The DV case was so poorly explored, being an 'open and shut' case, where the Dad became open about what had gone on and where a 10 year old girl was aware that it fell within the remit of the NSPCC. The 'weapon' of the dog's lead was clearly identified. The mother was arrested and removed from the family who then went on to live happily, despite the father now being a paraplegic. There was nothing for viewers to learn from this.
Far better for the script writers to have explored this from a more realistic angle, where the lines were perhaps more blurred, and to reveal more of both the mother's and the father's histories.
I grew up in the 1960/70s, and am a 'survivor' from a very young age of parental abuse of that period - my mother's violence and my father's complicity in it. But it wasn't all the time and there was no obvious weapon. There were heads: my brother's and mine banged together. There was my head banged against the wall by my mother when there was no brother around. There was soap and water to wash my mouth out. Some years later, a book was bashed around my head over and over. Why did my father know and say nothing? Because divorce was still held as a tremendous 'shame' by the majority, because he would have lost career advantage working for an insurance company which favoured 'family men', and probably because he grew up somewhat dominated by three older sisters. And maybe because the lines were so blurred with what was accepted as normal parental discipline at the time.
I had never heard of the NSPCC but my senior school damn well knew that something was wrong because I was asked by more than one teacher over a period of a few years. And my reply was always 'nothing' because I always believed I had done something wrong. So that was as far as it went with teacher's enquiries. Small wonder that I went on to be diagnosed with clinical depression, which took out my teenage years. Despite my eventually going on to build what outwardly looks like a successful adult life, that patina of 'badness' to this day continues to affect my entire way of thinking, being and relating, even though I have enough awareness of this!
My parents grew older and are now dead. They never had the honesty to explain - and perhaps could not see - why they behaved the way they did and I can only speculate that it was parental frustration and societal complicity that allowed these things to go on and for the child to be blamed, because it certainly wasn't alcohol or drugs.
A decent script writer could have brought out some of the complexities of parental abuse. But then again CTM isn't genuinely gritty, but merely a saccharine offering before we face the daily grind of the week ahead.