Victim of domestic violence asked to leave holiday park!

[ClementineKelandra]

Ill try and keep this as concise as possible.

I'm on holiday in Wales staying in a caravan. Last night about 11pm an argument started between a couple in the caravan nearby. I say argument but it was mostly a man shouting.

It quickly escalated and the women was screaming, she sounded terrified, and there were children screaming "mummy" too.

At this point I phone the police. Very quickly the security guards from the site turned up. The woman was sobbing , said she was ok and the security guards quickly left.

As soon as they'd gone the man left the caravan. Moments later the police turned up. They spent some time searching the site but eventually the man was found and arrested.

This morning the women was sat outside the caravan and I went over to check she was ok. She has a broken nose! :( the caravan was a bit messed up too. Several internal doors were off their hinges.

We talked for a while and she told me she'd been asked to leave the holiday park!! I Wa stunned at this but she said she was going to leave anyway as her and the dc didn't want to be there after everything that had happened the night before.

I couldn't stop thinking about her being told to leave and later that day I went to speak to the general manager of the site.

He confirmed that yes she had been asked to leaved because they had a zero tolerance policy on violent behaviour.

I pointed out to him that it was the man who had been violent, he'd assaulted the women, she is basically being punished for being the victim of a crime and by asking her to leave they were implying that she was in some way to blame for the mans behaviour.

We talked about it for quite a while and I tried several different ways to get my point across. To be fair he did really listen to me and tried to understand but basically he didn't get it.

He also trotted out the usually ill informed stereo types "women like that never want to press charges" etc.

I'm so angry. In one way does it really matter because she wanted to go home anyway?

But on the other hand if we don't challenge such ignorant attitudes towards domestic violence then nothing is ever going to change. I feel like I want to do something to make the holiday park realise how wrong their attitude is.

Sorry if this is a bit jumbled. Trying to keep it as short as possible.

"I guess the manager felt that as long as she had stayed with the husband and gone on holiday with him, she was enabling his violent behaviour, and as such guilty of letting the children grow up in a violent environment, so partly to blame?"

Wow- absolutely f'cking wow! Would someone really think this?

Reallytired, you are making an assumption there. How do you know every caravan is let, so there's no room for this family? You don't.

The caravan park does indeed have a responsibility to its customers, that includes behaving decently if any customer is a victim of crime. Even more so if the victims include children.

The aggressor in this case was taken away by the police, so is no longer any threat to anyone at the park.

"Reallytired, you are making an assumption there. How do you know every caravan is let, so there's no room for this family? You don't. "

It is july and some schools are already on holiday. Its the heaviest period of the year. Even if they have a caravan vacant then surely they would rather have it available to let to a PAYING family who are less likely to wreck it.

"
The caravan park does indeed have a responsibility to its customers, that includes behaving decently if any customer is a victim of crime. Even more so if the victims include children. "

Why should they.

The caravan site isn't a charity or women's refuge. We don't know the conversation the site manager had with the family. Surely its up to the police to put her in touch with the local women's refuge.

edam Would you be willing to put a DV victim up in your house? How far should charity go. What have you done to help victims of DV in the last year?

Our church tried to collect presents to wrap up so that children in the women's refuge could have a visit from Father Christmas. Inspite of requesting that only brand new toys were given, many people just donated their broken tat that was only fit for the dustbin.

It is more of a challenge to do something yourself to help women who suffer DV than to say that someone else should be ridicolously generous.

There's nothing 'ridiculously generous' about not picking on victims.

And you are making assumptions again. Actually I have done things for victims of domestic violence this year - some personal, some related to campaigns.

You are also exaggerating. No-one is asking the manager of the caravan park to put the mother and children up in his spare bedroom. Merely expecting a company to behave decently, i.e. don't throw people out for being the victims of crime.

"And you are making assumptions again. Actually I have done things for victims of domestic violence this year - some personal, some related to campaigns. "

I expect that your volunary work is financially a drop in the ocean compared to what you are expecting the caravan site to do.

Does your "work" actually amount to £500 worth of work? (Ie. the cost that many caravans are hired out for at this time of year in the UK)

Its easy to say that other people or busineses should be generous with their time and money.

Would you be prepared to foot the bill for this lady to have another caravan in july? It is far easier to critise other people for not being so generous.

Really, you are scraping the barrel now. Why are you making it so personal?

Fact is, no-one is asking this company to be hugely generous, just to act decently. Picking on victims, especially child victims, is wrong. That's really basic.

I am not even asking the business owner to do anything. just asking some people on this thread to do their bit for the victims of DV by thinking before they judge

I am most impressed at the OP.
unsurprised at the site manager
and utterly appalled at some of the comments on this thread.
really disappointed. if this is how women talk about other women what hope have we got of changing attitudes...and that is the bedrock of abuse-.attitude, opinion, mistaken beliefs and downright offensive women hating garbage.

