Should I Delete That? - Domestic Abuse: International Women's Day with Refuge

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

For International Women's Day, we have partnered up with the incredible charity Refuge, who are tirelessly working to put an end to domestic abuse and violence against women and children. We speak to three women: survivor Natasha Saunders, barrister Cherie Blair and Refuge's CEO Ruth Davison. We hope this episode gives you a deeper insight into the importance of Refuge's work and mission, and if you are able, please consider donating to Refuge via their website, link below.Find out more about Refuge here: https://www.refuge.org.uk/You can call the UK's National Domestic Abuse Hotline on 0808 2000 247or access their live chat Monday to Friday, 3–10pm at www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk Natasha's website is https://www.natashasaunders.co.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to a very special episode of the Should I Delete That Podcast. We could not think of a more important way to celebrate International Women's Day than to raise awareness for one of the most common and urgent issues affecting women. With that in mind, we are really proud to say that today's episode is in partnership with Refuge, the charity that provides special support for women and children experiencing domestic violence. We speak to three brilliant women in this episode, but first we must give a trigger warning as this episode goes in depth and detail about domestic abuse. Survivor Natasha Saunders shares her story of domestic violence with bravery and vulnerability.

It was an incredibly moving interview that stayed with us long after. Sheree Blair lends us her expert legal opinion on the injustices that women face in the legal system. And Refuge CEO Ruth Davison tells us how Refuge's frontline services are, working tirelessly to save women's lives. Before we get into the episode, we just want to let you know that all of Refuge's information is in the show notes. So too is the National Domestic Abuse Helpline. It is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and somebody will be there to help you. The number is 0808-200247. Now here's Natasha. Hi, hi Natasha. Thank you so, so much for joining us on here today. We've been really excited to have you on and to open this conversation. You are a

victim of domestic abuse and male violence and you're now sharing your story far and wide to help others who are in a similar position and to help push forward the conversation around domestic abuse and eventually hopefully put an end to it. So thank you so much for sharing your story with us and for sharing what is your trauma and your pain and we can't imagine how painful it must be but we know how valuable this conversation will be and how necessary it is. So, so yeah, thank you. Thank you for joining us. We would love to kick off with hearing about your story, about as much of it as you're willing to share with us if that's okay. Yeah, that's not a problem at all. So when I was 17, I met a man who basically waged war on my body and mind. Very, very quickly, we went from

you know, the odd text to him texting me like 50 times a day, checking on me, phoning me, didn't want me to go out with friends, it wasn't safe, didn't want me to work, it wasn't safe, you know, he wanted to provide for me, and I came from quite a dysfunctional background. So for me, it was like, okay, this is somebody who wants to take care of me. And I was completely love bombed, you know, it just absolutely convinced that this outpouring of obsessive attention was normal. There was a time not long after we met when I went to a party and he found out. And he then phoned me an hour later saying it'd taken an overdose, screaming down the

phone, I'm dying, this is all your fault. And then two or three hours later, I had a message going, I've been arrested for headbutting or punching a police officer. I've got my phone in my cell. And I'm sat there going, look, I'm 17. I know you're 14 years older than me, but I'm not stupid. Wow. So he was 31 at the time. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So there's a big age difference. And a lot of people, yeah. A lot of people went, well, why wasn't that the point where you walked away? But what it was is that whole sort of I can protect him. Maybe I could help him. It wasn't his fault. He was broken by his ex-wife. She cheated on him and stole from him and all the things on earth that could have gone wrong. It was all her fault. And the next thing I knew I was living with him, I wasn't going to see my family. I'd change my mobile number. So, nobody could get hold of me.

And I remember saying, I'm going to meet my mum at the train station, which was not far at all. And he was like, no, you're not. I said, yes, I am. And he turned around, turned his phone around to an intimate image of me and was like, no, you're not, or I'll send this to your parents and show them what little slut you are. Oh, my God. Wow. And I was like, sorry?

And it was just, whoa, you know. And, you know, he would go online. He'd take intimate images and videos of me. And he would go online and try and find women for three. he would just mentally beat me down but never directly you know it was never a you're not wearing that it was a case of you're not going out in that are you or is that what you're wearing out and I'd go yeah yeah what's wrong with it nothing and I'd go upstairs and change I'd come down and he would go what did you get changed for so for a long time I was like it's me it's my

insecurity I get changed because I'm insecure I'm you know um then I fell pregnant and everything went from bad to worse. And how old were you when you fell pregnant? 19. I was 19. So this had been going on for two years? Yeah. Right. I fell pregnant. I wasn't maternal. I wanted a career. Wanted nothing more than to go out into the world and make my mark.

Had you been working prior to getting pregnant? No. I had done the odd thing. So like he was working in a career place at this point and I worked in the office. I worked there for three or four weeks before he told me that I wasn't working there anymore. I did work when I was with him for his boss launching a new office and he would have my wages paid on his tax code, which was ridiculous because he paid more tax. But for that, it all went into his account, his control. So he controlled your money. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Everything. Everything. I wasn't allowed to leave the house without him. Wow. Sorry to jump around, but let's have you met him. I was working at a horseyard.

And I had a pony, my sister's pony was for sale. And he messaged me, look, I'm really interested in the pony for my little girl. And it went from there to him completely spamming me with messages. You described at the beginning that he was love bombing you when you were like 17. Obviously, we have that language now to know what love bombing is. And if you don't know, it's exactly like you describe. It's like a... It's being bombed with love.

It's being overwhelmed with love, you know? And it's intense, isn't it? It's like, I'm addicted to you. and I worship you and, you know, so much, it's so much to unpick there. I want to protect you. I want to love you. I want to, I want to, why do you want to go out with other people when you could be at home with me? And I don't understand why people go out for a night out. I mean, they only go out if they want to screw somebody, obviously. Well, I don't want to screw anybody. Well, there we go, stay at home on the sofa with me. It's all this very,

very full-on manipulative behaviour. It's such an insidious. It's an incredibly insidious psychological trick, isn't it? Because. combining the bad stuff, you know, the abuse with a barrage of love is really, I can imagine, extremely confusing and really is just an absolute mind fuck that just completely messes with you. But it also, it prized on every young girls, we're sold this like dream of love and you want a man that's going to like kiss the ground, you work, yeah, and he's going to protect you and keep you safe. And so it's like, it's all part of our condition. that they can really play on that and take advantage of it. And obviously being 17 and, you know, I guess, you know, and I don't want to assume, but you said, you know, you come from a dysfunctional family.

Yeah, we moved around the country, non-staff. I went to so many different schools, you know, we were never in one place for more than a couple of years. And so, you know, he had a house and he had a car on finance, which is something I always say, and people go, and I was like, but my parents had such an unreliable history that wasn't obtainable to them. he had an ex-wife but he still saw his child at the weekend so it seemed like this he was so responsible and I didn't come from that sort of background so for me it was like well this is this is what I'm sold that life is this is what you know you're supposed to have a house and a car

and have your responsibilities it seemed as you said that ideal that you're sold that's what you're supposed to have yeah and you're 17 you haven't found your feet yet in the world and you're not only incredibly, like, impressionable and vulnerable, but also they're desperate for validation. So can you take us then to back to 19 then when you fell pregnant and the relationship took a turn, you know, even more for the worse? Yeah. So basically, he, at that point, he was a long-distance career. So he'd go from like Portsmouth to Aberdeen or something. I'd have to go with him. The day, I was a week cave-a-jee with Darcy when I went into labour. So, well, I said to him, I want to go home. It's like

five o'clock in the morning. I'm done with this. I'm ratty. So he dropped me home. He had one more drive from where we were near Worthing to Gatwick, not far. I went to bed, got up, went to the toilet and noticed that I was spotting. So I, first time mum, panicked, phone the hospital and midwife was like sweetheart. It's totally fine. Baby's probably on her way soon. Unless it's like an egg cup, don't panic. I was like, okay, phoned her on the toilet. I was like, okay, got up, walked to the bedroom and somebody threw a bucket. Literally blood went up the walls all over the bed. It was absolutely, sorry to be graphic, but it really, I'm hysterical. I phone her back, you need to come in, we're going to send an ambulance, I phone him, no. What do you mean,

no? You'll wait for me to come back and you're going to clean it up. You need to clean up the bed and yourself and get yourself sorted. When I'm back, and I've had something to eat, then I go to the hospital. So I eventually get to the hospital and they stick me in the surgical suite when did you last feel baby move? I don't know. I don't know.

Oh my God, you know. So they stick me on a drip induction. They forgot to give me an epidural. So I'm on this drip induction and it's really full on and he's sat there eating food he's bought from the shop. Then he goes home for a couple of hours

says to me don't have the baby whilst I'm gone, will you? Sure. Sorry. Yeah, wait there. I'll cross my legs. Cheers. So he comes back and all of a sudden they lose her heartbeat.

And the whole room just, there are people everywhere. There's a woman between my legs, a consultant between my legs. She's like, I've got to give you a cut. I'm like, do whatever you've got to do. You know, all that sort of thing. Anyway, she's born by Von Hoose. Start screaming immediately. Huge relief.

And it gets put in my arms and just sort of looked at her. And in that instant, you go from a baby to wow. And I was like, I made that. she's screaming and I'm looking at her and I can remember it like it was yesterday and I'm just like oh my god you know it's really overwhelming and then he turns around and says don't just stare at it shut it up and walks out the delivery suite he never changed the nappy he never fed her he never cleaned her I mean considering after I left I found out he's a convicted sex offender of a child under the age of 14 the relief of that is quite profound um but yeah I didn't find

that out until I left in a Kafka report, yeah, in family court hearings when he was asking for my now husband to be checked under Sarah's law. And then it came out that he's a sex offender that got 200 hours community service and a downgraded charge from rape to indecent assault because he pleaded guilty. So because he pled guilty to rape, he got charged with not rape. Yeah. It's It's a common thing. It's a common thing. Yeah, it's a common thing. Yeah, it's a common thing. If you plead guilty, they'll downgrade your charge. Yeah. So anyway, so Darcy was two and a half and I fell pregnant again on the pill. And I was like, fuck. Now, I've been through quite a lot in my life and I don't think I've ever been in such a dark period as that time. Was that because, I mean, well, I'm guessing. It was because of, you know, just a sheer accumulation of, you know, just a sheer accumulation of, the abuse that you'd suffered now for going on, fine? No, it was, it was the absolute horror of bringing another child into it. I was barely protecting my daughter as it was from it.

