Rise in domestic abuse between older people in Dorset

Domestic abuse appears to be on the increase in Dorset between older people – although more research is needed to discover why.

Dorset councillors heard this week that there had been anecdotal evidence of more referrals among the over 75s during the previous year, across the county.

Barrie Crook , chair of the pan-Dorset adult safeguarding board, said the number of reports involving the older age group had been consistently increasing.

Dorchester councillor Molly Rennie said she thought some of the rise might be accounted for by a greater awareness of the problems of domestic abuse throughout the population and more people being prepared to report it.

“It shines out now that everybody is taking care and it’s not just delegated to one person in an organisation,” she said.

Cllr Rennie said that domestic abuse involved men as victims, as well as women, and was critical of a report from Poole which indicated it was only women who were the victims of domestic abuse.

Mr Crook said that only a small number of around 4000 reported cases of adult domestic abuse resulted in a formal inquiry.

He said that one which was had been under investigation involved a woman in her 80s who died following years of abuse in the home, a situation which appeared to have been known about by a number of people.

Mr Crook said that the increasing number might partly be due to the higher proportion of over 75s in the community, although there might be other factors, including greater awareness and more willingness for victims to seek help.

“We are becoming more aware, generally, of the wider impact of domestic abuse, not just between partners,” he said. This could include abuse from children to their parents, or other relatives.

The committee heard that neglect, or self-neglect, was also an issue which would now attract further attention and there had been cases where people with certain neurological conditions, including Huntingdon’s Disease, would not engage with professionals. The danger of these situations was whether professionals would recognise that the apparent wish not to engage was part of their medical condition.

Said Cllr Robin Legg: “Sometimes it’s a bit difficult to get through to professionals that a lack of response isn’t necessarily a conscious decision by an individual who suffers from a neurological condition, it may just be an aspect of the condition itself that they don’t respond…it’s very easy for people like that to drop out of the system and be not supported in the way that they should be,” he said.

Mr Crook said the figures being discussed were pre-Covid and there would be closer examination of new figures coming in to see if the pandemic had led to a further increase. Early indications were that abuse reports had not increased during the spring lock-down, but had increased since then.

Of the 4,114 concerns raised with the board last year, 2,395 were confirmed as safeguarding. Of these 354 had proceeded to a formal inquiry.

The annual report says that women are more than twice as likely to be the subject of a formal inquiry. Three quarters of all the formal inquiries in Dorset are for those aged 65-plus.

Of those which reached the threshold for a formal inquiry more than half of the incidents occured in the home with 40 per cent in a residential or nursing home.