Abusive Partners Register ..........

"Violence against women and girls is unacceptable in any form."

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith

I agree - it is. It is also as unacceptable for men to suffer from any kind of violence also.

Soooooo here we go again. The Government is in the mire about several other things going on so they roll out 'old faithful' as they do every couple of years or so - and the Government before them - domestic abuse' - to try and look as though they are actually going to attempt something valid this time and deflect from other issues for a couple of days.

So the latest idea - the 'Abusive Partners Register'..... okayyyyy!

Yes, yes, I sound pessimistic and have every right to. They drag this horse out to trot every couple of years with different plans being spoken of for a couple of days and then nothing more is ever heard.

Do I have a right to say anything - do I know what I am talking about in suffering at the hands of an abusive partner?

YES - for a few years I did just that. Raped almost daily, beaten daily without fail, sometimes a quick few punches, more often than not beaten to the point of not being able to walk properly because of fractures or just sheer pain, not being able to see out of my eyes properly (I had one that did not care if anyone saw me with black eyes and a bruised face - he thought it made him look big and hard).
I was not allowed to go out - not even to ante-natal classes because there were other men there (with their partners having their baby but hey ho - they were men). Every couple of months or so I was forced to stay awake for a week and sometimes 2 weeks straight and was beaten if I fell asleep. You're wondering how he did it? He was sick enough to put an alarm on hourly to wake himself up and then beat me more because he was tired with having to wake up every hour.

I got to breaking point - I picked this man up by the scruff of the neck and slammed him against a wall with a knife pinned against his throat and told him if he came near me ever again I would kill him.
I have my faith to thank that I did not go that one step further and actually kill him there and then.

I was lucky - I found the strength and got away. To be honest I had a crap childhood and had been in the pit of abuse too much to let my children suffer at the hands of it. He had not touched the children - but I was not going to give him the chance to harm them in any way either - they deserved better from me as their mother - momma bear - to protect them properly. I did make sure he went to prison after I knew he did not know where I was and that I had a secure injunction which would be acted on - the police WERE immensely helpful in reassuring me of this and were there when he wanted to collect clothing - which ended up being taken by the garbage collectors by accident - uh huh!
They were kind and considerate and treated him as the burden and not me.

The APR will not work for one major reason - it is DOMESTIC abuse they are aiming at. Within the home. That means years of fear and being trapped for most people whether they are adults or children.

A conviction will be needed for people to be placed on this register - too many people in any form of abuse are afraid to report domestic violence. For a majority of cases it is still reliant on the person who has been beaten/abused to press charges.

Abuse is about power and fear.

The sad thing is a government using domestic abuse as something to be thrown around to take the focus off other things every year or two years. They talk for a few days then nothing else is heard about it - as is seen now from the weekend when the register was first mentioned - it was mentioned on Monday and Tuesday then nothing more.

People's fear and terrible conditions in living in abusive households should not be taken out to trot for the sake of a publicity stunt or any other reason.

It is sick and sad that so many people will have seen the proposal for the register - whether in abusive households or not and thought the same as myself, 'yeah yeah, they got this one out to play again.'

It is about time the government used a different ploy to divert attention from other issues - or even better - actually did something about them and about domestic violence so that people living in fear can actually believe that there is hope for them to get away - that something in the form of real action will be done to help them - rather than talking about crap that just will not work no matter how much the government try and dress it up with little bows.

Bows come undone!