referring to the ManKind Initiative ... - college.police.uk€¦ · and I have discussed the Mankind training this week with our Head of Unit and we have a set ... It would be useful

Date: 9 April 2020

Our Reference: FOIA-2020-029/FOIA-2020-030/FOIA-2020-031

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RE: Your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“FOIA 2000”)

Our Decision

I am writing regarding your emails dated 12 March 2020 in which you sought correspondence between the

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and police forces in England and Wales referring to the ManKind Initiative’s one day CPD accredited

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From: College FOISubject: FW: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 15 November 2019 11:23To:Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

We all have our stakeholders!

From:Sent: 15 November 2019 11:00To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

Thanks David for the speedy response. Yes, we have learned valuable lessons from this experience andwe will certainly look to discuss any police awareness raising work with you in the future beforecommissioning anything.Thanks for all you help.

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 15 November 2019 10:54To:Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

We have established an editorial board – we need to make sure that all the deliverers are working off asingle agreed set of materials. Male aspects were always included, but our view is that the main impactof DA is on women. We can talk about how to ensure the male perspective is refined, but I don’t thinkwe are likely to agree to change the content in a substantial way.

We are not asking the HO to commission anything – in fact, we were perplexed about why the productwas commissioned at all. We were not consulted and that felt odd because we are the national policetraining body. HO may wish to commission national training and we may not agree on content/focus,but it would help if there was consultation.

david


Thanks David,

Can I just check my thinking is right that the College are currently revising DA matters and you arealready going to include male aspects of abuse? Or is this something you are looking to the HO tocommission?

Thanks,

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 14 November 2019 09:05To:Subject: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

,

Thanks for the e-mail. We could envisage Mankind being consultees for DA Matters for the maleaspects. We wouldn’t want to imply or allow them to infer that this would be a continuing role (becauseit would create problems with other stakeholders). We could involve them in developing our malefocused content, but it would not involve their content to the extent that it is currently presented – i.e.we think that DA is a gendered issue and DA Matters starts from that position, but we do recognise andaddress male victims.

We suspect that this will not be acceptable to Mankind – their position statement rather suggests thatthey do not agree with the basic position that DA Matters promotes.

But, we are prepared to assist with a conversation and explore where we could reach agreement.

dt


David,

and I have discussed the Mankind training this week with our Head of Unit and we have a setof options that we are considering as possible next steps, we are also awaiting advice from commercialcolleagues as to what we can do within the scope of the existing grant agreement.One question we are keen to explore is how amenable you would be to working with Hestia andMankind to develop a male victims element for the existing police training that is being currently revised(as suggested by Andy)? Obviously we would want to maintain the very clear stance we have on thegendered nature of domestic abuse, but both organisations may be able to present some useful insightinto the specificity of the male experience. This option would deem rollout of the Mankind module

unnecessary and also create a long term sustainable training product which would meet the policyobjective of raising awareness of the some of the distinct barriers facing male victims.As I said this is just an option we are exploring and a lot will depend on our finance colleagues view, butwe are keen to explore your view on this.

Grateful for your thoughts.

Many thanks,

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 01 November 2019 12:02To:Cc:Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

,

Thanks for this – I think they’ll struggle with the feedback because their position is that DA isn’t agendered issue.

I’ve cc’d , my pa, who can help with the diary.

dt

From:Sent: 01 November 2019 11:57To: ; David Tucker<[email protected]>Cc:

Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

Hi David,

Please can you pass on our thanks to Andy for reviewing this so thoroughly.

I met with Mankind last month and made it very clear that we had significant concerns about thetraining, most fundamentally with the positioning of domestic abuse and their use of data as this gave avery misleading context. We underlined the unfounded claims used within the slides and pointed outthe raft of errors. It is therefore disappointing that this revised product still has so many significantissues.

To reassure you we take this really seriously and following your earlier correspondence have had thetraining paused. We will consider next steps within the team and keep you posted on our position.

It would be useful to use the time afforded to us by purdah to have a catch up with you at the College,can you let us know your availability for the end of November.

Thank you again for your help.

From:Sent: 01 November 2019 11:30To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc:

Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

Hi David,

Thanks for sharing Andy’s views.

I have copied and so that we can then all work together and decide on the next steps.

Will get back to you soon.

Thanks,

Violence Against Women and Girls TeamPublic Protection Unit5th Floor Fry, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF

Tel:Mob:

Click here to read the 2019 VAWG Strategy Refresh and Male Victims Position Statement

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 01 November 2019 10:22To:Cc:

Subject: FW: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

,

Please see comments from Andy Myhill (a well respected voice in the DA field – he is a publishedresearcher on DA).

There appear to be significant issues with the training. Apart from the problems with evidence, a day onthis single aspect seems excessive.

Please let me know what next steps will be as soon as you are able to say.

david

From: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Sent: 01 November 2019 10:03To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc: Sharon Stratton <[email protected]>Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

David,

I have managed to review the revised slide pack. I do not believe there have been significant attempts tochange the content or tone of the training. The majority of issues and concerns that we and the NPCClead for domestic abuse identified with this training remain. Key issues are:

Large sections of the training (the nature/impact of coercive and controlling behaviour, how tointeract with victims, safety planning and so on) duplicate existing training. Some of the ‘malenuances’ I believe are invalid, and there is little that could not be incorporated into existing training(which we are in the process of revising). There is also still a significant amount of material (e.g.talking about commissioning of services, the gendered nature of HO comms and so on) that has littleor no operational relevance. The valid elements of this training could be condensed into probably anhour, or be simply incorporated into existing training. I see no justification for this training taking aday of officer time when the entire first responder element of DA Matters is currently squeezed intoone classroom day.

The trainer notes that accompany the slides are incomplete, or at least far less detailed than thosethat accompany DA Matters. It does not look a very professional product, and may not have gonethrough the rigorous design and testing processes that College training is subject to. I think thatleaves the potential for any inaccurate and/or unevidenced claims removed from the slides to bereintroduced by the trainers.

ManKind have firmed up rather than withdrawn their claim that DA is not gendered, presenting it asa ‘position statement’. This position contradicts the position of the College, the NPCC and otheragencies (including the HO).

The CSEW data do not reflect the nature of domestic abuse that comes to the attention of thepolice. Using the headline CSEW prevalence data in the context of male victims of coercive control,

in particular, is deeply misleading. The content of the training reflects a misunderstanding and/ormisrepresentation of this data.

The academic evidence cited in the training is highly selective and does not include prominentstudies reporting findings from in-depth interviews with men presenting as victims.

The training still makes claims about women making false allegations to get injunctions and/or legalaid, which are based on calls to the ManKind helpline, and anecdotal feedback from men’s advocacygroups. It is important to note than ManKind do not undertake a needs assessment of callers totheir helpline as RESPECT do (see below). There are still also claims about (implicitly) women self-harming to present as a victim and/or for attention or to seek revenge on their partner.

I would strongly advise that this training is not continued, and I do not have the confidence thatManKind will, or would even want to, depart from some of the content and messages. That would befine if we felt the claims were supported by best reading of the evidence, but I do not believe they are.

More detailed comments on specific slides (please note: I could have written more with more time; thisrepresents comments on the most salient parts):

Part 1, p5 – Most dictionary definitions of ‘gendered’ say something like: reflecting the experience,prejudices, or orientations of one sex more than the other (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gendered). So if statistically more victims are women, as they acknowledge,then domestic abuse is, by definition, gendered. Even the headline, decontextualized prevalence datafrom the CSEW shows it is gendered; when it comes to DA reported to the police, I would say that, forimitate partners especially, it is very highly gendered.