Okay, you're thinking, I can't do this, I can't bring another baby into this, this world that I'm living in here, what happened from there on out? So, he was working for Hermes at the time, so he could have, you know, up to 160 parcels a day. he would stay in bed and I would get up I would put all the post codes into AA route planner and optimise them

and then I'd write all the numbers down the side of the post codes and then I would stack all the parcels in order after I'd scanned them and then I would load them in the car and sit next to him whilst he delivered them with our daughter

strapped in the back for like five hours and this was because he didn't want you home alone yeah okay and then here Yeah. It gets worse. Brace yourself. And then I was 10 days overdue. And that day, I'd done one of the horses, I'd done a food shop. I'd done a sponsored mile walk around the field with my daughter who was three at the time. I'd stacked 160 parcels and helped him deliver them. I wasn't allowed to get out the car, mind you, in case any other customers tried to talk to me.

Right. okay and went home was having contractions or probably just brachson hicks let's just roll with it got to a certain point and my contractions were like 50 seconds apart and i'm like right the hospital was a good 35 to 40 minutes from our house so i phoned the uh the midwife and she was like sweetie trust me if you were in established labor we'd know she'd tell me about your first birth story because it's not interrupting your voice if you're having them whilst you're on the phone so I said, well, I gave birth, had a drip induction with no epidural, and she went, sorry. She need to come in now.

I was like, oh, okay. So I went down and I said, we need to go to the hospital. I'm in labour. Are you fucking kidding me? Are you doing this on purpose? In rush hour? Yes, correct. I am.

His mum wouldn't look after my daughter whilst I was in labour. So he went to the hospital with the child in tow. And when my contractions got to a point where I was like, I asked him things. leave. So X went with child about seven at night. I had another cut because of a scar tissue down there where it hadn't healed properly, which is basically where my ex had raped me too soon after my daughter was born. And I had my son, absolutely no trouble whatsoever. So he's born at 10 to 10 at night. Brilliant. Take a picture of him. Send it to him. Here's your son. Bless him. Get your stuff together, I'm coming to get you.

Oh, my God. Sorry, I'm coming to get you. You're coming home. Who's going to do the parcels in the morning? So that's me going to the midwife. You know, I'm fine. I just want to go home. I just, I'm really, I'm a home bunny, you know?

And you get really good at lying. You get really good at lying. And off we went, well, he came in. Off we went home, get back. I'm trying to settle a three-year-old who's been woken. up twice, has a new baby and is really confused about the situation. And he screams from the bedroom, shut up, you little cunt. We love the new baby more than you already.

Oh my God. So settle the baby. I settle our daughter. I get into bed. And he decides then it's a good time to rape me. No. No. Rip my stitches.

No. I remember being in the bathroom. It's not your fault. You're not a rapist. It's okay. I remember being in the bathroom We had like a toilet That was just a toilet room

And then everything else was separate And I remember leaning against the wall Quite literally pissing out blood Oh my God And I remember thinking What the fuck am I going to do Because I can't go to a midwife And be like oh yeah

I tripped and accident You know So I just rode it out Three weeks I couldn't sit down for It almost certainly got infected Given the pain prior to this the abuse that you described you know was fairly you know extensively psychological had it been physical or was this yeah yeah yeah so when I left

in 2015 I told the police that it wasn't physical that's actually in my my statement the day I left but looking back at the time I class physical abuse as being punched in the face being kicked in the shins pinched given dead arms and legs shoved against a wall, shoved against the wardrobe, having hands put round your throat until your choked unconscious is physical abuse. So yes, I was physically abused. Did he punch me? Yeah, once, 15 times, 16 times in front of my mother, who then went home afterwards. Oh my God. So after my son was born in the morning, I got up, feeding a baby in my arms, doing the parcels, parcel guy turns up, I walk out there, he's like, where's the baby? I'm like,

Oh, he's in the house, because obviously the bump's gone. He's like, what the fuck are you doing out here then? Where is he? I went, he's in bed because he's tired, because I made him come and get me last night. So he comes in, calls him, get your ass downstairs, you know. He thought he was doing me a favour. He was not doing me a favour. So your ex assumed that you'd gone to him for help?

Yeah. Are you fucking him, are you? You're sleeping with him? And all that sort of thing. So yeah, so anyway, so at this point, he went through job after job because he'd quit and go, I need to keep an eye on you. and then eventually he got a job in like delivering cars at a Ford dealership so but just before that the summer before that I left can I ask how psychologically you came to a point where you decided that you were ready to leave was there I mean was there like a straw that broke the camel's back or was it again just the accumulation like how did you come to a point where you're like this is it I have to leave I knew I had to leave from when I was about eight weeks pregnant with my daughter wow and I didn't leave and I didn't leave till she was almost six.

Okay, okay. Just because you know you have to leave, it doesn't make it any easier. When I lecture at the Met, so I lecture at the Metropolitan Police or then you recruits every five weeks, what I say to them is, imagine what you've brought into work today.

I'm now going to take your bank card out of that, and I'm going to cut your phone off because I'm going to report it stolen within the next 24 hours. You can't go home, you don't know where you're sleeping tonight, and by the way, any pets you've got, if they're like my ex,

they're going to kick them the ribs around the kitchen every time you do something wrong because the amount of times I got between him and the German Shepherd so I took the kick in the ribs and she didn't is unbelievable. That is absolutely horrific and I can't believe that you just you had to put up with it for so long. That's just so awful and I'm really sorry. But I'm just I'm wondering what was the point? What made you think like okay you know I absolutely have to like this is I have to just I have to do something. I guess my kids.

I guess I just didn't want my son to ever think that he could treat women like that. I didn't want my daughter to think a man could treat her like that. I left and I went back because my mum invited him to her house and said that there wasn't really room for us there, even though I'd disclosed that he was raping me on the way back to her and her partner. At the time, I didn't realize that her partner was actually beating the living shit out of her on a regular basis. You know, those women like your mom and his mom, I guess they had, they were almost desensitized to what you were going through because they had been exposed to so

much of it. Absolutely. They'd kind of lost perspective. Yeah. My mom has horrendous mental health problem. She is a child of sexual abuse. She has been thrown from pillar to post her whole life. I mean, don't get me wrong. My dad wasn't an abuser, but my dad is also a bit broken from his own childhood and he never abused my mum but he didn't help the situation you know and so I went back that was August 2014 and then Christmas 2014 I wanted a new pillow on Christmas Eve and we'd gone into town all of us together walked into town because our car had been repossessed again and I saw the police officer who had attended when I left and the summer, the one who had come and interviewed me. And I remember him looking at me as he

held a door. And I don't think in my entire life I've ever felt so ashamed because he knew I'd gone back. That Christmas, I was then like, look, I'm walking around the corner to Tesco. It's a five-minute walk. I'm getting a pillow. I'm going. And he went absolutely mad, started calling me a whore and a slut. And my then five-year-old looked up and went, don't you call my mummy that? And he went nose to nose with her and started. And I just was like, oh my God, this sooner or later, this is going to become my kids once they get their own mind.

And he'd do things like that. I think it was at Christmas Eve. He bought me a handbag that we couldn't afford. And I didn't want it. And he went into TK Max and bought it anyway. And he came out. He was like, you do want that bag. And I was like, it's okay.

You want it. Don't you? Go on. Let me treat you. Okay, fine. And he went and bought it. It came out, gave it to me and was like, you're such a selfish bitch.

And I was like, Jesus Christ. But you, and he was like, no, all you do is go on. You make me feel like shit. You're a bitch. You're a self, in public. And I'm just stood there like, oh, my God. Oh, my God.

This happens in public. It happens in public all the time. And does anybody do, did anybody ever intervene or help you? Which is why I always stand up and go, do you have a problem? Yeah. Or I wait until they go to the toilet

and I'll follow them in the toilet and go, there's something called the National Domestic View. helpline and I give them the helpline number or my business card because at the end of the day I'm not going to stand by and watch that. If you're complacent, this is what I say to the metropolitan police as well, like we were talking about the Hottom Report and the joking of rape. And I was like, if your friend in the force jokes about rape and it makes you uncomfortable, but you sort of, okay, you're complacent in it. You're being complacent and you're complicit in the situation.

Would you walk past a woman in the street being raped? No. When you're, joke about something it takes away the seriousness of it you mention uh that you now talk to the police like and and you you lecture it um the metropolitan police and again i think alluding there to like the recent news that there have been texts and whatsaps emerging that you know there are police officers that are joking about this and obviously like on the back of what happened to sarah everard um at the hands of a metropolitan police officer like i wonder how do you feel about the police? I know obviously you work with them now. My honest opinion is I think when you believe, you begin to believe that all the police are bad. That's like believing every man is

an abuser. I cannot fault my police officer from Sussex Police in my case. He's the most amazing human. He emailed me just the other day to tell me about that he had told someone about my case and who I've become and how proud he is. And, you know, I lecture at the Met and I talk to the new recruits. And I always say to them, you know, I gave a talk there the day after Wayne Cousins was convicted. And I'd put a post online before that going, you know, just so you know, I don't believe all police officers deserve bashing over this. It's an attitude, not a job description.

that's a problem. And I got a phone call immediately from somebody quite high up in the Met, and I thought, shit. And they were like, can I just say, we've just seen your post? And I'm like, shall they take it down? And they were like, no, morale is so low in these new recruits right now. They're getting abused by people and they're not even on the job yet. So thank you. So I always go in there and go, look, you can't do this, this, this, this, this and this is, you know, your professionalism is what makes you a met police officer, but your humanity towards the people you are dealing with and your empathy is what will make you a good metropolitan police officer. And the only way that the police can change is through education and awareness. The fact that someone should know

better doesn't mean that they do. And unless you get in there and go, this is my story, this is what I've been through. Now joke with me. Tell me what's funny. The head of Hampshire police once said to me that rape is the single worst thing. that a person can survive. A single worst crime that a person can survive. That is what she said. And it's always stuck with me because that's totally true.

