And I do not know what to do. Please help. Any advice is welcome.
I will try to be as brief as I can. I am a foreigner living in the UK (now a UK citizen). Married to a local. Have a toddler child. My whole family is in a European but far country. My father was a good father to me and my brother. We always knew he loves us. He cared for us and provided for us. But we also always feared him. He yelled at us regularly, occasionally beat us for such things as not understanding his homework advice. More importantly, he often yelled at my mother. Looking back, I can see his treatment of her as emotional abuse. It was frequent. I remember being curled up in a ball of fear in bed, listening to their rows, feeling so sad for my mother.
My mother is still only in her 50s, but tragically (and I am still to come to terms with this) developed Alzheimer's. She is still in the early stages, able to take care of herself, but already having massive difficulties with counting, orientation in space, short-term memory and emotional engagement. My father firmly believes that the only way to slow her progress is to have daily memory training sessions, e.g. making her recite the multiplication table. When she is being difficult, he hits her. He hits her hard enough to sometimes leave bruises. He also says he hits her when she is "burning down the house". I do not think he does it out of loss of control, but in cold blood.
I found out that he hits her because my mother told me. The first time I found out was last November. Then I told her to go and stay for a while with my grandmother (her mother) who lives in a different city. She did and stayed there for a month. Then both her and my grandmother came to stay with me in the UK till the end of winter. At the time, my father wrote me a letter saying that he was wrong to hit my mum. I tried to be understanding towards him. However, when my mum returned home to him, the beatings started again. My mother looks sad every time I call her on Skype, but she says she does not want to leave my father.
I have had several fights with my father over Skype, telling him that was he is doing is criminal and hurtful. To no avail. He says I do not understand him and do not listen to him. When I asked whether he lied to me when he wrote that hitting my mother was wrong, he said yes. I asked why he lied to me. He said that talking to me did not matter.
I do not know what to do. My brother lives in the same city as my parents, but he has so far not been able to confront my father (I will continue talking to my brother, however). My mother is completely financially dependent on my father, so calling the police and jailing him will just make them destitute. That if they would care at all as DV is not a priority in my home country. How can I influence my father? I was thinking about telling his friends and asking them to put pressure on him.
I know I should be working towards moving my mother to the UK, but it will probably take years of legal proceedings (according to UK law she has to have no close relatives left in her own country for me to take her in), and I do not know how we will manage if we do not get help from the government. I feel guilt, guilt and fear.