justify that decision if someone accuses you of discriminating against a protected characteristic. Even if someone claims your subjective analysis of their performance biased you against their objectively having met all the criteria, they still have no case unless a protected characteristic was involved.

Made my blood run cold. What an appalling man. Are women's lives worth so little as to be shrugged off? She would have fought for her life... but 'never mind'

Finding Turph s point interesting. I once interviewed someone I believed to be a controlling arse for a job which would have involved contact with vulnerable people.

As it happened, he didn't interview well and so I didn't have to justify his rejection, but my conscience would never have allowed me to employ him.

And yet I had no proper proof. I'd worked briefly with his wife and was aware of her frequent periods of sudden sickness absence, I was aware too that he waited outside her place of work, entering the minute her shift finished and hanging around the central desk until she had finished her shift handover. I knew too that she never attended work social events. My senses told me he was not a nice guy and, not someone I wanted on my team.

I hope he didn't go home and knock 7 bells out of her for not getting the job though.

Very few men are convicted, relatively.
Which is the problem. You can be as low-key as you like but it's still the "no smoke without fire" argument.
That said, I get where you are coming from and sometimes you know something as fact even when it hasn't been proved in a court of law.

That statement from the politician who knows him is awful.

Oh I see @Turph
I totally get your point.
But I kind of feel that it takes so much for a victim of dv to speak out, in particular a mother (all mothers worry about their kids being taken by ss etc, regardless of how ungrounded) , and that the justice system is so poor in these cases, that it's time women took matters into their own hands slightly.
But I feel bad about my post, because the advice is wrong.
It's bad to ostracize a man in an obvious way, because if he realises this , the woman will be at more risk. So best to operate like a stealth ninja that knows nothing, yet ensuring his bank account and social standing are negatively impacted.
Very few men are convicted, relatively.

Hoover because you are asking for social ostracism and possible financial ruin for people who have not been proved to have done anything. Imagine if an accusation of theft was made against you and everyone shunned you, refused to support your business, etc. People are more disgusted by domestic abuse than theft, so the reaction would be worse. Imagine if you were accused of being a paedophile. People would naturally shun you without being encouraged to. All the power sits with the accuser.
People make stuff up, which is why we have the justice system. I know conviction rates are low but it's better than being tried by public opinion.
If you had suggested we shun and boycott those convicted of domestic abuse I'd agree, because it sends a powerful message.

Well actually. Speak to him. Yes... I wrote that in haste, mistakenly. Pretend you don't know.
But don't do anything that supports him.

@Turph, why?

If you are a woman and you encounter a man with any accusation of domestic abuse against anyone, he must be frozen from society . Do not minimise, do not blame the woman, don't say he always seemed a lovely guy, don't use his work services, don't speak about him or to him.
That's a terrible idea.

Squishy that's 100% accurate re. photos and it's so sad.

Looking at the news reports about this (wasn't aware of the story)
Have to say I am so glad the transcript was released, for reasons mentioned above. But I'm pretty surprised that there hasn't been a massive backlash against this 'mp' .

@WrongOnTheInternet
The disassociation is so typical.
When you sit down with these men and watch a documentary about about say, violent abusers, they will tut and express shock like the rest of us. They're often the man that steps in if he was to see a man abusing a woman. It all adds to the illusion that they'd never be a perpetrator themselves. That's why it's such a headfuck for a victim.
Often, they'll be experiencing the worst of abuse while every neighbour, family member and stranger is bigging up their partner like the holiest kindest soul that ever roamed the earth. It's really easy to understand why women frequently retract statements, or fail to press charges against abusers.

I'd like to know what he does consider to be a violent man. The amount of denial is incredible. My father had a tendency towards violence. The weird thing about it all was that he somehow seemed to be not aware of the reality of the rest of us at all. It's some sort of dissociation or something.

Utterly chilling. The jovial tone, the 'jokes', that's the way I talk if I'm phoning in a breakdown to the AA! Got to wonder what on earth was going through his head.

How the fuck do you "accidentally" choke someone to death?

As for Mr Mountford, what a disgraceful man.
Utterly shocking.
I'll be writing to him to tell him what I think of his statement and I urge all women to do the same.
These things happen in a society where people willingly stand shoulder to shoulder with perpetrators of domestic violence .
When a person in a position of power does this, it sets a precedent for others to follow . How many more women killed at the hands of partners will we have to count this year, like every year before.
Mr Mountford, blood on your hands if you normalise this behaviour.

The transcript it utterly horrendous, but I think far closer to typical behaviour than anyone who isn't a domestic violence victim would realise. Please remember these monsters are masters of deception, able to switch between two personas in a second. Like the man who comes to the door smiling just moments after the neighbours have heard him kicking the shit out of his wife. Or the man who tidies the smashed up house before the police arrive. Or the man that does all the odd jobs for local grannies free of charge but abuses his wife and children when he gets back.
These men will be befriending police officers in custody, speaking about their wife all respectfully in public, doing massive gestures of generosity wherever visible.
I think when asked, a lot of victims would say that their abuser changed persona when arrested. And what they do after an accusation against them and then a subsequent release, is far more chilling. Every aspect of their kind, giving nature has to be exaggerated to deflect any assumptions. They'll be hosting the church coffee morning, defrosting your windscreen, carrying in your shopping, ramping it right up. It's endless.
If you are a woman and you encounter a man with any accusation of domestic abuse against anyone, he must be frozen from society . Do not minimise, do not blame the woman, don't say he always seemed a lovely guy, don't use his work services, don't speak about him or to him. Ignorant men can say what they like, but as women we know better and we owe it to each other to stand against domestic violence in all its disguises.