It's a really profound thing and I feel that all police forces need a huge, huge overhaul. They need radical change and that's why I offer to all the police and crime commissioners and I've got a lot of different forces who have contacted me recently

and they all seem to want to be very proactive and sort of changing those attitudes and, you know, the thing is if we don't tackle this sort of behaviour within forces, it's just going to end up spreading. And that's why I want to get in there at the new recruits before they're alienated into this, this is okay. But people need to know that unless we confront behaviours we're uncomfortable with, then those behaviours continue away from us and that's when they can spread. We only know what we know. We only exist how we exist because of how we've been brought up. And unfortunately, So many of us are brought up in situations that are not functional or healthy.

Absolutely. Right. And we forget that police officers, that caregivers, that parents, you know, we put so much trust as humans in our parents. And we think our parents are going to protect us. We think the police are going to protect us. And we hope. And they will often try their best, but often their best is only a version of what they're capable of because of the tools that they have. And I really feel that like listening to everything you've been through.

It's like societally, there's so much wrong that domestic violence is so prevalent that it should be, you know, all the things you went through should have been the biggest alarm bells to you and to everybody. But you can see how it happens. Can we ask about the people who did tell you to leave? Would you have listened? Could you have listened? What can, in your opinion, we do as friends or as people that care for, people that we worry are being abused? What would have been or could have been, if anything, helpful for you?

I think we all need to be aware. We need to recognise the signs. We need to make sure the people around us have that right signposting. But on the other side of it, somebody telling me to leave wasn't enough for me to leave. Because actually, it's human nature to be quite embarrassed when you've made a huge fuck up. And when you feel like you've thrown your entire life away, you've now got two kids.

I mean, his conditioning was, nobody wants someone or two kids, damaged goods, you know. So anyway, fast forward to January. My mum came over because I was allowed to start seeing my mum now and again. And because we went through Adi Aida, I'd either see my dad or my mum or neither. And we were making a joke, me and my mum, and I said something about watching the Amityville horror with Ryan Reynolds. And I was like, he has his top off in a lot of it. And anyway, I started laughing And he punched me in the arm

Like 16 times Literally like bang, bang, bang And then kicked me in the shins And walked out the room In front of your mother Yeah And I just stood down My mum was like

Oh my God And we went upstairs And I said mum I'm going to bag up some clothes And you need to take them with you And pretend their clothes I don't want anymore So that's, you know

I put a small bin bag of clothes And she took them with her And then we'd made a plan for me to leave the week of like around the 20th of January because she she didn't have time or the fuel to come and get me before then. So it was just getting worse and worse and I was Googling domestic abuse and I found the domestic abuse helpline and I phoned the number and this was when he was picking up and delivering courtesy cars for a Ford garage.

And he'd come home a minimum of five times a day. You'd just pull up on the drive, walk in the house, what you're doing. Not much, okay, and off you go again. Or you need to hoover, but I've hoovered twice today already, do it again, okay? You know. Or he'd turn up at the school gate when I was picking the kids up, which was just at the end of the road, to make sure I wasn't talking to anybody, to make sure I was stood apart from everybody. And I phoned the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, and I didn't know what to expect.

I didn't know whether I was wasting their time. I felt like I was crazy I thought they might be like right we've pinpointed your house we're going to send the police blah blah you know I didn't know I really didn't know and the woman that answered the phone saved my life if I could be put in a room with that lady to say thank you to her that's a new story and a half

I can tell you because the emotion I want to be able to go these are a photo of my three children I had two when I left this is my wedding day to my best friend in the whole world, and that's because of you. Because she validated me. She didn't make me feel stupid. She didn't lecture me. She just said, Natasha, tell me what's happening, and do you think that's right? And I said, no, and I don't know how to leave, sort of thing. And she said,

did you know, you can book an appointment at a police station? And I was like, I didn't know that. So I phoned 101, and I made the report, and my God, my heart has probably never gone so fast in my life. And I made an appointment for 10 a.m. the next day. and I'd made up that I needed to go into town because of their council tax bills. So he went off to work, took my daughter to school, went and took my son to play school, turned around and he was behind me. Where you got your bag for? Where are you going? Oh, I'm going to the council office, remember?

I'll drive you. I'm going that way. Okay. So he drove me to the council office and I walked in. I don't know if either of you know Horsham at all, but there's like the council offices and then a big, big, huge park. And then at the top, there's another road. And he went, oh, I'm going down there, blah, blah, blah. And I got out the car and he was sitting there

and I walked in and I looked at the woman. And she was like, can I help you? And I was like, I just need to wait here a minute. And she was like, okay. And I sat down and she sort of looked and made herself busy. And he reversed out and I just jumped up and went, thank you, and ran. And I ran through the park and anybody that knows me knows I don't run unless somebody's chasing me or my favourite pair of shoes were on sale and ran through the

park as fast as I could and at the top part of Horsham is a road called Hurst Road and it's basically only got a fire station, a police station, a law courts and a library on it. Like there was no reason for me to be there. And with him coming back with the car, he was either going to go past council offices or go down Hurst Road. And if you went down Hurst Road, I had no excuse for being there. And I remember running and getting into the police station. which was off the road and sitting down and just being like, because I had every intention of going home after. I was there to ask for a non-wollestation order, you know.

So I went in with the police officer and said, I need a non-wollestation order because he's this, this and this, and he's scrolling on the computer and he's looking and he just said, Natasha, is there anything else? And I just, everything came out. And he stood up and he said, look, Natasha, I'm really sorry, but you've just taken this out of my hands. We need to arrest him and I need to go get your sexual offences officer. And I was like, oh my God.

So in the meantime, he'd managed to realize something was up. And I'd had someone pick my kids up from school and nursery and take them to her house. Yet as she was walking back to her house, he turned up and took them off her. The police couldn't find them. In the end, they found him walking down the road holding their hand. The police officer was like, we're going to walk them there and we're going to follow you in the police car. or I'm going to nick you in front of your kids. Let's do this the right way, you know.

So he walked them there. I went off to the sexual unit up at Crawley Hospital and had intimate photos and God knows what else taken of me. And the biggest part of humanity that was shown to me that day was my phone was dying and I was getting a bit upset. And the nurse that was there on her lunch break went and got me a charging cable. for my phone. And it just meant the world. Like it meant so much. Eventually, I got back to my kids. We're in the car. We're going back to my mum's. I'm just completely broken. And my daughter goes,

are we going to get our things from the car? Sweetheart, we don't have a car. No, Daddy does. Daddy's parked it down the road opposite. So we had a driveway and there was no car. He'd stolen one of the courtesy cars from work. And he had parked it down the road opposite and filled it with their passport, a changing bag, a change of clothes and anything of value from the house like my laptop and things like that. So the Ford dealership were amazing. They had someone out and buckle, literally buckle the door with a crowbar of this brand new Ford to get my things out. Had he been planning to take your kids and run? Yeah, I think so. Well, he always told me if I ever left him that he would kill the kids and himself

and make me live with the consequences he would be like I'll drive the car into the Central Reservation at 90 on the motorway or I'll drive it into a lake I'm going to make you live with it and got to my mum's

and I remember sitting on the window sill and a terraced house in Portsmouth and looking out the window and just being like I'm not going back I'm not going back and where was he at this point? He'd been arrested He was in custody, yeah, and he faked, he faked a heart attack, went to hospital, they found nothing wrong with him, he went back, he cleared the bank account out the following day. Was he released on bail to do that?

Yeah, yeah, he was at least, he was on bail three years. Three years? He breached, well, actually, he wasn't on bail three years, so I got told not to go out alone. Two weeks after being there, my mum kicked me out because her, I wouldn't give her partner my money for. alcohol bearing in mind of trying to save up to furnish my own home from scratch um i ended up going into refuge uh two kids who carry a bag sort of thing um they went you'll be here nine months i was like like fuck so the next day i went to the council and got in housing register and a couple of days later i went back and i pulled my son's top up covered in bed bug bites and i was like

how am i supposed to be a mother and raised my kids like it wasn't the refuges fault but it was they were trying to deal with it, but it was at that time it was something else that I had in my corner. And I got a house, I got a flat. I had to wait another two weeks because they put in a new kitchen and that and I moved into my flat. All the time he is emailing my friends and family, texting

them. He's putting posts on and pictures of me saying he loves me, he's bought me a new wedding ring. Yeah, all sorts of stuff. He was making reports to the police and to social services that I was hitting the kids and it was just ridiculous um and this was all while he he had the conviction hang you know coming yeah yeah yeah whilst we were waiting for the investigation yeah and his bail conditions were no direct or in direct contact save for a solicitor for the benefit of

the children yeah so that dragged on then i met through a friend of mine uh this guy who lived in western supermare literally by chance met each other online um got chatting he'd just left his wife And I was going to see my friend in Devon. And he went, well, I've always said, I'll buy you pizza. I stopped by and I got off the train in World Train Station. And he was stood in the middle of the platform. And it was literally, it could have been like love actually. And I'm not like a chick flick girl.

