Affulent parts of East Riding has homes where women are controlled and abused says PCC
The comments were made at a Council Sub-Committee meeting
Affluent parts of the East Riding are as likely to have homes where women are controlled and abused as more deprived areas, Humberside’s police and crime commissioner (PCC) has said.
Humberside PCC Jonathan Evison told East Riding councillors violence and coercion of women and girls touched all parts of society and the perpetrators were not just a handful of men.
He added it was up to people who witness it, especially men, to call it out but often it takes place behind closed doors in homes which appear normal.
The PCC’s comments at the council’s Safer and Stronger Sub-Committee meeting follows a study into the scale of violence, abuse and coercion against women and girls in Humberside.
The study, commissioned by the PCC and carried out by VictimFocus’ Dr Jessica Taylor, found only one in 50 women and girls had never experienced violence or abuse.
The survey of 1,627 Humber women and girls found 70 per cent of adults had been coerced by men who insulted them, put them down and made them feel bad.
Two thirds of women said they had faced such behaviour before turning 18.
The study also found around of both girls and women were told what to wear by men attempting to control them.
One in three adults were stopped from seeing friends, told where to go, had their social media checked or their abuser threatened suicide, as were a quarter of girls.
Councillors heard work was being done to help tackle abuse, for instance in the night time economy with helping taxi drivers to spot the signs and fitting them with CCTV.
But the PCC said the problem extended far beyond isolated incidents on nights out and violence, abuse and coercion happened in places people would not often expect.
Mr Evison said: “We’re not talking about a couple of scallies who are abusing 97 per cent of women and girls in the night time economy.
“It’s a significant proportion of men doing this, it’s custom and practice in much of the male population for this to happen and we should be calling it out.
“You’d think in a leafy area like the East Riding there would be as much violence against women or coercing them as there is a more deprived area.
“But it cane take between 25 to 32 instances of violence before a woman reports it.
“And usually it starts when coercive control of a woman begins to fail, that’s when the violence begins.
“Let me paint a picture for you, there’s a woman living in the East Riding and let’s use myself as an example, her husband is a PCC.
“They live in a really, really nice house and their kids are in private school.
“But she’s been coercively controlled and never realises it because she’s so trapped within that environment or feels so trapped at least.
“It’s at least as bad to live a life like that as it is to live with someone who is being physically abusive.
“That will be happening in homes throughout the East Riding, just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
“What we see is only a very small percentage of it.
“It almost certainly is happening here.”