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Dec
How is North Yorkshire tackling violence against women and girls?
“We will not get everything right, but can always be better,” said North Yorkshire’s deputy mayor as she addressed a room of 100 people at a violence against women and girls summit in Harrogate.
Labour’s Jo Coles was addressing the fact that violence against women is a national priority which had to be tackled at a local level in areas like York and North Yorkshire.
Monday’s summit held at the Pavilions of Harrogate was designed to strategise how North Yorkshire can play its part in the reduction.
But how can it be tackled and how big a problem is it in the county?
Underreported figures
The topic of violence against women and girls has been in the public consciousness since the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard in south London in March 2021.
Wayne Couzens, a Metropolitan Police officer, was given a whole life sentence for the murder of the 33-year-old in August of the same year.
The crime shone a light on the issue, which the End Violence Against Women campaign group describes as one of the “most pervasive human rights violations” the UK faces.
Jo Coles, deputy mayor for policing, addresses the violence against women and girls summit in Harrogate.
In July, the National Police Chiefs’ Council took the step of declaring the issue as a national emergency.
The organisation said around 3,000 crimes of violence against women and girls are recorded each day, with at least one in 12 women becoming victims each year.
Crimes range from domestic violence to rape and sexual assault.
The stark figures also revealed that around one in 20 people are estimated to be perpetrators of violence against women and girls each year.
In York and North Yorkshire, the figures are below the national average — but Ms Coles warned that this is likely due to underreporting of incidents.
In 2022/23, 700 cases of coercive control were reported to North Yorkshire Police and 482 reports of rape in the same period.
Last year, 1,992 sexual offences were recorded in North Yorkshire — of which 310 were in Harrogate.
Speaking to the Stray Ferret at the violence against women and girls summit this week, Ms Coles warned against complacency over the figures in the region.
She said:
There is a lot of underreporting. There is an awful lot of cases which will not get anywhere near a police station or anywhere near a service.
We have got services which will provide support for women and girls regardless of whether or not they have reported it to the police.
Instilling that confidence in victims to report to police is not an easy area to tackle, Ms Coles admitted.
It’s also not an issue that the deputy mayor’s office can tackle on its own.
This is a problem that requires voluntary sector partners, it requires businesses, schools, education, health services and everyone to accept the roles that they will all have.
It’s only when all those agencies start to co-ordinate better that people will have more confidence to report.
‘I was financially controlled and cut off from my family’
One victim who felt let down by local services was Laura Pulleyn.
Laura is a survivor of domestic abuse after years of violence and coercive control at the hands of her ex-partner.
She gave a candid account of her experience at the summit in Harrogate this week.
Laura was subjected to appalling levels of abuse, including being forced to eat food off the floor, being locked inside her own home and cut off from her family.
Laura Pulleyn addressing the summit in Harrogate.
She described a relationship where her ex-partner had initially listened intently to her and asked her about herself. But, then later began “systematically” using her vulnerabilities against her.
Very quickly, the tides turned away from that initial love bombing and I was in over my head. My insecurities were weaponised against me, I was financially controlled and cut off from my family and completely isolated.
Laura spoke of the abuse starting subtly. Her ex-partner would control what clothes she wore, who she spoke to and where she could go.
She lost weight after having her food restricted and later found herself at her GP with her ex-partner, who was asking for to be medicated because he claimed she was “bi-polar”.
Laura told the audience at the summit that not a single health professional, financial service official or her employer asked questions about whether everything was okay at home.
The abuse only escalated from there.
I would be locked in a house, sometimes for days at a time. I would be ignored and made to stay silent, knowing that at any point this could turn into explosive violence. I was made to eat off the floor and not allowed to use contraception.
Laura gave birth to twins during the relationship, who were then used as part of the ongoing abuse.
She said services, such as the health visitors during the pregnancy or the doctors when she was admitted to hospital for malnutrition, continued to ignore the signs of abuse.
After 15 attempts and the birth of her children, Laura left the relationship.
I remember that day vividly. I left the house at 7am to get my children to nursery. My partner rang me at work screaming down the phone about some trousers that I hadn’t ironed.
While I stood on the shop floor watching life go on around me in slow motion, I returned home at 7pm that night completely exhausted and despondent with my entire wardrobe emptied into the girls cots so I couldn’t put them to bed and my house smashed up.
I packed a single Sainsbury’s carrier bag and walked out the door.
The aftermath was difficult with Laura having no money, no home and a continued lack of support from local services.
However, she said the intervention of IDAS, the domestic abuse charity, saved her life. She later ran a marathon to help raise money for the charity.
What can be done?
Aside from better understanding from health, police and other services, for some there needs to be a “cultural shift” in how the problem is tackled.
Sarah Hill, chief executive of IDAS, echoed this suggestion.
During her speech in Harrogate, she said that as well as better education and instilling confidence to report crime, violence against women and girls needed to become “intolerable” among the public.
She said:
We need to make it abuse against women as intolerable as drink driving. We also need to individually challenge harmful behaviours.
Meanwhile, the deputy mayor pointed out that violence against women and girls is different to other crime types in that it does not follow deprivation.
Ms Coles said more needed to be done to tackle the problem geographically in North Yorkshire, which means providing support and services in rural areas as well as urban.
We have got geographical challenges in our area, which are different to other parts of the country.
Therefore, we need to make sure that the services we are currently commissioning and what we want to commission are reflecting what we need for our people in our area.
For Ms Coles, tackling the issue means instilling confidence but also bringing the figures on crime down.
But, for her, the most important goal is “to be difficult” and keep challenging people on it.
It’s important to keep the spotlight on this, keep raising it and be difficult about this.
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