I'm not a romantic girl. I got off and looked at him and my heart went, there you are. And when I got on the train the following day, it made up his spare room for me and everything. And I was like, honey, seriously. It's all good. I'm not sleeping in the spare room. and we took the kids to the zoo and had a great time

and I remember Darcy walked in and we were cuddling on the sofa and she walked in and just went ah ha and I was like what are you laughing at and I realised that my daughter had never seen genuine affection she'd never see other than you know like my affection to her or her brother and we've been together five weeks and I had a minor stroke So we'd been to the zoo And I came back, took dinner plate into the kitchen Handed it to him and just went

And the whole dish side of my face dropped And my hand went And so 10 months I couldn't feel my hand Or my face properly for I was laid in the hospital bed And I was like, fuck I'm 26, this has happened I've met a guy five weeks

He's going back to Western Super Mayor I was in Portsmouth He's supposed to have work tomorrow I'm not going to see him again So anyway, it was a bit awkward and he was just like, I just need to nip outside, make a phone call. And I was like, I don't know if he wasn't going to come back from that. I can't even speak.

So off he went and he came back and he sat down and he said, I've told my boss I'm taking all my leave. And he sat there and he hand fed me because they put a cannula in my left hand, which at the time I was four stone lighter. I was literally like a skeleton from stress. So I couldn't move this hand properly and I couldn't use this hand. So he literally fed me. And he took me home and he said,

I'm going for a better paid job. It's like eight grand a year more. But it's up in like Nottingham. He said, okay. He said, if I get the job, will you come with me? When you move? And I said, well, yeah, but I've got to be here six months to get a council transfer. And he went, no, let's just do it. He was like, I've worked out if I get a 12,000 pound loan, I can pay off my debts. We can refurnish the kids' bedroom because I was sharing. He was like, we can get them, you know, proper beds and their own space and let's just do it. So we sat the kids down. We said, do you want to move it, you know, would you be okay with that? No, Darcy, like, yeah, you know.

So three months after we met, we moved to Nottingham. And yet, a lot of people were like, oh, and I was like, when you've done it wrong, it feels good to do it right. I had a lot of time before I left to work on myself and realized that there was nothing wrong with me. I didn't need anybody and I didn't plan to have anybody. But Ben became my rock and I became his. Rock. So that's when the allegations

of him being a sex offender began pot kettle. So your ex was accusing, he found out about you and Ben and started accusing Ben of things. Yeah. One day we had the police knock on the door at our house in Nottingham, bearing in mind my ex didn't know where we were. Can I help? Yeah, we've tracked your car down

through the DVLA. You've been seen punching your daughter in the face. Oh my God. He'd taken our number plate when we'd attended family courts. He'd taken our number plate. to try and track our address down and stuff. He, first of all, he wanted full custody because I was crazy,

but if I came home, it was okay. He was right near the court document, family court documents, like, she is my one true love and all sorts of crap like that. In the middle of this, I'm getting divorced from him. I had a baby with Ben, and then we had to tell all the local schools, if anybody phoned and asked for their names.

The school had a picture of him up in case they ever saw him around the perimeter. and all sorts of things like that. Then I had a woman in Scotland start stalking me online and saying she was going to kick my baby out of me. She was going to pour a boiling kettle of water over my face. She had my address.

The police took five weeks to investigate that. That went to court up in Scotland. She had a history of that sort of thing. And what really frustrated me is that there was never any legal recourse against my ex for it. So again, we're on bail. We're waiting for a child.

decision he's giving her photos information and letters of mine via text and she's up in scotland posting the stuff what is his relation to this woman he just met her online so basically you left this situation and you're trying to rebuild your life and because presumably of the delays in the court system or however this works the investigation they had 30,000 WhatsApp messages to read through wow and so meanwhile while the investigation is ongoing he's free to continue harassing you. Oh yeah, he abused me remotely. That's extraordinary.

He would post pictures of me, videos of me, messages about me, talking to me, and the answer was come off social media. No, I have not done anything wrong. I'm not hiding, deal with him, you know. But it did. It made me drop, obviously, I'm battling my health. I'm battling family court.

I'm battling criminal court. I'm having phone calls from the police asking intimate questions all the time. And anyway, it got to a point where they went, right, it's going to court. Okay. And how long after you making the report for this to happen? Three years, two months. Wow, it's a lot of years.

Three years. It's the date we went to court on the 5th of March, 2018. That can't, I mean, I just, that's crazy. Three years. But from the women I talk to, it's not unique. I guess that's what my question is. That's incredibly concerning, given that not only did he continually abuse you throughout up this time, but he had the potential to go and do it to another woman and another woman.

He did. He did. He did. Yeah, he had a woman living with him who had four kids and the police went and said, look, he is on bail for rape. He's now been charged four counts and one of sexual assault by penetration. And on top of that, he's a child sex offender. And she went, no, his ex is just really good at manipulating people. It's all a lie. But yeah, so in that time, you know, I'd got married. I'd had had a baby. I'd had a minor stroke. And all this stuff had gone on with him harassing us with being dragged through family court. It got put on hold until the outcome of the trial. So he filed a fresh family court claim. I got dragged in when my son was two weeks old and stood there. I said, well, he's on bail. And he puts his hand up,

no, I'm not. And I was like, you're such a liar. Because he was going on about how I was being done for benefit fraud and I was being locked up and everybody had turned to get, you know, every time there was this big allegation. And the judge, went, look, can you read? This says not until the outcome, go. So anyway, we left. I phoned a police officer. I said, by the way, he went, yeah, he's not on bail. I can't believe it. I'm incredulous. I can't believe it. I went, sorry, I've just had a baby two fucking weeks ago, and I'm in court, and you've let him sit in the same room with me, and he's not on bail. Yeah, it slipped. I was off on leave, and whoever it was,

that was renewing the bail, forgot to do it. When they went 48 hours later to the custody sergeant, the custody sergeant said, well, he hasn't done anything in this time, as he said, so don't worry about it. So that was terrifying. That was terrifying. And people are like, well, it makes no difference. It doesn't know where you are.

And I'm like, you don't understand. I mean, it was never enforced anyway, let's be honest. But so fast forward to court. I gave video evidence from Nottingham because my health wasn't deemed well enough by my doctor to go down to Brighton to do it. I was cross-examined for six and a half hours. Prosecution didn't wish to question me afterwards.

So I were like, no, you've pretty much nailed it. It's all good. During the cross-examination, I got asked whether or not being naked in bed is an indication of consent by the defence. Oh my God, you're kidding. You're actually kidding. I tore him off a strip so much. He's probably still raw now. Good. Good for you. Like, bitch. Bitch, please, you know. I know you're not supposed to say this because they're doing their jobs, but I'm like, being a defence lawyer in a case like this. How do you do it? How can you justify questions like that?

Questions like that? Yeah. What else did he say that I phoned the National Domestic Abuse Helpline and didn't say I was being raped. I was like, I literally just went, and your point is, that I'm a bit promiscuous. I had quite a few sexual relationships beforehand. Terrifying. It's just like such indoctrinated victim. They also tried to start questioning me on sex with Ben because I had another child, so clearly I was okay having sex and not damaged.

And that I hadn't had counselling. That was the other one. where you haven't had any counselling or any professional help. I went, I'm not a rapist. Why would I need professional help? And he just went, and the judge went, move on. And I was like, ha, dick. But yeah, you know, like, genuinely, I'm like, I'm so over this shit.

I'm not having this. And then, yeah, and then they went through the trial. Half of my witnesses, including my police officer, got the flu. And I don't mean a cold. I mean, like, 40 degree temperature flow. I was so ill. So it wasn't my police officer who gave everyone. evidence. It was superior who covered my case when he was off. And she was brilliant. And I remember

going to him, why four counts of rape and one of sexual assault by penetration? And he went, because rape percentage is 17% conviction, but sexual assault is 73. So the idea was, the idea was that if he got off rape, at least would nail him on something. Can you just explain to me what the difference is between rape and sexual assault by penetration, at least in the eyes of the law of the court, because by very definition, that sounds like rape. Yeah, I know it does. Sexual assault by penetration is with a finger or any other object excluding a penis. Right, right, got you. Okay, okay. Because when you give a statement for rape, they are extremely graphic. They want to know what finger, how long did it go all the way in? Did it not go all the way in? You know,

It's, I would frequently wake up and he'd be having sex with me. He'd be touching me. He would, you know, there were times he asked me to pretend that I didn't want it. So put up a bit more of a fight, you know? Oh, God. So, yeah, have me dress up as a schoolgirl, which now makes sense. So what was he ultimately convicted of then? So he was found guilty of three counts of rape and one of sexual assault by penetration.

So there were multiple. So the first count was any. before my son was born. The second count was from the night my son was born and he ripped my stitches up until when I left. So that covered period of three years. And then there were two individual counts in the week before I left because obviously they were so recent that I could give good description to what had happened. The reason that the one before my son was born was found to not be able to be implemented was that I couldn't give a start date. I didn't know. I didn't know at what point I was starting to be coerced into having sex, made to feel like I should

because I couldn't remember. Probably happened right from the beginning, you know. So I understand that and that was fine. I gave evidence on International Women's Day, which still is why International Women's Day means so much to me. And it always will do. I got up that day and was like, yeah, if this is a sign, this is a sign, I'm going to kick ass, which I did. And then he was sentenced on May the 4th. So everybody was doing them. May the fourth be with you thing. So I'll never forget that date either.

And he was sentenced to 12 years custodial, three on license and lifetime on the sex offenders register. He went off to prison. He did appeal after appeal, which got rejected. My husband wanted to adopt the kids because they see him as their dad. He's only ever paid for them. He's looked after them. Like he's their dad.