Part 1, p7 – slide says the training is intended to ‘build on and complement’ existing training, yet someof the messaging is inconsistent with/contradicts existing training. The notes state existing training‘generically focuses on women as victims’. I don’t believe that to be the case. The DA Matters trainingacknowledges men can also be victims, but states that example cases mostly use female victims as thatreflects the highly gendered nature of DA reported to the police.

Part 1, p7 – the academic research cited is highly selective and does not reflect some of the work donewith men presenting as victims by e.g. Hester and colleagues.

Part 1, p8 – First slide demonstrates lack of understanding of the data sources. The British Crime Surveyno longer exists; it is now the Crime Survey for England and Wales. The reporting rates from the CSEWdata are not especially helpful as it is not always possible to isolate what type of abuse the victims isreferencing. When I isolated abuse that involved frightening threats and/or ongoing denigration, it wasa) more likely to be reported to the police and b) much more likely to be experienced by women. Theseissues of the general CSEW data not adequately reflecting DA reported to the police have beendiscussed extensively at the ONS DA statistics steering group at which ManKind are represented.

Part 1, p.10 – Interesting to note that the speaker notes state that (threats and actual) ‘false allegations’are covered by the national definition of coercive behaviour, even though they are not one of the thingsspecified in the actual wording. I can only imagine that this is to support the narrative that was presentwhen I observed the training which suggested only men suffered false allegations. I do not believe thereis robust empirical evidence to support that suggestion.

Part 1, p11 – the ‘45 key facts’ on DA that can be found on the ManKind website are again drawn in partfrom the CSEW and are therefore highly problematic when used in the context of DA reported to thepolice.

Part 1, p16 – first slide – there is no indication of the whether this is intimate partner DA, or all DA. If it isall DA, the gender breakdowns here are less helpful as family DA will dilute the gendering of intimatepartner DA. The trainers did not know if this was raw numbers of victims, or incidents with male/femaleaggrieved. There is still no explanation. By the nature of data collected via an FOI, it may be thatdifferent forces provided different things.

Part 1, p17 – I think it would be important to caveat that the ‘qualitative’ study by Liz Bates was basedon self-report surveys, not face-to-face interviews. And that some studies that have used face-to-faceinterviews with men presenting as victims (e.g. Hester et al; Gadd et al) have found some proportion ofprimary perpetrator narratives.

Part 1, p18 – the ‘cycle of abuse’ came out of in-depth interviews with female survivors. It has sincebeen disputed/re-conceptualised and we don’t use it in our training, on that basis.

Part 1, p19 – the power and control wheel originated from support work with female survivors. I’mpretty certain I wouldn’t be the only person who would feel uncomfortable with it being ‘de-gendered’and re-presented. I don’t know if the people who designed/own the tool have been consulted on that,or whether there are any IPR issues.

Part 1, p20 – if you are going to define DA as about power and control, then you need also toacknowledge that the headline CSEW data is not an appropriate data source. There is no mention ofpolice or CPS data that shows very few women have been prosecuted for coercive control.

Part 1, p20 – slide lists example of coercive/controlling behaviours and then says men and women canexperience differing levels of these behaviours and in differing ways. There are no trainer notes. Thiswas the point at which it was suggested that only men experience things like false allegations andcontrol through children. Without any notes to explain what is meant here, I would be extremelyconcerned that those claims will still be made (just not on the slides).

Part 2, p10 – Again, there is little or no description of how the ‘exercise’ will be debriefed. The DAMatters trainer guide includes extensive notes and guidance on how to debrief each exercise, detailingthe key learning and points that need to be emphasised/challenged. Without that information, wecannot be confident that material will not be presented that is not supported by robust empiricalevidence (e.g. men are more likely to suffer x, y or z forms of abuse).

Part 2, p12 – Helpline data is potentially problematic. The Home Office fund RESPECT to run the men’sadvice line. Callers to that helpline are assessed so that their needs can be met appropriately. ManKindcall this ‘screening’ in a later slide; RESPECT do not use that terminology. RESPECT’s analysis of theiradvice line data (presented in their toolkit for working with male victims) suggests around half of callersto the advice line are not ultimately classified as victims (some discuss issues and behaviours that do notconstitute abuse as such; others are classified, or self-classify, as primary abusers by the end of theassessment). These findings highlight the potential problems with presenting helpline data where callershave not received such a needs assessment.

Part 2, p15 – one in four stalking victims is a man – is this domestic stalkers specifically?

Part 2, p36 – says there is a ‘low threshold’ for evidencing coercive control. What is the supportingevidence? Our experience is that it is seen in practice by police and CPS as a high evidence threshold.

Part 2, p37 – Why would threats to e.g. ‘out’ somebody not apply also to LGBT women?

Part 2, p37 – The notion that women self-harm to portray themselves as victims is retained in thespeaker notes. I do not see the value in this, unless it is emphasised that women consistently report liesand manipulation by perpetrators. The only reason I can see for including this type of example is toimply that women are disproportionately responsible for making false allegations. There is already/stillconsiderable scepticism among many officers about victims accounts; I think it is genuinely unhelpful tofurther fuel those views.

Part 2, p38 – there is still a slide devoted to false allegations which makes the claim that false allegationscan be used as a tactic to access legal aid, and that (implicitly) women make false allegations out ofrevenge and for ‘attention’. The only evidence cited in support is a BBC article based on anecdotalfeedback from another men’s rights organisation.

Part 2, p39 – slide still implies perpetrators manipulating the system and using children post-separationin experienced solely by male victims. Very selective academic research is cited, but there is a wealth ofresearch showing male abusers use these tactics.

Part 3, p41 – Claims ‘men are more likely than women to report problems with drugs and alcohol as aresult of their abuse than women, and to report worse physical health then women on presentation toDV services’. Not clear what evidence this is based con, unless it is the ‘unpublished’ data referencedjust above.

Part 3, p52 – Again ignores the findings that the type of violence that men report to the CSEW is muchless likely to involve fear and ongoing denigration.

Part 3, p68 – ‘women are much more likely than men to be victims of high risk or severe domesticabuse, and therefore more in need of refuges and other forms of specialist accommodation basedservices’. – seems as though they are presenting this as incorrect?

Part 4, p100 – claims the DASH is focused on physical violence. DASH in fact covers both physical andnon-physical abuse, and there is no reason whatsoever it should not identify male victims. The questionon pregnancy or recent child is arguably the only question that may not apply to male victims, butactually it would apply in same sex relationships and even in heterosexual relationships a competentofficer would note the presence of a very young child even if it were a man presenting as the victim.Speaker notes claim ‘men are not being assessed to the same level/standard of risk and harm due to abelieve (sic) they can bear more risk’. No idea what the evidence for this is, and a plausible alternativeexplanation is that they experience less high level abuse proportionately. This also appears to beManKind’s explanation of why there are far fewer male victims at MARAC as opposed to there just beingfar fewer high risk male victims. I’m fairly certain any public protection officer (or any frontline officer,for that matter) would tell you there are far fewer high risk male victims, and that has nothing to dowith the standard of risk assessment.

Andy

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 31 October 2019 16:23To: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Subject: FW: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

This text has been removed as it does not fall within the scope of the request.

From:Sent: 31 October 2019 15:03To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

Hi David,

Issues with the slides again so breaking them down into 4 parts.

Do let me know if there are any issues and we would really appreciate your initial feedback by tomorrowafternoon.

