DISPATCHES
9pm Wednesday 6 January  Repeated at 1pm on Thursday 12 January 1999
A six foot security guard is knocked unconscious, stabbed and beaten - by his five foot high girlfriend. A weeping police officer describes how his wife tried to suffocate him with a pillow while he was sleeping. In a specially extended Dispatches reporter DEBORAH DAVIES reveals the extraordinary results of the largest ever survey of male victims of domestic violence.

Last year Dispatches exposed the truth about domestic violence against women in a survey which revealed that the law was failing to protect these women. The programme produced a flood of letters from men saying that they were victims too. Now Dispatches talks to men about why they have suffered and have no faith in the police, and to women who were violent to the partners they loved.

The proportion of male victims of domestic violence is small compared to women but the true scales of the problem is hard to assess as little research has been done about it. The Dispatches survey received responses from over 100 men. Dispatches has asked Professor KEVIN BROWNE of Birmingham University - an expert in domestic violence - to analyse its survey. The survey provides a comprehensive picture of the shocking nature and degree of violence that women are capable of on inflicting on their male partners.

Dispatches has interviewed several men who have suffered at the hands of their female partners. "I've had broken ribs, I've had lots of cuts, I've had bruises, black eyes…clumps of hair would be missing where she pulled it out. I've had fingers broken. She's knocked me out once or twice," says one man. He is a nineteen stone security guard.

Many victims describe how they have to suffer in silence, fearful no one will understand. STEVE is a site engineer. "Can you imagine going home and telling your parents that you're being abused? Can you imagine going into work - I was running jobs with 30 men. Can you imagine a man being broken down in tears sitting on a site gate crying?" he says.

The Dispatches survey reveals that the women who attack their partners are often depressed or from a violent background themselves. DEBBIE believes her boyfriend provoked her into violence by making her jealous. But she admits he never hit her back. She describes how manipulative she was with her partner. "I thought he had been sleeping with someone else and so when he was in bed once I lashed the duvet back and poured bleach on his genitals. I just thought he deserved it," she says.

Dispatches revealed last year how the law still lets down battered women. For men the situation is as bleak - because the police often assume it is the male victim who is the aggressor. A serving police officer, DAVID, who is a victim of domestic violence himself reveals how he was at an incident where the husband had been struck over the head by wife. His colleague arrested the husband, although David disagreed.

FIONA has undergone counselling for the violence she committed against her partner feels it is time the issue is addressed. "For years and years, battered women was kept behind closed doors. It's now about time it came out that men do suffer as well," she says.

The First Step Centre run a helpline for people experiencing domestic violence offering advice, information and counselling. Lines are open 9am to 8pm Monday to Friday, 11am to 4.30pm on Saturday and 2pm to 5pm on Sunday.Freephone 0800 281 281.

Here's a follow-up story on the series:

From the London Times
6 January 1999

Women kick men when they are down
By Hannah Betts

The popular stereotype of the battered husband as a hen-pecked weakling takes a knock in a survey today.

Women attack men where and when they are most vulnerable: one third of victims featured in the survey were attacked in their sleep and a quarter kicked in the testicles. One case involved a woman pouring bleach over her sleeping boyfriend's genitals.

The survey shows that angry women can be just as violent as men. Forty per cent used some kind of weapon to compensate for their relative lack of strength: knives were the instrument of choice, but hammers, bottles and stiletto shoes also featured.

Seventy six per cent of the male victims were bigger and stronger than the women who abused them. That may also explain why 89 per cent of male victims felt that the police did not take their complaints seriously. Only 7 per cent of women abusers were arrested, but 25 per cent of male victims were themselves arrested.

The survey was conducted for the Channel 4 documentary series Dispatches and the results will be screened tomorrow. It was analysed for the programme by Kevin Browne, of Birmingham University, a consultant to the Home Office on family violence. According to the survey, most of the men were stoical in the face of violence, with only 50 per cent asking for any type of help.