They've not seen my ex. It's the day we left and they don't want to. you know it's a difficult process um and then in july i think it was july last year we had a hearing we hadn't told the kids because so many times my 12 year old had had just these false starts that broke a heart um and anyway my mother-in-law had taken them out after school we had this hearing and the judge took until half past six at night she basically said i'm dispensing with your um with your your permission we don't need your permission for this adoption Mr. Saunders has adopted the children

and you have nothing to do with them and it was just the most my husband sobbed like a baby six foot two X rugby pair big guy broke his heart and the kids came home and we gave them a piece of paper each and on the piece of paper

it just had Darcy Saunders and Thomas Saunders and they were both like okay and Darcy went you've changed our names and Ben was like no like you know

we've yeah it's all done so so they've got their happy ending. They got their happy ending. And in the middle of all that, I did my work for refuge. And I remember the head of Derbyshire Mapper telling me that if I stopped doing that, my ex would probably stop kicking off in prison. And I was like, yeah, you won't, you can't be silent now. No, absolutely not. Never. Never will I be silenced again. And I remember very kindly, the chairwoman of refuge sent me in email when we changed the law saying, oh, you know, it's a once in a

lifetime achievement, changing the law. And I was like, no, I'm 32. I'm just getting started. Wow. There's so much more ahead of me. I'm, you know, I used to be, I used to be afraid of fire. Now I am the fire. You know, I'm not having, that's why my logo is a phoenix because I have risen from the ashes. I am capable. I am beautiful. I am going to encourage my daughter to grow up and love the world in whatever way she wants to, my boys will grow up and be respectful because her dad is a real man and I'm surrounded by support and love and yeah, I feel like I make positive change in society and without refuge and the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, I wouldn't be here now. I'd be dead. If I wasn't still with him, I'd be dead. And, you know, that's what we always need to remember is that

two women a week are losing their lives. And some women may never know. my name but they may benefit from the law changes or the awareness I raise and that's okay because when you receive an Instagram message and they're like just want to let you know that I've left because of you or your words helped me or you know I've been through something different you know and but I find your words and the way that you've overcome difficult times really inspiring although it can be overwhelming it's also the most amazing feeling because I I don't do what I do for me. I do it for other people.

And so to know that there are people out there who actually do benefit from it is amazing. And can I ask you? I mean, what strikes me about your story is just how hard it is to leave. It's really, it's nowhere near as simple as just leave. It's like for the plethora of reasons that you explained, you know, including threatening to kill your kids,

you know, which is I imagine the most terrifying of them all. so you know firsthand just how difficult it is for women to leave it's yeah what advice would you give someone who is you know is struggling with this is trying to to come to terms with what they should do and sort of just stuck between a rock and a hard place what advice would you would you give them if you could talk to them so money can be earned again i lost everything but i lost nothing I lost everything material, but I gained everything that mattered. I have my freedom. I have happiness. I have love. And it's not just the love of my husband. Like my husband is my best friend. However, if he left tomorrow, I would be heartbroken. But my God, I'd survive. I'd get over it.

And I'd be all good because I can do it. You know, we're together because we compliment each other. We support each other. You know, our personalities support each other in what we do. And here's my biggest fan. And so in that sense, you don't need anybody. Material things can be re-earned. It's the hardest step you'll ever take, but it's the first step to the rest of your life, which sounds like such a cliche because I say it so much, but it's so true. And with your experience now and what you know, I mean, since leaving and, you know, all the work you do, what would you advise the first step to be, who to reach out to, what exactly to do? Phone the national demand. Abuse Helpline. They're there for you, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. They have an online chat

feature. Refuge's website has some amazing information, even if it's somebody you know that you think is going through abuse. There are some fantastic tips on there. On my own website, I have what I think might be the world's first national domestic abuse directory, which has literally numbers for all different things, for different countries. And so I have like my, my source. slogan, like my, my like, little tagline is survive, rise, thrive, because you survive what you go through, you rise above it, and then you thrive. And you make no apologies for it, you know? You've been through so much. And to hear where you are now is just extraordinary. Like to hear you know your worth. And, you know, to hear you at the beginning of

this interview, to you at the end of the interview, it's like you sound like just two different women and it's the most remarkable thing and I just that is it's so empowering and exciting because it's hope isn't it and I wonder if there was something that you could say one thing and this is probably an impossible question but if there was one thing you could say to the you of seven years ago what would it be nothing is impossible the word itself does I impossible love it it is the word you know, nothing is impossible. So, and but I think it's also really important to point out to women that if you don't want to take on the world, if you leave and you don't want to share your story or you don't want to become an MP, for example, and you just want to get on with

your life, that's amazing too. And that makes you really special too, because you have a right to live in the way that you want to live. And living in fear is no way to live. All of Natasha's information is in the show notes. If you would like, to find out more about the work that she does. Now we would like to introduce Cherie Blair. Thank you so much, Shari, for coming and talking to us today. So we wanted to ask you as a lawyer how the gaps in the legal system that mean that conviction rates of violence against women are so low and how frustrating that must be for you. It's strange really because 45 years ago I started as a barrister.

and the Domestic Violence and Matrimony Proceedings Act had just come into force. And it was considered an easy thing to do to cut your teeth as an advocate to do domestic violence. Now, of course, actually, it's not that easy and it's a very serious issue. But I think it was part of the attitude at the time of society at large to what was really regarded as just. to domestic. So I think the first thing I have to say is it's got so much better. And we shouldn't lose sight of the fact about how much progress has been made. And I think that's really, really important. All these people, the police, the authorities, the employers, the public, understand a lot more just how soul-destroying and insidious violence against

women is. And of course, we've also developed an understanding that it's not just about bruises, but it's also about the mental abuse and the belittling and the undermining of somebody's confidence and the confining them to a narrow world where the abuser's word is king. So we actually have made progress, but yes, we still have a way to go. I think particularly we have a way to go when it comes to the question of conviction rates. When you look at issues, for example, like rape, and you look at the conviction rates, which actually are getting worse, if anything, either you would conclude that there's a lot of women telling fantasy stories out here, I doubt it, or you conclude that somehow our system isn't operating in a way that respects

the rights of victims. For that system to improve, what would have to be put in place? What do you think of the most vital things that need to be put in place for that system to improve and for victims to be, you know, taken more seriously and for more convictions to be made? We have to do something to make things better. Why? Because, the public trust in law enforcement is incredibly low. And that leads to a vicious circle. Women think there's no point in reporting. I'm not going to be taken seriously.

Or they think even if I am taken seriously, and to be fair, many, many police forces have specially trained police officers who know exactly what to do. But then they feel that, you know, I get to court. And then the whole court experience is like being assaulted. again. And so that again discourages women from coming forward. It's inevitable that people do feel down-heartened

because even if you do, you know, you make the call and you do escape and you do feel, you know, in a position and it takes so much strength to get out of this situation of domestic violence. And you touched on it. When you do finally get to court, you know, you feel like you're being assaulted again because the cross-examination and, you know, and people getting off on technicalities, you know, talking to Natasha before about,

you know, it's like they use different language because you're more likely to get off on a rape claim. And that just, it's so low. And I wonder, you know, is there something that we trust that, you know, refuge and brilliant initiatives are fighting for us or is there something that we can do really to challenge the legal, you know, the fact that conviction rates are so low? Well, I mean, I think this is always. a difficult issue. When you talk about human rights, you're never talking about absolute black and white

issues because my right of freedom of expression comes up against your right to a private and family life. Or in this case, my right to be protected from violence comes up against your right to a fair trial. And when you live in a system, rightly so, that assumes that a person is innocent until proven guilty. And when you're talking about an area where sometimes it's one person's word against another, someone else is there, you know, then it does become difficult. Of course it becomes difficult because everyone has a right to be able to defend themselves. and put their case in a court of law.

Now, we have developed ways to ensure that that right isn't abuse. The judges these days who try these cases have to have a special ticket, as we call it, special training to ensure that they understand the issues that are involved. So you're not just getting someone who doesn't really know the social context and the reasons behind this, that they're all trained. All of these things make things. easier. But of course, you know, the jury system relies on 12 members of the public. And you can train the judges and you can train the barristers and you can put in checks

and balances. But at the end of the day, you know, you get a random selection as a members of the public. And they can sometimes have contrary views. So, you know, going through the justice system, going through a trial by jury, I mean, obviously. you can ever be certain of the outcome. And generally speaking, if you are certain of the outcome for someone's guilty, it's because they plead you're guilty. So, I mean, it's not, you have to be realistic here. We can't simply overwrite all the rights of the accused.

And say if someone accuses someone of rape, for example, that that absolutely means that the person is guilty. because that that undermines that basic principle. So, but you would say that there needs to be more education within the judicial system? Well, I don't, well, look, you will, there's always going to be someone who's going to say something stupid. There's less of that than they used to me. I, myself, I sat as a judge, and I know that the judges go through extensive training, and they don't just go through the training at the beginning when they're appointed as judges.

