Hamish Campbell
Detective Chief Superintendent
Commissioner's Staff Officer.

Second letter to Police Commissioner

Dear sir,

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Please allow me to elucidate the points I am making.

I run a help line for male victims of domestic violence. I do this in my capacity of organiser of man2man which is a campaigning organisation to try and get political and public recognition of the problem of domestic violence against men. I am a victim myself so I have first hand knowledge of the way the police deal (or refuse to deal) with male victims when they call for help. I have appeared on television and radio as well as in print on this subject and I write articles about male victims which are sent all over the world via the Internet and reproduced on many sites.

If I may I would like to take each paragraph you wrote in turn and reply to them.

"I am unsure as to what point it is you are actually making. There are no specific details on the matters you raise. Your first paragraph is broad, sweeping and simply not accurate. Victims of crime, male, female, young or old, are all entitled to be treated with the same common courtesy and their allegations heard and there is no policy to distinguish between the sexes."

I thought the point was very clearly defined but you seem, with respect, to be unable to see it, so I will try to make it simpler. In the last six months I have received over 400 calls from male victims in my capacity both as founder of man2man and as the [former] National Domestic Violence Co-ordinator for the charity ManKind. One of the things at least 70% of these men tell me is that when they report the violence of their wives or female partners they simply not believed. Sometimes they are accused of being the perpetrator because, they tell me, when police officers come to the home they find a man (often bigger than the female) doing his utmost to remain calm in order to keep credibility with the attending officers and a female in tears. Again and again they tell me that the tears of the female carries more weight than their own calm demeanour. The problem, it seems to me is a lack of training to see the wiles and techniques of a female abuser. She knows very well that a few tears carry a lot of weight, in particular, with men. The next ploy a female abuser will often use is to accuse the man of the very crime she is guilty of. (A recent high profile case of one of the royal families staff attempting the same techniques in court ought to spring to your mind). Men have told me that despite standing there with blood pouring down their face and no injuries on their partners, they are not believed and thrown out of their own homes, often late at night.

I recently had a case of a man whose wife cut his face with a knife 20/25 times. He was taken to hospital and treated. She was taken to the cells. The next morning, incredibly, she was released and he rang me in terror. I have that call on tape. The fact that this women is a doctor and very well spoken appears to have given her an excess of credibility at the police station.

I myself have faced this kind of biased attitude from the police. When I was abused and after being struck with a piece of 3/4 inch ply over the head and then threatened with a carving knife, I called the local police only to be asked, "What did you do to her to make her behave like that?" Would that question have ever been asked of a female? I realised at that moment there would be no help for me from that source. I put it to you that had a female rang the police with that story there would have been a couple of police cars on the scene within moments. The one thing that experience taught me was that the police are not interested in male victims. Niether of my two female abusers was ever arrested but I suffer daily with the consequences of their abuse and my working life is now over.

In the paragraph above you write: "Victims of crime, male, female, young or old, are all entitled to be treated with the same common courtesy and their allegations heard and there is no policy to distinguish between the sexes."

We all know that we are "entitled" to be treated the same however, men also know that they are not being treated fairly. We all know we are supposed to, "be treated with the same common courtesy and their allegations heard " However, male victims know that they are not treated with respect and they often find their allegations are heard by police officers with a one track mind when it comes to abuse. That is not really suprising either is it? All we ever hear about or see on our televisions (and now cinema screens) are images of men beating women. It is never the other way around. The press is full of those images. Women's magazines are full of those images. All politicians and policemen ever talk about is female victims. In view of these facts it is hardly suprising that when police officers turn up to a domestic violence call from a man they expect him to be a liar and a perpetrator hiding as a victim. Even the mans very size acts against him. We are being brainwashed into thinking that only men abuse and I believe you are fully aware of this fact. If you are not then you really do need to "think out of the box" as the saying goes. Consider this fact: Over 60% of all child abuse is carried out by mothers. Now, if anything should tip you off that there are many violent women out there than that figure alone ought to do it... don't you think? Yet these facts seem to escape you. Because these facts escape you and many of your officers, as well as your political masters, I respectfully tell you that an inevitable consequence of this lack of insight combined with the type of brainwashing society is going through at the moment with respect to these huge one sided advertising campaigns, is the gender bias I referred to in my original e-mail.