Thanks,


Tel:Mob:


From:Sent: 31 October 2019 14:25To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc:Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind Training Update

Good Afternoon David,

Attached are the revised slides for the Mankind training.

We’ve had a look through and would suggest that you also review the content and let us know yourviews.

The next course is to be delivered on Monday (on hold until we give the go ahead). It may be a goodidea for someone from the College to actually sit in on the training to get a better idea of how thepackage is actually delivered.

Thanks,


Tel:Mob:



Tel:Mob:


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Sarah Lawrence

From: David Tucker

Sent: 12 August 2019 15:53

To: Angela Whitaker

Subject: RE: Letter re Mankind training

Good point about where DA matters comes from

From: Angela Whitaker < >Sent: 12 August 2019 14:34To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: RE: Letter re Mankind training

Looks good to me……………….

There seems to be lots of these offers to train police…………charities are pitching regularly to Louisa…………….none ofit’s evaluated. Examples include these 2 but also Refuge and National Muslim Women’s Network. Who have‘offered’ recently.

There does need to be some kind of filter on what is being offered to police forces……………….there’s no wonderofficers feel confused and fall on the side of being ‘risk averse’ instead of being confident in their own professionaljudgement.

Is it worth mentioning something along the lines of - HMICFRS are constantly saying there’s no consistency withtraining nationally – which is where DA Matters came from after the 2014 inspection…………….DA Matters wasdeveloped as the one with an evidence base……………. so to go with training without an evidence base that issomewhat opposed to DA Matters is a backward step.

Let me know any further thoughts before I send it to Louisa for comment……………so she can counter sign,

Ange

From: David Tucker [mailto:[email protected]]Sent: 12 August 2019 13:50To: Angela Whitaker < >Subject: Letter re Mankind training

Angie,

What do you think of this?

dt

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Accordingly, the copying, dissemination or distribution of this message to any other person may constitute abreach of Civil or Criminal Law.

Unless otherwise agreed in writing by the College, all Services are provided under the College's standardTerms and Conditions. These terms apply to the exclusion of any other terms that the customer seeks toimpose or incorporate, or which are implied by trade, custom, practice or course of dealing.

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1

Sarah Lawrence


From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 31 October 2019 17:05To: >Subject: FW: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

Are you happy that an organisation that holds this position is training police officers? I need to know HO policyposition on this – we do view DA as a gendered crime and whilst the police response should be gender neutral, wewould be concerned that delivery does not take account of the disproportionate victimisation of women.

Is it appropriate for an organisation to be promoting their position so overtly in police training? I think that wewould probably not permit a slide such as this to be delivered under a College badge.

david


*****Redacted – outside scope of request*****

2

From: >Sent: 31 October 2019 15:03To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

Hi David,


Do let me know if there are any issues and we would really appreciate your initial feedback by tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks,


Tel:Mob:


From:Sent: 31 October 2019 14:25To: >Cc: >Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind Training Update



We’ve had a look through and would suggest that you also review the content and let us know your views.

The next course is to be delivered on Monday (on hold until we give the go ahead). It may be a good idea forsomeone from the College to actually sit in on the training to get a better idea of how the package is actuallydelivered.

Thanks,


Tel:Mob

3



Tel:Mob:


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Sarah Lawrence

From: College FOI

Subject: FW: Mankind training

From: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Sent: 07 May 2019 14:56To: Angela Whitaker < >Cc: Sharon Stratton <[email protected]>Subject: RE: Mankind training

I think we should as this does concern me now. First module is stats and trends, and I imagine they will use CSEWdata that is not reflective of DV that comes to the attention of the police. Many officers don’t need anyencouragement at all to (start to) see it as a non-gendered issue. All the academics they cite are (I think) the more‘gender neutral’ types e.g.

Hine, B. (March 21, 2017). Challenging the gendered discourse of domestic violence: Comments onthe Istanbul Convention. Published as part of the ‘Gifted Women, Fragile Men’ EUROMIND MonographicSeries, European Parliament.

http://euromind.global/en/dr-ben-hinei/?lang=en

Bates, E. A., Kaye, L. K., Pennington, C. R. & Hamlin, I. (in press). What aboutthe male victims? Exploring the impact of gender stereotyping on implicitattitudes and behavioral intentions associated with intimate partner violence. SexRoles.

We may not get much joy if I ask, as the head of ManKind knows me from the ONS stats group. Sharon – do youthink you could ask them? Don’t copy me in! Maybe play it that you are responsible for DA Matters and otherCollege training and would like to see the material to make sure it dovetails? I’d be happy to go to see it if they’d letus. Or I could send Abi or somebody

From: Angela Whitaker < >Sent: 07 May 2019 08:29To: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Subject: FW: Mankind training

Andy,

FYI…………should the college ask for a copy of the training and/or send someone on the course?

Angie

Angela Whitaker| National Domestic Abuse CoordinatorWest Midlands PoliceM:

Preventing crime, protecting the public and helping those in need.

If it’s not 999, search WMP Online

2

1

Sarah Lawrence

Subject: FW: NPCC Mankind Training

Attachments: Police_Training_Final_NOTES VERSION for HO.pdf

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 25 September 2019 14:00To: Sharon Stratton <[email protected]>; Angela Whitaker <


Views?

One of the first slides says that DA isn’t gendered

From:Sent: 25 September 2019 13:43To: David TuckerCc:Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind Training

Hi Dave,

Apologies for the delay.

Please find attached the Mankind Training slides – PDF version.

Should there be any issues please do get back to me.

Thanks,


Tel:Mob:


From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 25 September 2019 11:54To: >Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind Training

2

Removed – outside scope of request

From: >Sent: 25 September 2019 11:35To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: Re: NPCC Mankind Training


On 25 Sep 2019, at 09:50, David Tucker <[email protected]> wrote:

,

How should I access the slides? Are you going to deliver them?

david

From: >Sent: 25 September 2019 09:27To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc: >;

>Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind Training

Good Morning David,

We’ve managed to obtain now a PDF version of the training course ( 128 slides attached).

Hopefully, there should not be any issues in accessing the slides.

Thanks,


Tel:Mob:


From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 24 September 2019 12:25To: >Subject: FW: NPCC Mankind Training


From: >Sent: 19 September 2019 15:53

3

To: >; David Tucker<[email protected]>Cc: >Subject: Re: NPCC Mankind Training

Hi David,

We now have an electronic copy on the Mankind Training pack for you to view. However, due to itssize we are unable to forward the document to yourself and because of the security locks on thedocument we are unable to compress it.

Hestia have offered to drop off a USB version which we could send over to yourself, alternatively wecould send you a photocopy.

Could you please let me know which option suits you best and where we could deliver the USB orhardcopy to yourselves.

Thanks,


Tel:Mob:


From:Sent: 09 September 2019 14:59To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc: >Subject: RE: NPCC CoP Ltr HO Mankind FINAL.pdf

Hi David

Thanks for your letter and for raising your concerns with us. The funding was awarded to Hestia, inpartnership with Galop and ManKind, to undertake activity to support male victims of domesticabuse, with training for police being one strand. We will get in touch with the organisations toexplore your concerns further and come back to you.

Kind regards

Interpersonal Violence Team |Public Protection Unit |Crime, Policing and Fire Group|Home Office5th Floor Fry Building, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DFE:T: |M:

4

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 06 September 2019 12:39To: >Subject: NPCC CoP Ltr HO Mankind FINAL.pdf

,

Please find a letter from Louisa Rolfe and me regarding ManKind training that we believe has beencommissioned by Home Office.

