D.V. Law with mega loophole about to be passed

[20mum]

Definition is not by 'domus', but by assailant..

Excluded are a significant group of possibly the most extremely vulnerable, helpless, unable to escape and rehouse themselves .

They can N O T go to women's refuge, because the assailant who attacks them is inside in their existing home, but is not inside the correct tick box which officials imagined when devising the definition.

Only those with personal relationships ever share a roof, in that imagined world.

Deemed to be either non-existent, or else to be magically immune from abuse in their homes, are; flatsharers, sofa surfers, below-radar sub-tenants, desperate people including elderly and disabled and stalked women and any who may N O T be immigrants but who nevertheless have the choice of sleeping rough, or accepting every form of DV listed in the new law.

Once, a Judge did rule that non-standard situations, including flat sharing, might make people liable to D.V.. I can't find the case, and it has since been applied only in processing housing benefit claims, for councils accepting that someone has not made herself 'intentionally homeless ' by fleeing D.V. by an unrelated housesharer.

That ruling, though, does not give her access to A N Y of the D.V. services such as collecting essential personal belongings, photographing injuries, accompanying to hospital, and, above all, any sanctuary roof over her head, or legal expert advice on injunctions, or follow up services. D. V. agencies check the list of 'correctly defined assailants', spot that someone living under the same roof is the 'wrong' attacker, and will not even give comfort or advice. Legally, they believe, housesharers' attacks of any type are merely civil 'neighbour disputes '.

Your post makes little sense

All of those things you describe are not Domestic Violence but simple assault.

I'm unsure if you suggest there is no difference between being hit by a passing stranger in the street, (common assault), and being hit inside your own home by someone you can't escape, because they live with you (domestic violence)?

Domestic abuse, from rape, to violence, to coercion, to financial abuse, is all defined as something able to be carried out by a partner or expartner, or by a tightly defined list of persons assumed to be likely to share an abode,, mainly blood relatives.
What you describe as "Simple Assault" is treated under a different heading, namely Domestic Abuse.

Why do you suppose that is?

Do you think that the legislators considered a woman being beaten within her home, by someone who shared that home, was at peculiar risk, being possibly unable to simply go and live elsewhere at a moment's notice?

Oddly, that definition became expanded to include partners and ex partners, and partners included any sexual relationship however brief, while the 'living under the same roof' was discarded, to leave a 'domestic abuse victim' one who fears attack from any ex., no matter where he lives.

Meanwhile, even though house sharing is extremely common, a woman can be unable to find any safe alternative sanctuary to run away to, nor any safe place inside her own home, shared by a man who will beat (or rape) her. Co-resident father or stepfather may be on the tick box list of a woman's officialy recognisable potential assailants, but she lives with an 'uncle' who may or may not be related. Or, one of her flatsharers is a violent rapist but because she never willingly let him touch her, he cannot be said to be a partner or expartner, therefore the reason she is hiding in her wardrobe is not fear of Domestic Abuse.

As I said, a judge did rule that abuse by others living within the same roof IS domestic abuse. It is inexcusable and inexplicable that the domestic abuse agencies don't agree.

OP I understand what you are trying to say but I think your outrage is obscuring your meaning. I also don’t think you have considered the wider implications of what you are suggesting should legally constitute domestic abuse as opposed to assault, harassment, theft or another crime .

I would question whether an assault by a flat mate (for example) should be considered domestic abuse rather than assault. I think a line needs to be drawn somewhere before a situation arises whereby interpersonal conflict between two flatmates can be considered to be domestic abuse. One of the key factors in domestic abuse is the power relationship between the abuser and the abused and this is much less likely to be an issue in more distant relationships where the ‘abused’ can more easily walk away. I don’t doubt that abuse exists in all types of relationships but I think you are wrong in how you believe it should be defined legally.

I guess you have a different experience, lolalovesmarmite, but thank you for your response.

Possibly it's mainly a city thing, but 'easily walk away' is not necessarily applicable,which is precisely what makes the person go into the shared or sub let or sofa surf housing in the first place. Why do you think they are living there ? Whatever drove them to it, they were desperate for any roof over their heads. They can N O T just stroll off and emerge from an estate agency clutching keys to a new home, even after money has been bullied from them, even if they have been badly beaten and know it will happen again, even if their sub landlord or a fellow tenant is a rapist. You can't sleep in shop doorways if you are a woman. Better the rapist you know. Better still, not to live in fear or live on the street. You are extra vulnerable to exploitation and abuse of any sort.

Maybe other people imagine their own experience, such as once sharing flat at uni, and squabbling, or maybe they once watched the soap Friends, where there is no power imbalance? They are not remembering that couple in their 90's, he a wheelchair user, living in a Bournemouth bus shelter, because their private landlord was selling up, and no new landlord would rent to people without good jobs. Correctly, their council refused to help, because they still had some lifesavings, so they were 'deemed' , as you say, easily able to re-house themselves.

Given the chance of a houseshare, however threatening their sublandlord or their fellow sharers, they would have taken it to save themselves from the cold. Those life savings would soon have been bullied from them, but what could they have done? They couldn't tell the police, while living under the same roof, nor could they even have told the police and gone back to living in the bus shelter, while waiting to give evidence against someone who would easily trace them. On the other hand, if they could have gone to a domestic abuse organisation, explained how they were being threatened into handing over their savings, unsafe inside their home, and accepted as domestic abuse sufferers, then they could have been, like any other domestic abuse victim, helped to move to a sanctuary in a safe area, where they might have had comfort for whatever years remained for them.