You say: "However, the recent news stories and campaign highlighting domestic violence against women is to draw attention to the inevitable fact that women are the majority of victims of gross domestic violence, they are the victims of the vast majority of domestic killings and long term bullying - almost all of which is perpetrated by males... Clearly some men are the victims of crime, within a domestic setting, but they remain the minority."

The bias I refer to is reflected in the paragraph above. In that paragraph you make two statements that make appalling assumptions based, I suspect, on recorded crime figures alone. Let me illustrate this point: "However, the recent news stories and campaign highlighting domestic violence against women is to draw attention to the inevitable fact that women are the majority of victims of gross domestic violence... Now, if this is a true picture I have no case. However, I know that this is an assumption because there are a number of scientific studies from all over the world that show this to be false. Note carefully what I said, "scientific studies" Not pop surveys done by special interest groups such as "Women's Aid" where all the people surveyed are residents of domestic violence refuges and therefore hardly unbiased. neither are they figures collated from notoriously unreliable crime figures. Instead they are methodological scientific studies carried out under controlled conditions (as much as that is possible) and with great care by eminent people. I would be happy to provide details of some of these studies if you need to see them.

Your statement -- women are the majority of victims of gross domestic violence, they are the victims of the vast majority of domestic killings and long term bullying -- cannot be accurate if the figures they are based on cannot be accurate! For example; The government admits that "most men do not report violence against them by females because of shame." In other words, men today are where women were in the 1960`s when they did not report violence against them for the same reasons. It seems though that neither the police or the politicians have learned from those early experiences. Now, if most men do not report the violence against them, how can you, or anyone else say, "women are the majority of victims of gross domestic violence, they are the victims of the vast majority of domestic killings and long term bullying"? The two statements are incompatible with the truth! That a man in your position has not made these connections is, frankly, terrifying! How could you miss them? Unless of course, you either do not "want" to see them or you have been as brainwashed as your political masters?

Another point I would ask you to concider is again based on the government statement referred to above. If most men do not report their abusers and the 1996 British Crime Survey (The largest domestic violence survey ever carried out in Europe) says that 4.2% of men and 4.2% of women suffer domestic violence and, I repeat, most men do NOT report the crimes against them in the home, what is the true figure likely to be?

I would also ask you to consider this point: When an abusive wife gets another man to kill her husband, is that domestic violence?

There are 400 refuges for women in Great Britain. Men have none. The government says that the men who are abused can go to the many mens hostels around the country. Let me ask you Mr Cambell: If your son was being physically or psychlogically abused for years and finally broke from the pressure and ran from the home with his kids, would you think it right that he was able to go to a purpose built mens refuge staffed by experts able to help them in their vunerable and scared state, or to a mens hostel filled with the homeless, drunks and/or drug addicts?

Womens groups recieve over 28 million pounds in goverment and police funded aid every year. The figure is probably much higher but people become coy about the actual amount. Men get nothing! Are you really sure their is no gender bias operating here? Perhaps you would like to give man2man a grant of a million pounds from the police budget so we can open a refuge or two for men?

You say:

"Clearly some men are the victims of crime, within a domestic setting, but they remain the minority. However, males, in particular young men, are often the victims of street violence and assault, (invariably by other men) and all these crimes are accorded proper attention."

Once again you repeat the mantra "but they [men] remain the minority" You go on; "young men, are often the victims of street violence and assault, (invariably by other men) and all these crimes are accorded proper attention."

Really? Again that is not my experience or the experiences of those who contact my own or other organisations that deal with this issue. Please, take the time to read the two articles below. Both are from real contacts or experiences here at man2man.

A Total Eclipse of the Son

George Rolph is webmaster of Man2Man