Best wishes,

david

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Flook House, Belvedere Road, Taunton, TA1 1BT [email protected] : www.mankind.org.uk

01823 334244

Registered Charity No. 1089547 – Company Registration No. 3869893

Home Office Funded Training and Support for Police Forces:

Male Victims of Domestic Abuse

The ManKind Initiative, the first British specialist charity supporting male victims of domestic

abuse, has been awarded grant funding from the Home Office to provide a range of training

to police force DASUs and other relevant staff on supporting male victims of domestic

abuse. The details below set out what support is available and how it can be accessed.

The charity through its work nationally with service providers, victims, survivors and their

families has identified particular barriers for male victims reporting domestic abuse to the

Police. We believe that safeguarding officers within the Police and their key partner agencies

would benefit from specialist training to better identify male victims and provide a more

crucially positive response.

The one year project (in partnership with Hestia, a charity that provides support for adults

and children in crisis such as housing, domestic abuse and mental health services) will

support all 43 police forces throughout England and Wales. It could also support other

professionals such as primary health care staff, social care workers, probation officers and

other critical partners. Support is delivered through providing training, awareness campaigns

and online services to enable responsive support to male victims of domestic abuse.

The grant funding will support

(1) Specialist CPD accredited one day training course *

This training is aimed primarily at those working in the Domestic Abuse Safety Units within

police forces in England and Wales. This training has been developed and is delivered by

the charity’s Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs) and is CPD accredited.

The funding from the Home Office covers a one full day course (free of charge) at a police

force’s headquarters and/or training unit. The course is aimed at up to 25 people and

therefore can include other local support agencies if there is space.

If additional training sessions are required this can be discussed when booking your training.

The funding period for this project ends in March 2020 so training sessions will need to be

scheduled in before Dec 2019 at the latest to ensure we can accommodate your booking.

If you wish to book this training, please contact the administrator via

[email protected]


http://www.mankind.org.uk/


Flook House, Belvedere Road, Taunton, TA1 1BT [email protected] : www.mankind.org.uk

01823 334244

Registered Charity No. 1089547 – Company Registration No. 3869893

(2) Specialist CPD accredited one hour online training course

Available for all police staff and other professionals who support domestic abuse victims, this

bespoke course is being created by the charity’s IDVAs and hosted by ME Learning, a

specialist online course provider. This course will be available free of charge 24/7 from any

location for the duration of the project (March 2020).

This course is aimed to be available in the late summer and if you wish to be notified when it

is available, please email the administrator via [email protected]

(3) Male Domestic Abuse Professionals’ Portal

The charity will host a secure website that provides national and local male victim support

service information to police forces, councils, CCGs and other professionals including

information on refuge / safehouse provision and availability for male victims and their

children.

This website will be available in the summer of 2019 and if you wish to be notified when it is

available, please email the administrator via [email protected]

There are two other projects which are funded by the Home Office. These include a set of

core National Standards available to professionals and agencies to ensure consistency of

support for male victims of domestic abuse. In addition, there will be a national awareness

campaign run by Hestia as part of their UK SAYS NO MORE campaign.

Contact

For any further information, please call 01823 334229 or email [email protected]






1

Sarah Lawrence

From: Andy Myhill

Sent: 06 August 2019 11:36

To:

Subject: RE: ManKind training

Cheers

From: @herts.pnn.police.uk>Sent: 06 August 2019 11:34To: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Subject: RE: ManKind training

Pretty certain specialist team only.

DAISUHerts Police

On 6 Aug 2019 11:33, Andy Myhill <[email protected]> wrote:

That’s great, thanks. Did they deliver to frontline, or specialist teams?

From: < @herts.pnn.police.uk>Sent: 06 August 2019 11:32To: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Subject: ManKind training

Hi Andy

Not sure when they delivered previously but got them back in on 4th December.

DAISUHerts Police

On 6 Aug 2019 11:28, Andy Myhill <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi – were you aware of/do you know when ‘ManKind’ delivered training in Herts on male victims of DA?

Andy

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Any opinions expressed in this email are those of the individual and not necessarily those of the Collegeof Policing Limited.


Accordingly, the copying, dissemination or distribution of this message to any other person may constitutea breach of Civil or Criminal Law.

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_______________________________________________

This e-mail is subject to our Legal Notice which you can view hereHertfordshire Constabulary's Legal Notice

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1

Sarah Lawrence

From: David Tucker

Sent: 08 August 2019 17:23

To: Louisa Rolfe

Subject: RE: ManKind DA training

OK – good approach, thanks

From: Louisa Rolfe < >Sent: 08 August 2019 17:19To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: RE: ManKind DA training

I think we should stay well away from writing to CC’s but we could write an appropriate note to Heads of PPUexpressing our concern & suggesting that they prioritise College approved products like DA Matters. We shouldwrite first to The Home Office & explain we are so concerned that we’ll be writing to forces so they might want toreconsider funding before we take that step.

Louisa

From: David Tucker [mailto:[email protected]]Sent: 08 August 2019 15:28To: Louisa Rolfe < >Subject: RE: ManKind DA training

Louisa,

Thanks – will do. As I say below, I’m concerned that the whole narrative is contrary to our view and that, if thecourse is presented by people who believe it, changing the slides isn’t going to make enough difference. Is there analternative to write to chiefs expressing our concern? I think that’s very high risk too because of potential to affectMankind’s business.

dt

From: Louisa Rolfe < >Sent: 08 August 2019 15:24To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc: Angela Whitaker < >Subject: RE: ManKind DA training

Thanks David

Angie & I were concerned as we also heard about this training after it had been commissioned. We thereforeinvited the team to the Stakeholder Meeting to outline what they were doing. They presented nothing contentiousat our meeting & did stress that they were consistent with DA Matters but we were keen the College had a closerlook.

Now that Andy has had an opportunity to see the training I think we should write to the Home Office VPP Teamexpressing concern about the content and delivery & suggesting how it might be improved. I’m not sure what elsewe can do.

2

This is a Home Office problem as they should have consulted the College before commissioning. I suspect there issome politics at play, i.e. this training may placate the noisy minority who see the CSEW increase in male victims asproof that DA isn’t gendered.

As The College are the guardians of training standards do you want to lead on the letter & add my name?

Louisa

DCC Louisa Rolfe OBE | Deputy Chief Constable & NPCC Lead Domestic AbuseForce Executive Team | West Midlands PoliceT:



View all our social network links

From: David Tucker [mailto:[email protected]]Sent: 07 August 2019 08:42To: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>; Sharon Stratton <[email protected]>Cc: >; Angela Whitaker <

>; Louisa Rolfe < >Subject: RE: ManKind DA training

Louisa/Angie,

This training has been funded by HO. We were not involved or consulted. As I remember it, one of the LGBT charitiesconvinced HO that the male perspective on DA was missing (including same sex relationships). They were able topoint HO in the direction of some training and it was funded directly.

As you can see from Andy’s comments, there’s lots that appears to be wrong. I wondered whether it was an issuewith the person delivering, but the slides that are described also contain inaccurate information, suggesting that thematerials underpinning delivery are also inaccurate.

I am concerned that the narrative being presented here reinforces some old tropes and prejudices – those whoalready believe this narrative are being supported in their views and those who don’t will be confused.

I think we need to speak to HO – but I would be concerned about possible solutions (i.e. I don’t think it tenable forthe training materials to be changed because the whole underlying message is not supported by evidence, so thewhole course would need to change – I’d be surprised if this could be achieved).

I understand that Respect and WA have concerns about content.

