Yet more pressure on the police - still further allegations of corruption at the Met and the failure of 35 of the country's 43 forces to take domestic violence seriously.
It is now 43 years since Erin Pizzey opened the first refuge for battered wives in Chiswick, and 41 since Jack Ashley told the Commons that "the whole nation has come to appreciate the significance of the problem".
The whole nation - apart from those paid to protect its citizens.
All these years later, the police still don't get it.
A report published today by the inspector of constabulary speaks of alarming and unacceptable weaknesses, poor attitudes and ineffective training. Forces are failing to make proper risk assessments and even when they do there is a confused approach to protecting potential victims and detaining those threatening them.
And all the time women (victims are overwhelmingly women) are dying: 77 were killed by their partners or former partners between 2012 and 2013, according to the report that forms the basis of the Guardian's splash. The statistics are bad enough, the police response worse, but to get the true picture, take a deep breath and read the personal stories listed, one after the other, on Karen Ingala Smith's blog Counting Dead Women.
This is how she starts:
It is now 43 years since Erin Pizzey opened the first refuge for battered wives in Chiswick, and 41 since Jack Ashley told the Commons that "the whole nation has come to appreciate the significance of the problem".
The whole nation - apart from those paid to protect its citizens.
All these years later, the police still don't get it.
A report published today by the inspector of constabulary speaks of alarming and unacceptable weaknesses, poor attitudes and ineffective training. Forces are failing to make proper risk assessments and even when they do there is a confused approach to protecting potential victims and detaining those threatening them.
And all the time women (victims are overwhelmingly women) are dying: 77 were killed by their partners or former partners between 2012 and 2013, according to the report that forms the basis of the Guardian's splash. The statistics are bad enough, the police response worse, but to get the true picture, take a deep breath and read the personal stories listed, one after the other, on Karen Ingala Smith's blog Counting Dead Women.
This is how she starts:
On New Year’s Day, 2012, 20-year-old Kirsty Treloar got a text from her boyfriend Myles Williams:
“Okay wer all gud now and my new yrs ressy is that I aint going to hit u again and I won’t hit u 4 this yr next yr the yr after that the next yr after that.”
The next day he broke into her family’s home, stabbed her brother and sister as they tried to help, then he dragged her into the back of his mother’s car and drove her away. She was found dead 2 miles away, dumped behind a wheelie bin. Kirsty had been stabbed 29 times.
By January 3, Ingala Smith has logged the killings of seven women. It prompted her to carry on counting. She counts all women's deaths at the hands of men, not only those who had suffered domestic violence. Her total for 2012 was 121; last year it was 139. The toll to the end of last month stands at 22. It's the relentlessness of the record that gets to you.
It should be required reading for every police trainee.
It should be required reading for every police trainee.
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