You have to go through the training continuously throughout your career. So, you know, no, somebody's not just put onto the bench and then left to go their own way. So you mustn't think that. So something, as I'm sure that you know, that we contend a lot with in this space. And when we have these conversations online around male violence and domestic abuse, is men tripping over themselves to say not all men. What do you have to say to those men and to those people who try and push forward that conversation? Well, of course, look, I'm a mother of three sons and only one daughter,

and of course not all men are abuses, but every single man can be part of the change. And men do have a role to play in ending violence. against women and domestic groups. Of course they can. You know, sometimes you find all the time when remarks are made in a meeting or people say something inappropriate and afterwards people will say to you,

oh, I can come up to your men and say, well, really sorry, I thought that was inappropriate, you know, and thank you for speaking out, you know, and you have to say to them, you know, if only the women speak out, and then the men who are making these remarks just say, oh, well, moaning minis, they're just doing it again. You know, if men actually step up and say, this is unacceptable, you know, you're making me

uncomfortable, then maybe some of these men who have these ideas might pay more attention. So, yes, not all men do it. Of course not. Most men don't do these things, but every man can speak out against it and can call it out when he sees it. And I do feel, you know, that men are allies in this you know and it cannot be the kind of debate that treats all men with suspicion

or thinks they have nothing to contribute they have a lot to contribute to it and male allies who speak out in this are very very important yeah we need we need them we need it can't be men versus women because we need them and finally

I suppose we also need to remember that we need to do more to see, you know, why do men act like this way? What can we do to help, you know, what scheme are we putting money into schemes that actually work that help men who want to stop lashing out, learn to control themselves, to control their emotions, to control whatever it is that needs them to do these things. It's to break the cycle again, speaking to Natasha, before, you know, the thing that was really hard to hear is it's like you just see that the reason her situation perhaps was, I don't want to say accepted, but she had experienced a dysfunctional

childhood and so too had her abuser and I think, you know, it does just become, it becomes a cycle and like you say, like, you know, we need to go back to look at why and that's how we help, I suppose, as well. Well, yeah, thank you so much, Sherry, for joining us. Thank you. It's been great to talk to you and we really commend the work that you do and the tremendous amount of people that you help it's super important and yeah thank you so much for being here today it's thank you for taking this issue up and taking it so seriously and for the people who are listening for caring enough to stay to the end you know we are making progress and things are getting better and we should never forget that it's just as always we learned from the

mistakes of the past and we need to carry on learning. Next up, we're hearing from Ruth Davidson, who is the CEO of Refuge. It was really insightful to hear from Ruth about the inner workings of the charity and about the work they do, not just in helping victims flee situations of domestic violence, but also on a wider level to help end misogyny and any kind of violence against women. Thank you so much. for talking to us and being part of this episode and we're working with us to create it.

You're really welcome. Thanks for having me. We've spoken to Cherie today about the legal side of things. We've spoken to Natasha, who's an extraordinary, like I'm still in awe of her. And we're so excited to talk to you now. I think what this episode, like certainly for me has been, is a really good opportunity to see the issues that you guys are tackling from like very different perspectives you know it's a really hard work that you do but it's so

important and it's so like multi faceted or you know like there's just so much to it and there's so much work to be done and we're really happy that we get the chance to talk to you now about what exactly it is and the culture as you see it and the changes over the last couple of years because lockdown has has changed things and and to talk to you more about the work that you do But I thought just before we did that, could we ask about how you came to be involved with Refuge and your position there and what you do? Yeah, so I'm Refuge's chief executive. I've been in post for almost a year. So you paid tribute to the amazing work that Refuge does. And I stand with you, really. I can't take credit for the absolutely phenomenal work that my frontline colleagues did through lockdown. I cannot imagine how difficult it was for them. For me, it's a massive privilege to come in and lead this organisation. now as we emerge from lockdown to try and respond to the demand that has grown and is stabilised but a new unprecedented level of need and to try and also lean into the growth in

empathy that we've seen in the growth in awareness and understanding. I think during lockdown we were all closed behind our doors, weren't we? Maybe for the first time for many of us that our freedom was curtailed and the ability to empathise with people who are trapped not just behind a closed door but trapped behind a closed door as someone who's abusive. them, I think really grew. So I came to refuge probably at the height of awareness of domestic abuse in the public domain. Having worked for years in philanthropy, I was running comic relief, the big fundraising charity. And we have been longstanding funders of programs to tackle violence against women and girls. So for me to come from comic relief to actually join the front line

and to be part of leading an organisation that is right there every day, saving lives, I don't exaggerate it, saving women's lives, saving children's lives. Yeah, it's a huge privilege, really. Just to touch on the lockdown thing, if we could quickly before we talked to you about sort of refuge in general, you talk about like the spike that happened and it does sound, you're saying there that it has like leveled out. That must be a massive relief. It's leveled out, yes, but it's leveled out a level of demand and need that we have never seen before. More complex cases, far more complex cases, and the volume of cases is higher than it ever has been. So during lockdown, during the first lockdown, which was April 2020 to February

2021, our calls and contacts to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline Lept went up from an average of around 8,000 a month to around 13,000 a month. So that was the leap that we saw. And we've now stabilized at slightly lower than the peak of 13,000, but stabilized at a new normal that we've never seen before. So we know that that is the surge in demand that came during lockdown and we're not expected to see that decrease any time soon with the ongoing pressures of the mental health epidemic that we're all in and all the other pressures that built during lockdown. So yeah, what I do know is that we've never seen demand like this. It's not just refuge. It's all of the frontline providers. Refuge runs the UK's National Domestic Abuse Helpline and that really is

the gateway into most of the frontline services across the country. So if you're you need a refuge space, if you want referral into a specialist service, it's often the first place a woman will come, it's the place she'll call. So our monitoring of the demand of that helpline shows you how levels of need reflect across the country. Okay. And can you tell us a little bit about what you do sort of day in, day out as the CEO? What does that kind of look like for you? Yeah, it's a strange job. I say I'm on the front line and I'm running a big frontline response charity but of course I work like everyone else from home via Zoom just like this. I spend a lot of my time with staff trying to understand how can we do things better. Refuge really tries to take

its strategic direction from the women and children that we're supporting. My frontline workers are those who engage with people and talk to people day to day trying to help them and empower them to rebuild their lives. So I spend a lot of time with my staff understanding what's happening. How is abuse changing? How do we need to change as refuge to keep one? step ahead of perpetrators. And then I try and spend a lot of my time doing things like this, talking to the media, talking to politicians, trying to continue to raise awareness and deep and understanding. The Domestic Abuse Act passed in April and put into law the fact that forms of abuse that have perhaps not been historically understood, like economic abuse,

coercive control, that's now all illegal as well. But still many, many people don't recognise what those forms of abuse really mean. Even women who are experiencing it may not have the right terminology and it takes a long time to accept what's happening to you. So the more I can do to keep helping move people's understanding forward and keep this topic and the topic of violence against women and girls in the mainstream, the more important because fundamentally we need legislative change and we need change in societal attitudes if we're going to eradicate domestic abuse. Well, what I actually wanted to ask is sort of thinking about what you do and what you talk about every day and the statistics you're faced with every day in the stories. Like I

that what you do is brilliant but also extremely difficult and I'm kind of thinking that you often have to walk the line between like dejection and optimism and you know there's a very I imagine there's like a really stark contrast of that that you have to kind of contend with and I wondered how with the work you do how you balance the two yeah it's a good question lots of my friends and family when they see me say you like in the new job and actually I don't know how to know how you can say you're liking a job like this. Every charity wants to work its way out of existence. Every charity wants to not need to exist because the social cause it's there to address has been eradicated. This job particularly, I find it unbelievably rewarding. That's probably

how to respond. It is very, very, yeah, immediate. The risk, the danger, the deaths, the high demand on my front line colleagues, I think is much more real than in many of the jobs I've had in the past that have been equally brilliant jobs making a difference in the world. But this feels very, very proximate. And obviously, I'm female myself and understanding that to one extent or another, misogyny, patriarchy and violence against women and girls, it affects all of us, actually. Even those of us who are really lucky, I don't know a single woman who hasn't had to make a decision about which path shall I walk home at night because it feels the safest or do I really want to buy that flat or move into that area of London or wherever you are in the country because

will I feel safe at night? Am I really going to be able to make these decisions about my career? So I think domestic abuse is at the very extreme end, obviously sexual violence, domestic abuse, domestic homicide. This is the very, very extreme end that refuge is dealing with. But these issues affect all of us day to day. And I think, yeah, to tread the line between interjection and optimism. I think you have to feel I'm making a difference. I'm making a choice here to stand up against this. I'm doing it with almost 400 colleagues who work with me at refuge and the rest of an amazing empowered sector who is saying enough is enough. This is our daily experience. All of us and we are 50% of the population of this country. It's not okay. One in four

women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime and that is not a statistic that in this country in this day and age we should be tolerating and yet it's barely spoken about and i think you're right like domestic abuse is one end of the scale but you're also so right in the daily misogyny that we face and it's it's a um you know this has been a massive theme of the whole episode we've talked to today it's like it's um it's so expected and it's so societally normalized that women are treated kind of a second-class citizens to an extent we are the by of jokes, we are threatened, we're sexualised, we're objectified, we're terrified. But I wondered if you could explain to us why making misogyny a hate crime or why talking about it in these

terms is important and why we need to recognise misogyny as something so much more serious than what it is. I think you are right that it is really easy to dismiss banter and locker room jokes and boys, you know, slightly inappropriate humour. We can write that off because we've tolerated it for so long. We as women can write it off and because it is our everyday experience. But that's the very reason that it's so pervasive and so dangerous, I think.

We saw in the fairly recent IOPC report into the police force some of the horrendous jokes that were absolutely normalised within the police. And it's those kinds of jokes and the fact that they're unchecked and have been unchecked for decades that can lead to men, abuse of men, thinking that their negative views of women

are completely reasonable and acting on this hatred, perpetrators can then justify their own violence. And that is a leap that far too many men make. Two women every week are murdered, are killed as a result of domestic abuse. So this is not one bad apple here or there. This is a really significant societal problem. And I think as refuge, we do believe very strongly that if we recognise misogyny as a hate crime in the way that we recognise other hate crimes against particular groups of people with protected characteristics,

that could actually transform how those crimes are treated. It could recognise in the motivation, could not just enable tougher sentencing and hold perpetrators to account, which is obviously critical, but it can also identify trends, and it can encourage people to come forward. There was a really successful pilot in Nottinghamshire Police Force who took the initiative on this,

and they recognised that when they started treating misogynistic crimes and recording them as such, they saw a 25% increase in reporting of those crimes. So it changed attitudes. It increased confidence amongst women to come forward. They trained all of their police officers so that they could respond with empathy. Therefore, more people felt confident to come forward. They were actually able to lift the number of prosecutions.

