How can a parent let their child be beaten by an OH

[JugsyMalone]

I just don't get this. I am a single parent to 2 boys.

I would never be with a partner for one second who hurt my kids. I would batter the bloke back and be straight down the police station. Even if I was mortally afraid I would be out of the house with my kids at the corner shop or anywhere public asap.

But it's always the boyfriend who batters the baby to death. Yes, he's the nutter. But what is wrong with the mother?

i think there's also a cultural shift that needs to take place whereby we lose this idea of marriage being sacred and no one should interfere between a man and his wife. that attitude creates a wall of silence around dv and abandons women into it you know? we don't speak out and challenge in the same way we would seeing violence, bullying, abuse etc in other circumstances. we are restrained by our manners which are framed around this idea that the domestic realm is untouchable. we're not meant to say you're husband treats you like shit or don't speak to her like she's a dog or i heard you screaming last night and i rang the police are you ok?

and i think it's clear that this historically has interfered with how police deal with domestic violence and still is doing upon how abusers are dealt with.

it springs to mind that if someone was having the shit beaten out of them in their cell in prison but wouldn't make a formal complaint when asked to they wouldn't say oh well that's up to them then they obviously want to get beaten nightly. nor would the prisoner be likely to complain if they knew that 24hrs later the violent pscyho was going to be back in their cell.

we know victims of dv are worn down, their thinking distorted and their boundaries corroded so to place the onus on them of whether someone should be convicted or let back in the house etc is crazy.

I see what you're saying, SAF, but who should it be placed upon? If the women [mostly] in these situations won't press charges or even agree that they're being beaten up, what are others to do (except in extreme cases of course, where the damage is obvious, blatant and possibly witnessed)? Who else is there to say "this man [usually] has committed this act of violence and he needs to be removed/stopped" if the bashee won't do it?
If the support were more easily accessed and the "victim" more assured that they could get away and be safe, perhaps they would be more wiling to chance it? I don't know.

i think for a start when it is reported and the police take the offender away he shouldn't be given a caution and sent straight back to the home. there has to be a way of saying you are released on the condition you go nowhere near the home or the person you have assaulted and an immediate call to social services who then go out and meet with the victim and offer support as well the clear message that dv is damaging to children and they will now be being observed and monitored (as well as supported) with a view to checking they are safe and well and not continuing in a dv situation. a clear message at that point that children cannot live in this, with the back up from the legal system that the man is not allowed back in the home for x amount of time allows a window of opportunity for supporting the mother to end the relationship and for processing how seriously it is taken by the law and the ultimate risk of losing the children if the situation was to continue.

i am not sure how this compares with what actually does happen. at the point of an incident a lot of services should kick into place imo and everyone should be informed of what is going on, hcps, ss, educators etc and a clear programme of support and monitoring of all concerned be put into place.

does anyone know what actually happens?

i also think the police should revisit the victim and tell them what has happened, inform them clearly of what protection they can offer them, how to change their locks (what legal action they need to take to allow them to do this given the ridiculousness that it can be illegal to lock someone out who is assaulting you if it is also their home), a named officer who they can contact etc etc. that sense of support and the police being there to protect them may also encourage confidence to prosecute.

I know someone who can fill a small supermarket trolley with reports to the police of the abuse she and her child have got at the hands of her ex. Police has not been much help, they normally go and talk with the very respected and mild mannered exhusband who claims the exwife is mad and paranoid, so they drop the case, no matter how much evidence she has of the claims.

Obviously, they see a deranged woman freaked out or reason out of fear and compare it with a very much self controlled and charming man who doesn't appear capable of hurting a fly. Who do they believe?

As a domestic abuse case worker put it once to me, all abusers are lovely otherwise how would they manage to get away with it?

I think she has been remarkable strong, I'm sure many women in her situation feel paralised with fear, their self esteem so damaged that they are no longer able to raise to the challenge and protect themselves and their children, afraid that the abuse will get worse if they step an inch out of line and sadly, in a rather distorted way, feeling they are protecting their children from worse to come :(

And by the way... police are useless on this, they don't have the time to deal with so many domestic incidents. It can take them several days to contact the victim... if they do.

There needs to be a whole separate system for dealing with abuse, rather than tacking it onto the systems which are supposed to tackle it at the moment but haven't the time, understanding or resources to do it properly. Start funding the refuges and the support system. Why is Women's Aid a charity, when the police aren't a charity, the homeless department of local councils aren't charities, social services isn't a charity. I actually think that children's services should branch into two, one support system for parents who are struggling and one abuse department which focuses on abuse solely, all the refuges, support services, aftercare, etc etc should come under this umbrella. A fourth emergency service.

There is good support and understanding around, but it's so thinly spread, only available in certain areas, and it just isn't valued as an essential public service like it really should be.

'Women in abusive relationships suffer from massive cognitive dissonance. They have a great deal invested in making excuses for behaviour. So the overly harsh criticism, or the jealousy because you were talking to another man, or the refusal to help around the home become excused because he was having a bad day, or he loves me so passionately, or he can't help it he's just a typical man and doesn't see dirt. These things are not so far removed from what goes on in many 'normal' relationships are they?. '

I cant talk for others but these things are so far removed from what I would see as normal personally, especially anyone that puts up with someone who says they can only wear certain things, go certain places or see certain people. I think that is the most abnormal thing there is and if someone did that even one time I would tell them to fuck off. I really cant see how some people think this is normal even the one time.

swallowed I don't know what Force your talking about but my Force does all this as policy anyway. We are alos pilotting the Domestic Violence Protection Orders where perpetrators can be removed form their own homes in cases of DV. We're not allowed to caution for offences of DV. There is rafts of support available and victims are referred to a DIVA (domestic violence advocate) service. There is also the MARAC process involving numerous agencies too. If a victim wants to be helped the support is out there.