Andy has copies of slides if required.

Any thoughts?

dt

3

From: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Sent: 06 August 2019 23:26To: David Tucker <[email protected]>; Sharon Stratton <[email protected]>Cc: >Subject: ManKind DA trainingImportance: High

Hi both,

As you know, I attended a training input at Surrey Police today at the invitation of She mentioned awhile back that she was concerned that ManKind appeared to have received Home Office funding to deliver atraining course on male victims of DA and that they appeared to be pitching it as compulsory. The lead trainer, who Ithink is a SafeLives as well ManKind associate, clarified at the session that the grant funding was held by Hestia, butManKind were delivering the training. She later told me that they had delivered training in Northants, Staffs andHerts, and that they were delivering in Wiltshire next week. They also have around another 20 forces signed up. Ithought it was aimed at frontline, but I’m not sure they have the capacity to deliver to all frontline. It seems just tobe two trainers. I checked with the head of safeguarding in Herts and he said he thought they had just trained agroup of specialists, but they were coming back in December. The lead trainer said they were mixed groups.

Summary:

Much of the training material does not reflect my reading of the evidence-base. It was not clear for the mostpart what evidence was being referenced. Some was clearly the Crime Survey for England and Wales data, whichprovides a misleading context as it does not reflect the nature of abuse dealt with by the police. Other data I canonly assume was unfiltered data from the ManKind helpline, plus highly selective academic research ofquestionable quality.

Domestic abuse was presented as not being a gendered issue.

The material was presented in a largely biased way and some claims were made that I didn’t think could besubstantiated. There were particularly worrying claims about men mainly perpetrating physical abuse andwomen perpetrating coercive control; false reports/women lying to secure non-mols as a form of control/abuseover men; that certain forms of abuse, such as using children to control somebody, are only experienced bymen; and that women self-harm/’create evidence’ to portray themselves as the victim.

Some of the messages were contradictory to our training and potentially very misleading and dangerous,especially for frontline officers.

The core elements of the training that focus on coercive and controlling behaviours/their impact largelyduplicate what is in DA Matters. Something in DA matters that says men can be victims too, but coercive controlis primarily perpetrated by men (which should be in there), largely precludes the need for this training.

Much of the afternoon sessions were essentially advocacy/campaigning and focused on e.g. how HO policydocuments should be de-gendered and how there should be more equal service provision for male victims. Thisinput contained nothing operationally useful or relevant.

I strongly advise contacting the HO and NPCC lead urgently to seek their views and attempt to pause the trainingpending a review of the content.

In greater detail:

The first substantive slide starts by saying ‘more victims are women’, and the trainers made the odd qualifyingcomment along those lines. But broadly the material was delivered in what I considered to be a very biased wayand one that does not reflect the evidence base. The first substantive slide states: ‘Domestic abuse is not agendered crime’. The trainers said abuse is individual, and there should be a ‘gender inclusive’ approach. At onepoint the lead trainer said people ‘high up in government’ still define it as a gendered crime, implying thatshould change.

A lot of the claims made, and the broad context for this training, is with reference to Crime Survey for Englandand Wales data. This reflects ManKind’s DA ‘factsheet’. It ignores research suggesting that much of what isreported to the CSEW (by men) is not ongoing/high level/coercive abuse. They say later that DA is about powerand control and present all the tactics and behaviours associated with coercive control, but continue to assert

4

that 1 in 3 victims is male. This reliance on CSEW data is misleading and problematic, e.g. men’s lower level ofreporting is explained as caused by any number of things other than much of what they are reporting to thesurvey does not meet the threshold of what anybody would feel the need to report to the police or services.

I asked them to clarify whether slide 1 on page 3 (‘National Police Data’) represents all DA, or just imitatepartners. They said all DA, which of course distorts the gendered nature of the figures. Somebody else asked ifthis was in fact victims, or actually incidents which could be nested in victims in the case of repeats. They saidthey had no idea, and it was data from an FOI request. They generally appeared unsure, whenever challenged,about the source and provenance of much of the data, and said more than once that e.g. they can only workwith the data they have available to them. When I flagged to the main trainer at the end that one study shereferred to as being by a UK academic was actually by a US academic and based on US helpline data she saidshe’s let the person who wrote the course know…

They cited recent research by two academics that they present as ‘qualitative’, but is actually online surveyswith open-ended responses. They did not mention that much ‘proper’ qualitative work done with male victims,where issues are explored in depth interviews, has shown that a proportion reflect primary perpetratornarratives, even when presenting as victims. The cited research was not published in top-tier journals.

They used the ‘cycle of abuse’, which has been widely discredited.

They said the Power and Control Wheel was ‘not based on research’, but not that it emerged through supportwork with female survivors of abuse. They said that a de-gendered’ wheel may be helpful, but did not addressthe issue of why such a model did not emerge organically from work with male victims.

The main trainer said on more than one occasion that men perpetrate ‘physical’ abuse and women perpetrate‘coercive and controlling’ abuse. There was no evidence cited to back up this claim, and I would suggest the bestavailable data and analysis from both the CSEW and police/services suggests women are victims and menperpetrators of the vast majority of coercive control. Interestingly, when they cited actual case examples of e.g.people using tracking devices they were often male perps!

Slide 4, page 4 – Suggests all victims experience certain forms of controlling behaviour, but that only menexperience ‘use of children’, ‘parental alienation’ and ‘false allegations and threats’. This is a quite incredibleclaim, not evidenced by anything. There is ample evidence from women’s narrative accounts of all threeincluding e.g. robust and peer reviewed research by the likes of Marianne Hester.

Slide 6, page 4 (‘Physical abuse’) – while I think there is some evidence about women’s weapon use, some ofthat is defensive violence. I don’t know where the evidence comes from that women ‘often’ ordisproportionately use e.g. ‘scalding’ and ‘poisoning’.

Slide 4, page 6 (‘False allegations’) – this is an especially concerning slide. I can only imagine it is anecdotaldata/from their helpline. They suggest (on the slide) that women use false allegations to access legal aid, andthat they are encouraged to do so by ‘some professionals’ which they clarified as solicitors. They also mentionednon-mols, and that they can be obtained by lies/false allegations where the female ‘perceived’ victim will bebelieved over the ‘real’ victim. They suggested that this is a tactic of control that sets the tone for future e.g.family court hearings. While I wouldn’t rule out this ever happening, this is anecdotal and callers to the ManKindhelpline are not ‘screened’ (see below). Our various research, including the ongoing ethnography, suggests(some) frontline officers, in particular, already believe a lot of reports are ‘point scoring’/people using the policeto try and get one over on their partner. This just adds fuel to that underlying impression. With reference to theAlex Skeel case, the second trainer said something like ‘you need to flip every scenario on its head because whatit seems like is most often not what it is’. Which in this context implies always doubting women’s accounts. Thetraining criticises societal belief systems around men and masculinity, but seems to have no concerns aboutpromoting stereotypes of women as lying, manipulative and vengeful…

Slide 5, page 6 (‘Self-harming’) – claims that (women) self-harm and ‘create evidence’ to portray themselves asthe victim when they are in fact the perpetrator; not backed up by any evidence. Also, there is no indication onthe slide of how often they are suggesting that women do this. I can’t recall whether or not they suggested itwas rarely, often or what it was.

Slide 1, page 7 (‘Stalking’) – no indication of whether this data includes non-domestic stalkers, which if it doeswould I imagine make it look less gendered (would have to check).