And I think just looking at sentencing is not enough because so few women ever report. Less than one in five of the women that we work with will ever go to the police because their view of what will happen to them is just so negative. And when the former Commissioner Krista Dick says to us, you know, if you're worried when you get stopped by a serving police officer that he may be about to rape or murder you, then flag down a bus. You know, it's not really a massive surprise that we don't feel confident going to the police when what they might say is, well, what were you wearing or how much did you had to drink or why on earth would you think that walking alone at 11 p.m. at night down that street would be acceptable. We can feel that we're criminalised because these attitudes are just normal in society that we have to risk assess everything we do. what you were saying about it's not just a few bad apples and it isn't is it and there has got to be

something behind it so that i think it's like imperative that we talk about how the normalization of behaviours towards women like you know upskirting or you know just sexist jokes catcalling unsolicited dick picks you know um all of those things are connected to male power and male privilege and these things can be an accumulation and can almost be like a gateway right a gateway to more violent behaviours and I think it's it's really like important that we like we press upon this point because people say oh it's just it's just a psychopath here and a psychopath there but actually the the misogyny like the vast amount of misogyny that that we are entrenched in is really contributing towards creating such violent behaviours that that then exist at the other

end of the spectrum, right? I completely agree with you. I don't want to give any perpetrator any kind of excuse or, you know, any mitigation for their behaviour. Perpetrators choose to perpetrate abuse and they are responsible for their actions. But you are right when we're living in a society where there's this low-level misogyny all the time where it doesn't surprise you at all. If I tell you, you know, if you compare what would happen if you were attacked when you were walking home, wearing a short skirt late at night after having had a few drinks, as opposed to to if you identified a suspicious looking package when you're on a bus, you know, there would be no doubt or questions around, you know, what part did you play in that package? What were you wearing

at the time? Oh my God, it's such a good comparison. Why were you even on the bus at that time of night? What were you thinking? What would happen is they'd immediately take you off the bus, get everyone away from it, bring in specialist teams, take it very seriously. If you go and report that you've been raped or harassed on your way home, the questions that you get are fundamentally different and that kind of victim blaming which is a step on you're right it's a pattern of behaviour it's a step on from harmless locker and banter and domestic abuse is never a joke violence against women and girls is never a joke but if we tolerate the beginning of it we normalise the fact that crimes against us are not treated as that terrorist crime example was and we therefore

allow the kind of violent misogyny and hatred that we see it's absolutely not a few bad apples we all have to take responsibility women and men for changing our society society. Talking to Cherie before, she said, I hadn't heard it really before, described like this, but how often another, to press charges and to have to go through court can feel like another assault. And because it does feel so difficult, it doesn't feel like the system really does do, it actually feels like the system is set up against women. And of course, we talked to her about the importance of a fair trial. and it's so complicated and that's why you know lawyers do it and not people like me because I don't understand the law at all but it does feel from the outside so frustrating because

at every level from from banter to misconceptions to prejudices about being a girl you know even a school girl it starts so young and then you get older and like you say the victim blaming way that we speak and then god forbid something happens the police and this is not all police officers, but, you know, to speak in light of the recent news about what's happened with the jokes emerging from the Metropolitan Police, you know, you can see why we lose faith in the system. And then you go to the government, you know, you go to the courts and then the conviction rates for rape even are so low. And, you know, talking to Natasha about that was just so, so hard. And this is an impossible question for you to ask because, of course,

it underpins all of the work that you do with refuge. But how, how do you? do you feel about, I'm low to use the word, but I'm going to say it anyway, reluctance from authority that are supposedly in place to protect us to do more because it does feel like we are in acute danger as women and it is so frustrating to hear that misogyny isn't going to be made a hate crime. It is so frustrating to hear that it's a few bad apples. You know, this rhetoric is so hard to hear. You know, I wonder how you feel about that in general. Yeah, I think on a good day. feel angry and it motivates me there are days when it feels overwhelming actually you're right

because you can't disassociate from this can you we're all living this every day not right on the extreme you're right i'm very lucky i'm in you know a happy healthy relationship i have a good job in a great organization in many ways i'm very privileged and protected but all of us as women understand this instinctively and it's not just the police you're right and it's not just in workplaces it's not just a football problem. It's everywhere. You know, it's online. We're recording this online. Our recent research on tech abuse showed that one in three women experience online abuse, and amongst younger women, that's two in three. So two-thirds of all women are experiencing online abuse when they go onto any social media platform. And believe me,

getting the social tech giants to do anything about that is almost impossible. So doors are just closed hard in your face when you're trying to raise problems that are affecting a vast, vast number of people. We are half the population and I understand that people are saying, oh, we'll recognise misogyny as a hate crime. It's just such a big problem that will become unwieldy. Since when is a problem being too serious and too large and affecting too many people, the reason not to deal with it? So I am really disappointed actually. On the 21st of February, we heard that the Home Secretary has publicly said that she will not support Baroness New Loves Amendment, the police crime sentencing and courts bill, which would recognise misogyny as a hate crime.

And I think that is disappointed. We have a very good and constructive relationship with Home Secretary. She's repeatedly spoken privately and publicly about her commitment to tackling violence against women and girls. So for me, it is frustrating and very disappointing that she is not going to take that step. She doesn't appear to consider crimes such as street crime against women and girls and online harassment are serious enough to be recognised as hate crimes. When just as you have said, they're part of a pattern of abuse. Abuse is not a one-off incident. And maybe I should give you a different example. So I was speaking to a woman about a week ago. She went on an online date with someone. They didn't click. She didn't want to see him again.

That should be fine. You should be able to walk away from that. Since that time, he has somehow tracked her online, identified where she lived. She'd obviously been quite careful what she shared and met him in a public place. And he's persistently sending her photos on Instagram of her front door so that she knows he's at her front door. There's absolutely no reason for him to be doing this other than to terrify her. And yet, if she tries to report that to Instagram, to Meta, as it now is, it doesn't breach any community guidelines. This is just a man posting a picture of a front door on a social media platform. How is that hateful? How is that a crime? A fundamental failure to recognise the pattern of abuse and the intimidation, the power and control means these issues are

not taken seriously. I'm going off on a tangent slightly, but actually what you're saying about the internet uh see i'm loads to say i'm a victim of this stuff right because um you don't want to uh i don't know it's it's such an unusual and new space but i received so much abuse from men online and i am constantly constantly terrified by how little is done and a man was abusing me and i replied to him uh telling him what i thought of him and i was done for hate speech on the platform and i find it and this is happening relentlessly to be honest like it happens so often you know the way that people can evade any sort of um accountability on social media is really terrifying and I suppose I don't know is it something that that refuge um can do or that we can do what can

we do to tackle online abuse in the context of male violence and and I suppose domestic violence to an extent because I guess the law can't keep up with the speed that technology works at. Yeah, you're right. Tech abuse is one of the rising and most insidious forms of domestic abuse that we're seeing. And I think the law has to keep up, actually, or it has to at least make an attempt to. We have a specialist tech abuse team at refuge. We founded it several years ago, recognizing this was growing. But tech abuse, this won't surprise you at all. During lockdown was one of the areas we saw exponentially explode. You know, the living online became absolutely essential to survival in.

every aspect of our world and far too many women experiencing what you're describing and worse feel absolutely no option but to disappear from these online spaces and that is still the basic advice they'll get from many police officers and from the tech giants just delete your account love you know just save yourself all the hassle and delete your account you can't delete yourself from the virtual world um i was reading yeah just the last few days we've been starting to see the first reports out of the metaverse haven't we that if you go into the metaverse um you're likely to get virtually groped. I mean, why does this even surprise me?

So yes, Refuge has a specialist tech team. We have trusted flagger status. We can and do advocate and lobby on the behalf of women who cannot get the tech giants to listen to them. But really, we need the online safety bill, which is coming up and going through Parliament relatively soon, to recognise violence against women and girls on the very face of the bill as a very, very serious issue.

At the moment, it recognises terrorism and child abuse. We want violence against women and girls recognised as well, because it is so, so pervasive and part of a pattern of abuse. It's rare that we're finding now there's physical abuse that doesn't have a tech element to it. So it's completely intertwined. It's not that it's acceptable in any way that someone can just abuse you online,

but it's not just abuse online. We're seeing people abuse people online, stalk them, stalk them in real life, start to be able to turn up, threaten them, control them. And ultimately, we've seen homicides related to people, stalking people through online devices. And I think this is so serious and yet it's barely ever spoken about. The next question that we want to ask you is a pretty huge one.

And I don't think there's necessarily like a concise answer to it. But why do you think male violence has been tolerated for so long? And why has there been so much, historically so much victim blaming? And also, you know, the onus has been put on women as well to keep themselves safe. and while we teach women to adapt their lives to keep themselves safe, there is little to no work being done to educate men around, you know, their misogyny or the aggressions that can make environments extremely hostile for women. Why do you think it's gone tolerated and unchallenged and unquestioned for so long, in your opinion?

Sorry, big question. No, it's a reason. It is the question, isn't it? And I think there's a whole range of reasons. Fundamentally, patriarchy and misogyny, you know, it took until the 1990s for rape inside marriage, even to be recognised as a crime. For far too long, domestic abuse was seen as behind closed doors, you know, battered wives, a family matter,

keep it private, don't let's talk about it. Even now we use language like an abusive relationship. It's not an abusive relationship. You are in a relationship with someone who is abusing you. So we don't use the language that really identifies what's happening. That makes it sound like it's a co-er, like a, like a union. Like we're doing it. You've got a challenging relationship there, you know, the pair of you.