I hear time and time again that someone reported Dv to the Police and they did 'nothing'. A lot of these women are quite happy to tell their friends 'he hit me and the Police came and did nothing' but when you look the Police report they said nothing of the sort.

There is an alarming trend of women also lying on behalf of the offender claiming they have caused injuries themselves (but they won't tell their friends that they'll tell them 'he hit me/cut me and the Police did nothing).

I have been involved in numerous so called 'victimless' prosecutions and they're very hard work when you have a victim who is intent on assisting the offender. One case where we actually managed to get him convicted for 5yrs for GBH (v sympathetic judge) actually got engaged to the offender whilst serving his sentence and married him on release (there were no children involved thankfully but there was no reason for her to remain in contact with him). She refused from the outset to provide a statment and evidence was third aprty and forensic. A lot of them will even get their MP or a solicitor to get us to remove bail conditions and will lie to the authorities about what has gone on. They will also deny being in relationships with perpetrators because they don't want the authorities involved.

It's not straightforward and there's no simple solution.

So what should be the action taken when all the support services swing into operation, the man is barred from the home, the refuge is organised and the children and the mother are given what they need to begin again.
Then she takes the abuser back into her life and her children's because she feels sorry for him, or can't live without him, or whatever delusional excuse she makes to undo all that has been done to try and help her and her dependents?

x-post Achica.

It's quite obvious that the victims of DV who refuse to do anything about it are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome - wiki have a good page on this.

It's difficult and upsetting but once more I see that women should be responsible for bad men's behaviour and this should be reversed. Women, if treated like human beings, would be believed and there would be countless campaigns targetted at men to stop doing violence against women and children.

Strange thread.

Why focus on someone other than the person who is inflicting the abuse? It seems like a contortion to me - a few people have said, well actually committing DV is obviously so bad what's the point in talking about it, the person committing DV is intrinsically bad so no point in talking about it, the women are worse than the men because the men are what they are and there's nothing you can do about them so lets focus on the women.

This seems strange and back to front to me. Surely focussing on the abuser is the correct place to start?

I think the focus is because it is such primary and insinctual role as a mother to protect your child, so it is shocking that some mum's seem to 'side' with the abuser. The abuser may well not be related to to child, but the mother is, which is what makes it so distrurbing.

As a daughter whose mother would always put her emotionally abusive husband over her daughters, I can tell you my mother has hurt me by her actions far more than my stepfather ever could. He is a git and if she had the guts to leave him I would never have to see him again. But she will always be my mother and will always have let me and my sister down.

I am not talking extreme domestic violence here, just prioritising your new relationship over your children. He has no reason to be nice to me and my sister, but she is our mother for heaven's sake. What is wrong with her? Why do women do this? I hope I never would.

if a woman has been given all of that support, the man has been prosecuted and she has all along been warned that the ultimate outcome if the situation continues/reverts is that the children will need to be removed then at that point you'd have to go ahead and remove the children. there would be no choice. but you'd have done everything you could to avoid that.

tbh though i think it would be rare that someone who had been given all of that support, safe housing, counselling, police protection and support for a long enough period of time to begin recovery would then choose to go back to living with a violent abuser. if that was extended to all women i'd have no problem with the fact that sometimes it didn't work and children had to be removed. i would imagine though that for the vast majority of cases, if that support was consistently given and proper legal action taken, the strategies would work.

of course he had reason to be nice to you and your sister - you were children and he was an adult human being. don't abdicate his responsibility to act as a decent human being, within the law and with some degree of basic morality! i can understand your anger at your mother and i know what it is like to have a passive parent who does not stand up for you and put you first, but he was the abuser - if he hadn't have chosen to willfully be cruel to children and break the law she wouldn't even have been in the position of needing to act on it.

i get that people feel more hurt by the parent who didn't protect them but that subjective feeling is not the same as reality and legal culpability - abusers are the ones who choose to abuse and all the consequences radiate out from that choice.

Yes, but swallowedafly - she chooses to be with him. Same as he chooses to be unpleasant (not break the law, just verbally nasty). She was a professional woman with her own income and house. She is still with him. She chose him. He did not choose us. She puts her own interests before those of her children.

Not all women are blameless victims. Some are selfish, needy and very attracted to nasty men. They get something out of the relationship. The children don't.

ithaka but surely fathers have similar instinctive feelings of protection towards their children?

Yes, but he is not our father. Our father is lovely. He has no control over his the man his ex wife marries.

I have no personal experience of step-families but imagine it is quite normal to feel love and protection towards your step-children?

The way the people who are actually inflicting the abuse are being written out of the conversation bothers me.

That is my pint - it is shocking when parents don't protct their children - mothers and fathers. I was taking from the OP that she meant in relationships when the mother's new boyfriend is vile to her children, why does she let that happen? Why do some women put their new man ahead of theit children?

ithaka I am not talking about your personal situation but about situations in general.

It is quite normal for men to feel feelings of love and protection towards children, as many women do. Whether its their own children, their step-children, or just a random child in the street who is about to run into the road. IYSWIM.

Surely the more pertinent question is, why is this man such a total bastard?

but did your father swoop in and rescue you? did he go to court and fight for custody of you? did he go and see this man and talk to him about his treatment of you? did he communicate with your mother about it? etc etc.

i think it is the most pertinent question and it's interesting that it isn't the one focussed on. it suggest low expectations of men's behaviour and no sense of accountability for their own behaviour and higher expectations of women who must be accountable.