Page 9, slide 3 – They use a video at this point, available on youtube, to make a point about how people aremore likely to take abuse against women seriously/intervene. This they said was filmed somewhere in Londonand notices put up in the surrounding area stating that something was being filmed (but not that it was asimulated DA scenario). None of the random members of the public that got captured in the video were askedfor their (retrospective) consent. One woman, who was seen laughing at the simulated female-on-male

5

scenario, took them to court as she didn’t want to appear in it. The trainer said the court ruled against her, andshe appeared genuinely happy and vindicated by that outcome…

Page 9, slide 4 – suggests ‘some support agencies’ have the view that ‘men cannot be victims’. I had to challengethat, and asked which agencies. She said she couldn’t/wouldn’t actually name any, but they know they do. Andthen something like ‘I don’t want to say feminists’, and then qualified that I think to ‘extreme feminists’.

Most of the slides on pp10-12 deal with how govt policy documents/communications and victim services are notequal. This I guess reflects their view that this is not a gendered issue. The lead trainer actually said that 30% ofvictim services should be dedicated to men, again reflecting the ‘1 in 3’ stat from the CSEW. In fact, at this pointshe even suggested the numbers are in practical terms ‘almost the same’, even though ‘1 in 3’ is nothing like‘the same’. And of course as I’ve said the CSEW data is a very poor indication of what actually requiresintervention from services. The material in this section is essentially advocacy and is of no operational use orrelevance.

Page 12, slide 6/page 13, slide 1 – again CSEW data is used to suggest men are underrepresented in ‘high risk’classifications and the suggestion is that this is due to underreporting by men and/or under-recording or lack ofrisk assessment of male victims, as opposed to there simply being far fewer high risk male victims.

Page 17, slide 2 – they say they do not advocate the ‘screening’ of callers to their helpline to see if they areprimary abusers. They suggest this practice it is unethical (which RESPECT are upset about). They fail to mentionthat when agencies like RESPECT do screen callers presenting as victims, they do actually identify a reasonableproportion as primary abusers. This finding is borne out in qualitative work with men, by Hester among others.Again, I don’t see how this knowledge is remotely helpful to an operational police officer and reflects the natureof the second part of the training as largely advocacy.

Overall, I found this to be a poorly delivered piece of training. The material is either not evidence-based, or is abiased/misleading/very selective presentation of research evidence. Some of the claims made I do not think can besubstantiated, and I feel are extremely unhelpful for a (frontline) police audience. The training was also used as aplatform for ManKind’s advocacy and some of the content was not useful or relevant operationally.

Andy

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6



1

Sarah Lawrence


From: >Sent: 27 November 2019 14:55To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

It’s ok we have made a plan on the MK work so the meeting being delayed will not effect that.

Thanks,

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 27 November 2019 14:53To: >Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

Am I right in thinking that delivery of the MK stuff is suspended? If so, does that cause you/them difficulty?

dt

From: >Sent: 27 November 2019 11:24To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

**Removed – outside scope***

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 27 November 2019 10:48To: >Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

** Removed – outside scope***

From: >Sent: 27 November 2019 10:32To: >Cc: David Tucker <[email protected]>; Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

Thanks for the update. The 8 January will be tricky for us. Can you suggest any further dates and times.

Thanks,

2

From: >Sent: 27 November 2019 10:20To: >Cc: David Tucker <[email protected]>; Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2Importance: High

DearUnfortunately and please accept our apologies but the meeting planned for the 2nd December has had to becancelled (you should shortly be in receipt of cancellation notice).It will now not be possible for a meeting until the new year, unless a telephone conference call will be acceptable.The next available date for a meeting at OQS would be Wednesday 8th January 2020 at 2pm.Please advise and again apologies for any inconvenience.Kind regards

From:Sent: 04 November 2019 14:03To: ' >Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

HiThank you for your reply – have just sent through diary appointment.Regards

From: >Sent: 01 November 2019 16:31To: K >Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

Yes, that should work for us – can you please send over a scheduler with location details.

Many thanks,

From: >Sent: 01 November 2019 14:19To: >Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2Importance: High

Dear

The first available date for a meeting with David at our HQ ‘Old Queen Street’ would be the afternoon of the 2nd

December.Please let me know if this is ok.Kind regards

3

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 01 November 2019 12:02To: >Cc: >Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

,

Thanks for this – I think they’ll struggle with the feedback because their position is that DA isn’t a gendered issue.

I’ve cc’d , who can help with the diary.

dt

From: >Sent: 01 November 2019 11:57To: >; David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc: Angela Whitaker < >; Louisa Rolfe <

>Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

Hi David,

Please can you pass on our thanks to Andy for reviewing this so thoroughly.

I met with Mankind last month and made it very clear that we had significant concerns about the training, mostfundamentally with the positioning of domestic abuse and their use of data as this gave a very misleading context.We underlined the unfounded claims used within the slides and pointed out the raft of errors. It is thereforedisappointing that this revised product still has so many significant issues.

To reassure you we take this really seriously and following your earlier correspondence have had the trainingpaused. We will consider next steps within the team and keep you posted on our position.

It would be useful to use the time afforded to us by purdah to have a catch up with you at the College, can you let usknow your availability for the end of November.

Thank you again for your help.

From: >Sent: 01 November 2019 11:30To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc: Angela Whitaker < >; Louisa Rolfe <

>Subject: RE: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

Hi David,

Thanks for sharing Andy’s views.

I have copied and so that we can then all work together and decide on the next steps.

Will get back to you soon.

4

Thanks,


Tel:Mob:


From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 01 November 2019 10:22To: >Cc: Angela Whitaker < >; Louisa Rolfe <

>Subject: FW: Mankind Revised Slides Part 1 & 2

,

Please see comments from Andy Myhill (a well respected voice in the DA field – he is a published researcher on DA).

There appear to be significant issues with the training. Apart from the problems with evidence, a day on this singleaspect seems excessive.


david


David,

I have managed to review the revised slide pack. I do not believe there have been significant attempts to change thecontent or tone of the training. The majority of issues and concerns that we and the NPCC lead for domestic abuseidentified with this training remain. Key issues are:

Large sections of the training (the nature/impact of coercive and controlling behaviour, how to interact withvictims, safety planning and so on) duplicate existing training. Some of the ‘male nuances’ I believe are invalid,and there is little that could not be incorporated into existing training (which we are in the process of revising).There is also still a significant amount of material (e.g. talking about commissioning of services, the genderednature of HO comms and so on) that has little or no operational relevance. The valid elements of this trainingcould be condensed into probably an hour, or be simply incorporated into existing training. I see no justification

5

for this training taking a day of officer time when the entire first responder element of DA Matters is currentlysqueezed into one classroom day.

The trainer notes that accompany the slides are incomplete, or at least far less detailed than those thataccompany DA Matters. It does not look a very professional product, and may not have gone through therigorous design and testing processes that College training is subject to. I think that leaves the potential for anyinaccurate and/or unevidenced claims removed from the slides to be reintroduced by the trainers.

ManKind have firmed up rather than withdrawn their claim that DA is not gendered, presenting it as a ‘positionstatement’. This position contradicts the position of the College, the NPCC and other agencies (including theHO).

The CSEW data do not reflect the nature of domestic abuse that comes to the attention of the police. Using theheadline CSEW prevalence data in the context of male victims of coercive control, in particular, is deeplymisleading. The content of the training reflects a misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation of this data.

The academic evidence cited in the training is highly selective and does not include prominent studies reportingfindings from in-depth interviews with men presenting as victims.

