to tell daughter to call police

[cardigankitty]

DD23 stayed at friend's last night. Woke up to hear friend's boyfriend, who lives there rent free, beating her up. Flatmate and mutual friend says this happens every night but 'she doesn't want to get involved'.

DD wants to help but doesn't know how. She spoke to friend who said she loves her boyfriend and that he just gets angry sometimes. Refuses to countenance possibility of going to women's aid. Have told DD that he will escalate until he ends up hospitalising her friend or killing her.

Can't really think of what DD can do. I offered to get in touch with friend's parents - DD said friend's dad not in picture and mum lives nearby but is moving away soon, and she doesn't even know her name to contact her. If DD called police, would they come round? Friend would deny it presumably and then abuse would get worse, so not sure if that's the right option.

So worried about this girl now, the boyfriend sounds like absolute scum.

What's depressing too is that apparently this is common knowledge in friend group though DD only just found out but 'no one wants to get involved'.

Ring the police, absolutely! I would also speak to the landlord about another tenant bringing a violent guest in.

It's a terrible situation but unfortunately there's nothing your DD or you can do other than support the friend until she asks for help.
Going against her wishes will likely cause her to cut your DD off and in turn lose a support system.

No-one ever wants to get involved in domestic violence, that's a sad truth. Your daughter can contact the police and ask to speak to someone in the DV unit. If she's at uni, student support will help. If they work together, then raising a welfare issue with HR might start things rolling.

Poor woman.

ring police.

yeah I think calling the police is the best option. I just don't want to make things worse for her friend. And yes, such a depressing truth that no one ever wants to get involved when they know a woman's being abused.

I’m struggling to imagine sitting in another room knowing this was going on. Yes, absolutely speak to the police.

Why didn't they go in? He knows the flatmate can hear but carries on anyway? He's probably enjoying that then and will need to do more and more to get his kicks

Ring the police but also look into Claire’s Law and instigate that. Police will inform the abuser’s gf if he has a history of abuse. She might listen to that. Claire’s Law has undoubtedly saved lives.

I would advise contacting the police. I would hope that they would have experience of dealing with a situation where a third party has contacted them, but the victim is resistant to doing so. It sounds like quite a common situation.

At the very least it would mean that they have a record of it so that when your daughter's friend is ready to talk to them about it they are aware that it's been going on for some time.

I would have called police while I was there then I could have let them in. I also wouldn’t have sat there and listened to someone doing that to my friend - and for people “ not to get involved” is shameful.

Don't get the not getting involved, how could anyone listen to someone being battered.as for I don't want to make it worse for her how could it get any worse.abusers bank on people not getting involved.

@Stompythedinosaur
The landlord? so the poor woman ends up homeless and abused?

I’m only alive because my uni housemates “got involved”. Luckily one of them had her boyfriend staying over and he heard my screams and came it to drag my BF off me while he was strangling me.

I don’t know if any of the girls could have dealt with it in the same physical way but I dearly hope they would have called the police and at least screamed at him to stop. I can imagine the fear that he would turn on them as well/instead might prevent someone from wanting to get involved but honestly just sitting by and hearing it happen is sickening.

Yes I don't understand why people are sitting listening to a woman being assaulted and they aren't phoning the police while the assault is going on. How can they just sit there for heavens sake?
Not doing anything while this attack is going on is giving this violent man the message other people consider his behaviour normal.

I'm surprised she didn't think to call the police when the crime was being committed. The friend could have sustained serious injuries or been killed, strangulation can kill in minutes.

Her "friends" just sit there listening to her getting beaten??

Ffs they're as bad as he is

Of course you must call the police, when it happens and not after the event when she may deny it.
But be prepared to lose her friendship as she may resent the interference.
It is so sad that some women can accept this treatment.

Please encourage your daughter to call the police. I was of a similar age when I lived with my violent ex DP and he was doing the same to me every night. We lived in a block of flats and all of the neighbours knew what was going on and did nothing. Ex used to lock me in our top floor flat and take all forms of communication including my phone and even the wire for our internet router so I couldn’t contact anyone or get out if there were a fire. I wish someone had called the police for me as I was far too scared and could have died several times.

What would prompt her to call the police if not sitting there listening to a friend being violently attacked? It's not a brave step, just call them and hope they come quickly. Christ, it's depressing reading things like this.

It could certainly get worse, and reporting can enrage the perpetrator, that's not a reason not to do it, but it's naive to think that's not a serious consideration. I would have called the police at the time, but it probably would have ended the friendship, which would leave the friend with less support. Since it's after the fact, depending on what exactly they heard and if there's any physical proof, I might call women's aide first to get some advice on how to support the friend and how to approach things with the police, see if there's some way to report and have it on record without isolating her friend or if indeed what they have to report will result in anything being done. If there's physical evidence the friend couldn't deny I'd go straight to the police, but if what they heard could be explained away if friend takes his side I'd tread more carefully. It definetly needs to be reported, but I'd try women's aide first to see if they have any advise.

Oh give over. Confronting a violent man while he's all geared up to hurt women isn't an easy thing to do. Not to mention what might it achieve? He knew they were there and that didn't stop him, so why would being confronted? More likely he'd then take it out on the GF.

Please report to police. He may well already be known to them.
And you or your dd can ask for a Clare’s Law disclosure which this poor woman might take notice of.
If someone was being attacked in the street would these girls ignore that too?

Nobody's said anyone else in the house should confront him. Call the police, let them deal with the scumbag.

Why didn't they do something at the time? I'm baffled that a grown adult would sit there and do nothing listening to a friend get beaten up. The least they should have done is call 999.
Far easier for police to deal with it there and then than after the event.

I completely agree, I’m a little bit sickened by the flatmate knowing about it and doing nothing. Apparently she’s scared of the boyfriend so has HER boyfriend to stay regularly- who also does nothing.

DD was too shocked in the moment to do anything and very scared but she wants to do something now. I’m going to call our local women’s aid this afternoon to see what they advise, but doing nothing is not an option.