FNF dads share their experience of domestic abuse as victims of abuse, coercive control, denial of parenting and false allegations
On 13th January 2020 a group of FNF members and service users joined men from other organisations dealing with male victims of domstic abuse to share their experiences with the London Victims' Commissioner (LVC), Claire Waxman, at London's City Hall. The 'roundtable' meeting gave attendees an opportunity to help the LVC to understand their experiences, shortfalls of support and consequences. Claire Waxman was clearly grateful for the very personal stories that people shared, some overcome with emotion, some still, understandably, angry or upset at the lack of support they had and inadequate outcomes. Many spoke of vicious abuse, coercive control, denial of child contact, violent behaviour accompanied by false allegations to authorities, etc. In broad terms the LVC's plans following the meeting include:
- Investigations into why there are just 34 emergency beds for male victims in London.
- Consideration of different approaches to communication with men
- Addressing the barrier resulting from a public narrative that is often unhelpful and based on gender stereotypes.
- Consider a separate strategy for Violence Against Men and Boys.
- More 'trauma informed' training for relevant service providers.
- Investigation of barriers to accessing therapeutic support
- Discuss the provision of support for men with Local Councils in London.
We are requesting that LVC involve us in further development of these steps. Thank you to all those who attended.
ACTION - Anyone living in London can give further feedback to LVC can do so directly. Please feel free to copy us on your comments and response at admin@fnf.org.uk with 'LVC' in the subject line. We will not publish any identifying details.
We hope that LVC will continue to develop her understanding of men's experiences and particularly how these affect children and child-parent relationships. We will also reitterate our invition for LVC to attend an FNF support meeting.
Background and Previous Engagement with LVC
When we contacted the LVC in April last year, it appeared that most of the focus of her work was on the experience of women, very little of men and nothing we could find about victims of false allegations, particularly in the context of family separation and family court proceedings. We ment with LVC at City Hall in June 2019. It was wide-ranging covering many issues including those listed below.:
- The lack of support for male victims.
- The prevalence of false allegations in family proceedings.
- The use of false allegations as a gateway to Legal Aid - we were left with a sense that LVC did not think false allegations or contact denial were a significant issue of coercive control. LVC appeared more concerned with insufficient safeguarding of the mother only and findings of fact hearings in family courts.
- We drew attention to evidence that the level of serious incidents involving mothers and fathers were not all that different, contrary to some very selective 'studies' that did not look at the issues in the round.
- The lack of good data and appropriate research from family courts e.g. no information about what findings court make about the truth of allegations or their relevance. No information about what proportion of court orders for contact were for indirect (mostly letter writing) contact or whether that was ordered because of the risk of abuse or because of the court giving in to sustained obstruction from the parent with whom the child lives. We drew attention to the fact that the strategy to end violence against women and girls had the effect of leaving men who have experienced domestic abuse, coercive control and contact denial feeling vulnerable and unsupported.
- That it is common for lawyers to advise fathers seeking Child Arrangement Orders for their children not to report abuse to family courts as this tends to delay access by months, with hightened risk of this leading to a permanent failure of its restoration.
- The need to break the cycle of abusive behaviour by men (and women) who grew up in fatherless homes and who make up the majority of those who end up in prison.
Ultimately, we were left uncertain of the level of commitment of the LVC towards many of the issues raised. The latest consultation seems genuine and supportive. We remain concerned that the scale of the issues that our members and service users experience remains to be fully appreciated, but the latest meeting in January this year was a good start.
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