The training still makes claims about women making false allegations to get injunctions and/or legal aid, whichare based on calls to the ManKind helpline, and anecdotal feedback from men’s advocacy groups. It is importantto note than ManKind do not undertake a needs assessment of callers to their helpline as RESPECT do (seebelow). There are still also claims about (implicitly) women self-harming to present as a victim and/or forattention or to seek revenge on their partner.

I would strongly advise that this training is not continued, and I do not have the confidence that ManKind will, orwould even want to, depart from some of the content and messages. That would be fine if we felt the claims weresupported by best reading of the evidence, but I do not believe they are.

More detailed comments on specific slides (please note: I could have written more with more time; this representscomments on the most salient parts):

Part 1, p5 – Most dictionary definitions of ‘gendered’ say something like: reflecting the experience, prejudices, ororientations of one sex more than the other (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gendered). So ifstatistically more victims are women, as they acknowledge, then domestic abuse is, by definition, gendered. Eventhe headline, decontextualized prevalence data from the CSEW shows it is gendered; when it comes to DA reportedto the police, I would say that, for imitate partners especially, it is very highly gendered.

Part 1, p7 – slide says the training is intended to ‘build on and complement’ existing training, yet some of themessaging is inconsistent with/contradicts existing training. The notes state existing training ‘generically focuses onwomen as victims’. I don’t believe that to be the case. The DA Matters training acknowledges men can also bevictims, but states that example cases mostly use female victims as that reflects the highly gendered nature of DAreported to the police.

Part 1, p7 – the academic research cited is highly selective and does not reflect some of the work done with menpresenting as victims by e.g. Hester and colleagues.

Part 1, p8 – First slide demonstrates lack of understanding of the data sources. The British Crime Survey no longerexists; it is now the Crime Survey for England and Wales. The reporting rates from the CSEW data are not especiallyhelpful as it is not always possible to isolate what type of abuse the victims is referencing. When I isolated abusethat involved frightening threats and/or ongoing denigration, it was a) more likely to be reported to the police andb) much more likely to be experienced by women. These issues of the general CSEW data not adequately reflectingDA reported to the police have been discussed extensively at the ONS DA statistics steering group at which ManKindare represented.

Part 1, p.10 – Interesting to note that the speaker notes state that (threats and actual) ‘false allegations’ are coveredby the national definition of coercive behaviour, even though they are not one of the things specified in the actualwording. I can only imagine that this is to support the narrative that was present when I observed the training whichsuggested only men suffered false allegations. I do not believe there is robust empirical evidence to support thatsuggestion.

6

Part 1, p11 – the ‘45 key facts’ on DA that can be found on the ManKind website are again drawn in part from theCSEW and are therefore highly problematic when used in the context of DA reported to the police.

Part 1, p16 – first slide – there is no indication of the whether this is intimate partner DA, or all DA. If it is all DA, thegender breakdowns here are less helpful as family DA will dilute the gendering of intimate partner DA. The trainersdid not know if this was raw numbers of victims, or incidents with male/female aggrieved. There is still noexplanation. By the nature of data collected via an FOI, it may be that different forces provided different things.

Part 1, p17 – I think it would be important to caveat that the ‘qualitative’ study by Liz Bates was based on self-reportsurveys, not face-to-face interviews. And that some studies that have used face-to-face interviews with menpresenting as victims (e.g. Hester et al; Gadd et al) have found some proportion of primary perpetrator narratives.

Part 1, p18 – the ‘cycle of abuse’ came out of in-depth interviews with female survivors. It has since beendisputed/re-conceptualised and we don’t use it in our training, on that basis.

Part 1, p19 – the power and control wheel originated from support work with female survivors. I’m pretty certain Iwouldn’t be the only person who would feel uncomfortable with it being ‘de-gendered’ and re-presented. I don’tknow if the people who designed/own the tool have been consulted on that, or whether there are any IPR issues.

Part 1, p20 – if you are going to define DA as about power and control, then you need also to acknowledge that theheadline CSEW data is not an appropriate data source. There is no mention of police or CPS data that shows veryfew women have been prosecuted for coercive control.

Part 1, p20 – slide lists example of coercive/controlling behaviours and then says men and women can experiencediffering levels of these behaviours and in differing ways. There are no trainer notes. This was the point at which itwas suggested that only men experience things like false allegations and control through children. Without anynotes to explain what is meant here, I would be extremely concerned that those claims will still be made (just not onthe slides).

Part 2, p10 – Again, there is little or no description of how the ‘exercise’ will be debriefed. The DA Matters trainerguide includes extensive notes and guidance on how to debrief each exercise, detailing the key learning and pointsthat need to be emphasised/challenged. Without that information, we cannot be confident that material will not bepresented that is not supported by robust empirical evidence (e.g. men are more likely to suffer x, y or z forms ofabuse).

Part 2, p12 – Helpline data is potentially problematic. The Home Office fund RESPECT to run the men’s advice line.Callers to that helpline are assessed so that their needs can be met appropriately. ManKind call this ‘screening’ in alater slide; RESPECT do not use that terminology. RESPECT’s analysis of their advice line data (presented in theirtoolkit for working with male victims) suggests around half of callers to the advice line are not ultimately classifiedas victims (some discuss issues and behaviours that do not constitute abuse as such; others are classified, or self-classify, as primary abusers by the end of the assessment). These findings highlight the potential problems withpresenting helpline data where callers have not received such a needs assessment.


Part 2, p36 – says there is a ‘low threshold’ for evidencing coercive control. What is the supporting evidence? Ourexperience is that it is seen in practice by police and CPS as a high evidence threshold.


Part 2, p37 – The notion that women self-harm to portray themselves as victims is retained in the speaker notes. Ido not see the value in this, unless it is emphasised that women consistently report lies and manipulation byperpetrators. The only reason I can see for including this type of example is to imply that women aredisproportionately responsible for making false allegations. There is already/still considerable scepticism amongmany officers about victims accounts; I think it is genuinely unhelpful to further fuel those views.

7

Part 2, p38 – there is still a slide devoted to false allegations which makes the claim that false allegations can beused as a tactic to access legal aid, and that (implicitly) women make false allegations out of revenge and for‘attention’. The only evidence cited in support is a BBC article based on anecdotal feedback from another men’srights organisation.

Part 2, p39 – slide still implies perpetrators manipulating the system and using children post-separation inexperienced solely by male victims. Very selective academic research is cited, but there is a wealth of researchshowing male abusers use these tactics.

Part 3, p41 – Claims ‘men are more likely than women to report problems with drugs and alcohol as a result of theirabuse than women, and to report worse physical health then women on presentation to DV services’. Not clearwhat evidence this is based con, unless it is the ‘unpublished’ data referenced just above.

Part 3, p52 – Again ignores the findings that the type of violence that men report to the CSEW is much less likely toinvolve fear and ongoing denigration.

Part 3, p68 – ‘women are much more likely than men to be victims of high risk or severe domestic abuse, andtherefore more in need of refuges and other forms of specialist accommodation based services’. – seems as thoughthey are presenting this as incorrect?

Part 4, p100 – claims the DASH is focused on physical violence. DASH in fact covers both physical and non-physicalabuse, and there is no reason whatsoever it should not identify male victims. The question on pregnancy or recentchild is arguably the only question that may not apply to male victims, but actually it would apply in same sexrelationships and even in heterosexual relationships a competent officer would note the presence of a very youngchild even if it were a man presenting as the victim. Speaker notes claim ‘men are not being assessed to the samelevel/standard of risk and harm due to a believe (sic) they can bear more risk’. No idea what the evidence for this is,and a plausible alternative explanation is that they experience less high level abuse proportionately. This alsoappears to be ManKind’s explanation of why there are far fewer male victims at MARAC as opposed to there justbeing far fewer high risk male victims. I’m fairly certain any public protection officer (or any frontline officer, for thatmatter) would tell you there are far fewer high risk male victims, and that has nothing to do with the standard of riskassessment.

