Should the Home Secretary ask me, on the basis of all my years as a police officer, which crime should be prioritised ahead of any other, without hesitation I would say domestic violence.

You may find this surprising, given the terrible toll taken by drugs, alcohol and knife crime. But an even greater source of damage to society than all of these is the physical and mental abuse that takes place every minute of every day behind our front doors.

When I joined the Met in the early 1990s, violence in the home was still regarded by many as a private matter. 'Just a domestic' was a common expression among police officers.

But as I came to realise, there is no such thing.






John Sutherland explains why he thinks combating domestic violence should be the number one priority of police forces in his new book Crossing the Line, published by Orion Books


In England and Wales, two women every week are killed by a current or former partner: the lives of daughters, mothers and sisters ended with shattering brutality by men of unchecked rage - men who might once have claimed to love them.






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Since the start of the current lockdown, at least 16 women and children have been killed at home. In the Met alone, officers have arrested 100 people a day for domestic violence offences, an increase of 24 per cent.

Sadly, it doesn't end there. The charity Refuge estimates that three women each week take their own lives as a consequence of domestic violence. 






In Crossing the Line, John Sutherland explains that some women would rather risk further abuse than risk losing their families


Statistics published by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary suggest that it accounts for 11 per cent of all crime committed in this country, 13 per cent of all sexual offences and a third of all assaults resulting in injury.

No respecter of gender or class or sexuality or geography, domestic violence can happen to anyone - although the fact is that the majority of victims are women, and the majority of perpetrators are men.

If you live in a city, it is happening within 100 yards of your front door. If you live in the country, the distance may be greater, but the reality is the same.

It's no exaggeration to say that domestic violence is terrorism on an epic scale - and the single greatest cause of harm in British society.

Last month, the Domestic Abuse Bill resumed its passage through Parliament. Our political leaders now have an opportunity to ensure that more is done to protect victims and survivors, and bring attackers to justice.



 



In my formative years as a PC, calls to deal with domestic violence were seen as nothing but hassle for the police. Seasoned officers were experts at finding reasons not to attend.

And when an officer without a ready-made excuse eventually made it to the scene, they were met invariably by a wall of silence, or a series of blanket denials from everyone involved.

Whatever the neighbours might have heard through the walls was nothing more than a minor disagreement that had long since blown over. Visible injuries would swiftly be explained away by couples as the consequence of a slip on the stairs or a collision with an open cupboard door. 

On many occasions both parties would have been drinking and neither would be making much sense. It was usually one person's word against another's, and all too often the victim - usually female - would be reluctant to make a formal allegation.

Even if she initially agreed to give a statement and her drunken husband or boyfriend was locked up for the night, she had usually changed her mind by the morning. No sooner was the man released than they were back together again.






The author said two cases he came across in the early days of his career as a PC influenced him deeply (pictured: a scene of domestic violence, stock picture)


And for the bewildered and exasperated police officers, it meant a load of paperwork for no apparent result. Really, what was the point?

I might have ended up feeling the same had it not been for two incidents.

The first was a murder in south London. A colleague and I were the first police unit to arrive at the scene, just off Coldharbour Lane in Brixton. I found the victim: a woman face down and lifeless on the landing. Her name was Marion.

I saw her body again at the mortuary the following morning. The pathologist revealed that she had been stabbed multiple times in the throat. The suspect, I later found out, was a former boyfriend. Someone she had trusted, perhaps even loved.

The second, also in Brixton, was another young woman stabbed repeatedly, this time by her current partner. He was still at the scene when we arrived - sitting on the sofa, handcuffed and silent and staring.

She was coated in blood and fading away. Her name was Jane. I helped carry her to the ambulance. I stood and watched as the remarkable medical team at King's College Hospital opened her chest in a desperate and ultimately futile attempt to save her life.













I've carried the memories of those two women with me for years. And I will carry them for the rest of my life.

Over time I attended many more such calls. Not all were murder scenes, thank God, but all were scenes of deep sadness and desperate need: places of violence that was psychological as well as physical; violence that was repeated time and again, driven by drink and drugs and resentment and rage.

And yet despite everything we officers saw on an all too regular basis, our attitudes remained too slow to change, too slow to realise that there were lives to be saved.

In 1999 I was promoted to the rank of detective inspector with the Racial and Violent Crime Task Force. But I came across exactly the same attitudes as I'd experienced on frontline duties.

The Met already had a domestic violence working group but the senior officer who'd chaired it had retired and none of my high-ranking colleagues wanted to take the responsibility on. Way too busy, they said.






Since the start of the current lockdown, at least 16 women and children have been killed at home. In the Met alone, officers have arrested 100 people a day for domestic violence offences, an increase of 24 per cent, John said. Pictured: a woman clenched in fear, stock picture)


To be honest, I was reluctant, too. Though my early experiences with domestic violence murders had left a deep mark, I thought that there was more interesting and important work to be done. How wrong I was.

My eventual decision to get involved with that group - a mixture of survivors, charity workers, professionals and police - transformed my life.

Through these highly committed and remarkable individuals, I began to understand some of the complex reasons why victims might be reluctant to report incidents. And how so many women live in a state of permanent, multi-layered fear. 

They are afraid of the next attack and they are frightened that any attempt to contact the police will be met with terrible retribution. To put it bluntly, they live in constant fear of being killed.













They are also afraid of losing their children, their rationale being that if they tell the police, the officers will inform Social Services, who, in turn, will take their kids away.

Many women would rather risk further abuse than risk losing their families.

And porn sex child it's not just their children they are frightened of losing - it's their homes and financial security.

It's easy to say to a domestic violence survivor, 'Why don't you just leave him?' But it's never that simple.