It's mutual. Yeah, a polyamorous relationship, an open relationship, an abusive relationship. It's nuts. You can't, you can't, oh my God, why have I never? I actually didn't, I didn't know that. I didn't know that that was, but that's, that is so true because then that terminology places some of the, yeah, some of that onto the woman or the, or the victim in the relationship. that's a really good point. So in everything we do, in our language, in the way our society

is structured, in what we do and don't take seriously in our laws, in our police laws, all of this is normalised and therefore it is tolerated and growing. It's a growing problem. And I think during COVID, the United Nations said there was a hidden pandemic, a hidden epidemic of domestic abuse around the world. But because it's shut behind closed doors, happening privately, not on the street, not in front of us, because it was happening to women, predominantly. It wasn't spoken about. So that's why when you asked me earlier, what do I do as CEO? A lot of my job is to try and tackle some of these misconceptions. These are difficult conversations. I'm not saying all men are abusers or all men are evil or this is a situation

where women are the victims and only can be victims and men are the people with the problem. Of course, it's not as simple as that. But nor is it as simple as a few bad apples who we just have to kind of show tough justice and lock away. It's much more pervasive in society. don't women feel safe to report because of victim blaming because this has been tolerated for so long? And I think probably my biggest challenge is Chief Executive of Refuge is the balance of how do I prioritise being there for as many women and children right now as possible with frontline services that can save their lives and help them rebuild a different future for themselves and their family versus how do we tackle these longest standing systemic issues and actually therefore

reduce the need for our services at all to the point where, ideally, they're not needed. No one wants to be in a position where, as a woman, you start to run. You still need a safe house. You still need a physical refuge. And yet the demand for places in refuges is far outstripped supply and has done for years and years and years. So that is the real challenge, I think. How do we stop it being tolerated? That's actually our charitable vision, a world where domestic abuse is no longer tolerated. And I think we feel a very long way from that. such a good point about the language and then we talked to Natasha about it before because the second you make a joke out of something it loses its severity it loses its seriousness it

loses all weight really and and the ability to take it as you know remotely seriously just vanishes and you know as you were speaking then I was just thinking I was like how many times have I described a man in a vest as wearing a wife beater how many times have I thought about this you know I saw a joke on TikTok about like Stella Artois and and you know because that's the beer that, you know, has the associations. And the people, the fact that these are jokes that still are so prevalent, it just feels huge, which is a horrible start to my question, which is about your optimism for going forwards. And what does it look like for you now? What, you know, you touch on there what your vision is. But can you just, can you tell me more really what, you know,

keeps you going with all of this? I think it is incredible women like Natasha, and I'm very, very lucky in my role that I meet a lot of survivors. So again, that's quite deliberately chosen language by them and us, not victims, but survivors. It takes immense courage to tell your story, particularly to tell it publicly, but even privately to a friend and seeing the courage of those women who come forward

and knowing that refuge has an incredible brand, an incredible reputation, huge reach is the largest specialist provider in England, and the ability to take those stories out and save other people's lives, the ability to help someone think, actually what's been happening to me is not normal and it's not okay and I'm not going to tolerate it. And I think there are reasons to be hopeful, you know, not just the confidence of individual women to say I'm going to turn this horrific experience into my power and I'm going to do something to change the world and change other people's lives,

But also this growth in empathy that I mentioned right at the start, when we were all trapped in our own homes, many of us in quite nice homes, if we're honest, avoiding our commute and being able to kind of multitask around our houses, we felt confined and we felt trapped and we felt controlled. And I think that has changed the dialogue and from going from being a really taboo, difficult to talk about issue, domestic abuse is coming out from behind the closed doors slightly and being discussed because actually for that period we all thought, oh my goodness, what would it be like if I was trapped behind this door with someone I couldn't escape from? And that was the reality for so many women. Their tiny windows where they were walking the children to school or popping to pick up a prescription, that was their chance to get away.

That was their kind of lifeline that they were clinging to and it went. So I guess I'm inspired and I find hope because fundamentally I'm an activist. And I think when something is outrageous, that does make me angry and it inspired. has me to action. And I think there's a lot of people who are brave, who have survived an unbelievable about and who are prepared to work with refuge to tell their story like Natasha and to say this can't keep happening. And I think that society is listening, we've got a really

long way to go. But we've changed things in society before. You know, we stopped smoking indoors. We started wearing seatbelts in cars. These things are just kind of normal to us now, but we're unthinkable at the time. It should be possible to end domestic abuse. There is no reason. why domestic abuse should be tolerated and continue in our society. And therefore, I find a lot of power and energy, I suppose, in the fact that that is what I get up every day to try and do, alongside all sorts of other incredible inspiring women, particularly survivor ambassadors like Natasha.

That's amazing. I'd love to ask if there is, to everyone, anyone and everyone listening right now, if there is something that you would potentially like them to know about domestic abuse that they don't know that you think might help progress this conversation and, you know, help domestic abuse cease to exist, I guess, or contribute towards it. Is there something that you feel like people should know? The number one thing that I would say that I often say in interviews

is you're not on your own. I think the most horrendous thing about abuse and violence against women and girls in general is that you feel so ashamed and so isolated in their own. So you are absolutely not alone. If you are not comfortable with what is happening in your relationship, if it doesn't feel right to you, you can contact us. We run the National Domestic Use Helpline. It's open 24 hours a day every single day.

You can call us. We will believe you. Gaslighting and coercive control is so much a part of abuse, undermining a woman's confidence and ability to recognise what's happening to her and to believe that this is not all right. is a very very central part of abuse and if you've then also got the police saying oh no you know it's just a bad apple there isn't anything wrong here

so if all around you institutions and society are also saying what's wrong with you just put up with it this is normal it's not normal if you're feeling uncomfortable and you want help call us and we will talk to you we can support you then and there or we can at least help you understand what's happening to you we will believe you and we will stand by you so I mean that sounds very simple but that's the number one thing I'd say, whatever it is that doesn't feel right, if it's something around your

devices, if it seems like someone always knows where you are, if someone seems to understand or no bits of information about your life that you know you haven't shared, if things are happening in your home, if your lights or your heating are changing and you don't understand why that's happening, all of these can be signs of abuse. I'm not saying they are, they could be bad wiring, but if you are concerned, then don't doubt yourself because a perpetrator will try and take away your confidence and make you doubt your own judgment. That is part of the abuse. So do contact us, please. And I think that's crucial, isn't it? Because there is that element of self-doubt that is sort of cultivated and fostered by the perpetrator. And probably,

and for someone who's been with an abuser for so long, there's probably, you know, their own judgment is sort of dampened at this point as well. And it's hard to get perspective. So I think even externalising it, even if you're not sure or if it's abuse, right? Even if you're not sure really what is going on, but I think just externalising it and being able to get another perspective on it and to be able to zoom out and see what's going on, which is often where we need, you know, second parties to come in and help us with that. So I think that's really brilliant advice. So just if, you know, if you're feeling something, it's worth exploring it.

Definitely. If there's some discomfort, if you feel discomfort, that something is not. not right in your relationship, then reach out and just talk to us. I can give you the number. It's 0808, 2004-7. So like I say, there's specialist help. It's female call handlers. It's totally confidential. You can call. You can live chat us as well. We will talk to you. We can provide specific advice on all sorts of things like how to secure your devices if they've been compromised in relation to tech abuse, but also just help you talk through your experience. And if you are in immediate danger now, we can help you get away.

immediately. Yeah. For someone who's potentially, I mean, which I imagine is the case for a lot of victims terrified of contacting anybody who might be able to help them for fear of what their abuser will do. I mean, maybe they are concerned that their devices are tracked or watched and they don't feel like the chat service is an option or the phone call service. Is there anything at all you think that they can do? Yeah, if you're really that scared, and I think, There's the Ask for Annie scheme. You can go into Boots and various other high street stores as well. But every Boots pharmacy, that's a relatively simple place for many people to get to.

And ask for Annie. Ask the pharmacist for Annie. They will immediately connect you to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline using their own devices and phones. So that's a nationwide scheme that operates. That's another way because often it's possible to find a reason why you need to go to a pharmacy. So, yeah, there's great schemes. Our website, if you go to our website, has a quick escape. buttons, you can always immediately escape. So yeah, we design things as safely as we can, but you're

right. You have to make your own risk assessment. And if you are in a relationship where there is someone who is abusing you and you feel in danger, yeah, that danger is real. So you should take it seriously. Listen to yourself, listen to your instincts and ask for help in a way and at a time when you feel it's safest. Women are making risk assessments every day, like we said, all of us, how we walk home, the routes we choose. Women, women who are living with an abusive partner are making much, much more serious safety assessments every single moment of every day for themselves and for their children. And it's far too easy for us to victim blame again and say, why don't women leave? You know, why on earth did she say for so long?

These are complex decisions that women have to make at the time when their confidence is underlined. They're often isolated. So, yeah, reach out to where it feels safe. There's something that I have heard through all three interviews. It's depressing as shit, but there's also a lot of hope and seeing Natasha and you and then amazing lawyers and you know there are so many people like I just I think that that's the key takeaway from this whole episode is that there is support like you know it is so depressing sitting here and being on social media and it's bad news all the time

and it's dick pics and it's bad news and it's hate crimes and and met police texts and you know it's really easy to feel disheartening and also the statistics you know it's not it's not good but there is hope and you guys are here and you you you will listen and you will help them and you and they will get support and that is been amazing to see it from three sides and to really hear it and understand how this process works and and to to really believe in what you do so I want to thank you so much for yourself and for your amazing team and for facilitating this whole episode because it's been really valuable I think. Thank you so much. This gives me real hope. The fact that you want to record a podcast

talking about this, three interviews taking all this time to explore this issue, you know, for far too long it has just been not spoken about private problems within a marriage, within a relationship. And actually exploding that is a big part of the solution. So thank you. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline, again, for anybody that needs it, is 0808-20247. If you are in a position to donate, to refuge, please do. The link is in our show notes. We will see you again next Monday and in the meantime, happy International Women's Day.