Well said, minke (no idea whether minke is the right abbreviation but your name made me think of minke whales. Which was a nice thought).

Bit if an update. I'd left my mobile number with the woman and she actually phoned me this afternoon to say Thankyou and she told me a bit about the circumstances leading upto the attack.

In a nut shell: this man had been to prison for a previous assault on her. He was released a few months ago. In her home town she has a lot of family support including two brothers.

She'd gone away on her own with her dc to get away from everything for a few weeks.

He'd managed, through Facebook they think, to find out where she was going on. He turned up at the site, the first time she saw him was when she was at the play area with the kids. She thinks he must have been hanging about there knowing with 4 dc she'd definately be there at some point in the day.

He'd followed her back to the caravan and hung around trying to win her round. Things slowly turned into an argument and the rest is history.

So he wasn't on the booking! He wasn't even a guest on the park. The manager never told me that bit!!

that poor woman! That makes the managers' decision even worse.

Thanks for the update OP. wonder if that changes any of the opinions above

and I assume he was charged again.

Hope she will be ok and won't encounter too many.people in her life with knee jerk opinions like some of the posters on this thread. Glad you and she have found each other as it were.

now just to wait for the flood of posters revising their victim blaming...or maybe they can still somehow make this her fault.

That is really sad OP - it is quite scary really, that these places have no way of monitoring who just waltzes onto the site. I said upthread that this woman should have been offered a second holiday, i now stand by that even further. This could have just as easily been a random attack and this woman was penalised for it. I hope she is continuing to get support. OP you sound lovely x

What minkembernard said.

ClementineKelandra you've shown such compassion, I'm sure that woman really appreciated it.

I wonder if he would have asked a man who had been attacked to leave.

Do you know what was really sad, when we were talking about her nose been broken she just casually said that she usually manages to protect her face because she usually sees the punch coming :( she said it like it was the most normal thing in the world. The horror that women has gone through.

She's staying with family now. She seems to have quite a good family around her do no wonder the bastard when after her when she was on her own.

I've been really sadden over this these past few days. Not just by what happened but by some of the attitudes that have been displayed.

(Also thanks to those who said lovely things about me I just did what anyone with a heart would have done)

Do you know what else has angered me. I was the only one who phoned for help for her apparently but the manager told her that the next morning 5 people called into his office to complain about her!!!

How do you even word a complaint like that "I'd like to complain about the lady in caravan xyz because her screaming for her life as she had the crap beaten out of her disturbed my sleep"

That people would complain about her but not ring for help has made me feel really sick, Clem How dare they?! Words fail me.

Like I said, the victim blaming on this thread has absolutely broken my heart. Thank God for people like you.

Oh good grief! That makes it even worse - she's been tracked down, stalked and attacked by a criminal, and yet the park manager was trying to throw her out when she'd done nothing wrong... and dozens of posters on this thread have been so busy making assumptions that fit their victim-blaming world view when the poor woman HAD left him.

Hope some of them come back to this thread and realise how wrong they were.

Thank heavens for a decent person like you, Clementine. Shame there seem to have been so few around.

FWIW, I was once at a camp site where a woman was attacked. Unlike this sorry story, there were many decent people around. When we heard screaming in the middle of the night, everyone came out of their tents to try to help. Man had dragged woman off, so all the men ran across the field chasing them. Managed to get to her and the guy who had hold of her ran off. People comforted her and patched her up.

She didn't want the police called and I'm afraid no-one insisted. These days I'd be more assertive about it, back then I knew less about DV and didn't want to push it.

But the point is, everyone on that camp site had the normal, human, decent response of trying to help and protect the victim.

So basically an intruder attacked her in the caravan park and that was the way the owner behaved. What an absolute disgrace of a man

very quickly the security guards from the site turned up. The woman was sobbing , said she was ok and the security guards quickly left

There is no doubt he comes across this sort of thing every year, from his perspective he sent security but she said she was okay. Meaning she was okay with his presence as a result she stopped the security from removing the man.

If I was the manager I would have dealt with it a little differently but I sort of understand where he is coming from.

I want to know where this park is so I never go there. What they have done is sickening.

I'd also like to know where it is - it deserves to be named and shamed, also I can understand why you may not want to Clementine. Thank you for your update. I really feel for that woman

As for anyone apologising for their obnoxious victim blaming posts - I doubt it. But you never know. Maybe this will make people think twice before leaping to judgement.

Quint are you for real!!!! It takes 2 mins to fix a door and a fucking life time to fix a victim if ever . She needn't time on her own with the kids and maybe asked to leave a day before her holiday ended. God help us if life is full of unhelpful Quints!!!

Yeah life's a bitch but sometimes people like Clem step in to give you a helping hand good on you Clem

Soz had to get that off my chest after reading what Quint posted earlier was reading thread way down the line and am really angry