Andy


This text has been removed as it does not fall within the scope of the request.


Hi David,



Thanks,

8


Tel:Mob:


From:Sent: 31 October 2019 14:25To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc: >Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind Training Update





Thanks,


Tel:Mob:



Tel:Mob:

9



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1

Sarah Lawrence

From: College FOI

Subject: FW: Attached Image

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 27 August 2019 09:50To: Angela Whitaker < >Subject: RE: Attached Image

Angie,

Yes I’ve got it. I’ve sent the letter to our head of comms – I’m slightly nervous about the commercial implications forMankind if we say their training is rubbish and shouldn’t be used. When you poke the commercial hornets’ nest, itcan cause a significant (costly) reaction.

dt

From: Angela Whitaker < >Sent: 27 August 2019 09:48To: David Tucker <[email protected]>; Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Subject: FW: Attached Image

Morning both,

I’ve just spoken to Andy regarding the letter for the HO re Mankind training.

I’m not sure if you received the attached from DCC Rolfe……………if not- here it is again,

Speak soon,

Angie




From: Angela WhitakerSent: 19 August 2019 13:31To: 'David Tucker' <[email protected]>Subject: FW: Attached Image

2

Hi David,

Please see the attached scan of feedback from DCC Rolfe…………she’s only added one sentence.

I presume you’ll put this on your headed paper………..do you need DCC Rolfe’s electronic signature or anything elsefrom me?

Ange




1

Sarah Lawrence

From: College FOI

Subject: FW: training (DA Males victims)

-----Original Message-----From: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Sent: 08 July 2019 15:53To: Angela Whitaker < >Subject: RE: training (DA Males victims)

I'll go on it if there's one nearby

-----Original Message-----From: Angela Whitaker < >Sent: 08 July 2019 15:50To: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Subject: RE: training (DA Males victims)

Yes- I know- it's what I sent you before I think...........we haven’t had sight of the package- they just keep asking us togo on the training-)

Ange

-----Original Message-----From: Andy Myhill [mailto:[email protected]]Sent: 08 July 2019 14:50To: Angela Whitaker < >Subject: RE: training (DA Males victims)

Sorry, just looked properly. I did see this, but it doesn’t really tell us anything. We need to see the accrual trainingmaterials, or observe a session

-----Original Message-----From: Angela Whitaker < >Sent: 08 July 2019 10:02To: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Subject: FW: training (DA Males victims)

Hi Andy,

Not sure if I've already sent you this or not?

Angie

1

Sarah Lawrence

From: College FOI

Subject: FW: Training/CPD - Supporting Male victims of DA 6th AUGUST 2019

From: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Sent: 05 August 2019 16:29To: >Subject: RE: Training/CPD - Supporting Male victims of DA 6th AUGUST 2019

I’ll be there!

From: >Sent: 05 August 2019 13:09To: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Subject: RE: Training/CPD - Supporting Male victims of DA 6th AUGUST 2019

It’s a 0900 start I believe, but don’t worry too much, I’ll delay them if I can

From: Andy Myhill [mailto:[email protected]]Sent: 05 August 2019 11:13To: >Subject: RE: Training/CPD - Supporting Male victims of DA 6th AUGUST 2019

Oh, forgot to ask – is it 9am prompt start, or e.g. 9am registration for half 9 start? I can get there for 9, just slightly

harder from where I live and would prefer not to be early!

From: >Sent: 05 August 2019 08:30To: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Subject: RE: Training/CPD - Supporting Male victims of DA 6th AUGUST 2019Importance: High

Hey Andy,

Yes of course, please do!!

Any issues my mobile is and I will be there all day,

2

From: Andy Myhill [mailto:[email protected]]Sent: 31 July 2019 15:34To: >Subject: RE: Training/CPD - Supporting Male victims of DA 6th AUGUST 2019

Hi , I meant to acknowledge this kind offer at the time. I’m really struggling for time at the moment, but

actually it may be too good an opportunity to pass up, if it’s still available. Will you be there? The national lead’s

staff officer has asked them for information about the content of the training, but they just said come along to one.

Also, it will help with discussions around the future content of our training as some people want to out stuff in about

male victims and I’m not sure it’s necessary.

Would it be possible still to come?

All the best,

Andy

From: >Sent: 17 July 2019 15:35To: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Subject: FW: Training/CPD - Supporting Male victims of DA 6th AUGUST 2019Importance: High

Hi Andy,

FYI as I mentioned this when we met, they funded ‘Mankind’ training for Police..…..if you want to come along or

there is another CoP rep who would, please consider yourself invited!!!

Public Protection Support Unit (PPSU)Specialist Crime CommandSurrey Police HQ

DA M attersM entor– ForceM entorL eadS talkingS P O C – ForceS talking S P O CS L eadS R P & DA S H accredited

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1

Sarah Lawrence

From: College FOI


From: >Sent: 19 September 2019 15:53To: < >; David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc: >Subject: Re: NPCC Mankind Training

Hi David,

We now have an electronic copy on the Mankind Training pack for you to view. However, due to its size we areunable to forward the document to yourself and because of the security locks on the document we are unable tocompress it.

Hestia have offered to drop off a USB version which we could send over to yourself, alternatively we could send youa photocopy.

Could you please let me know which option suits you best and where we could deliver the USB or hardcopy toyourselves.

Thanks,


Tel:Mob:


From:Sent: 09 September 2019 14:59To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc: >Subject: RE: NPCC CoP Ltr HO Mankind FINAL.pdf

Hi David

Thanks for your letter and for raising your concerns with us. The funding was awarded to Hestia, in partnership withGalop and ManKind, to undertake activity to support male victims of domestic abuse, with training for police beingone strand. We will get in touch with the organisations to explore your concerns further and come back to you.

2

Kind regards



,

Please find a letter from Louisa Rolfe and me regarding ManKind training that we believe has been commissioned byHome Office.

Best wishes,

*****************************************************************






*****************************************************************

**********************************************************************This email and any files transmitted with it are private and intendedsolely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.If you have received this email in error please return it to the address

3

it came from telling them it is not for you and then delete it from your system.This email message has been swept for computer viruses.

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1

Sarah Lawrence


From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 01 November 2019 10:22To: >Cc: Angela Whitaker < >; Louisa Rolfe <


Please see comments from Andy Myhill (a well respected voice in the DA field – he is a published researcher on DA).

There appear to be significant issues with the training. Apart from the problems with evidence, a day on this singleaspect seems excessive.


david


David,

I have managed to review the revised slide pack. I do not believe there have been significant attempts to change thecontent or tone of the training. The majority of issues and concerns that we and the NPCC lead for domestic abuseidentified with this training remain. Key issues are:

Large sections of the training (the nature/impact of coercive and controlling behaviour, how to interact withvictims, safety planning and so on) duplicate existing training. Some of the ‘male nuances’ I believe are invalid,and there is little that could not be incorporated into existing training (which we are in the process of revising).There is also still a significant amount of material (e.g. talking about commissioning of services, the genderednature of HO comms and so on) that has little or no operational relevance. The valid elements of this trainingcould be condensed into probably an hour, or be simply incorporated into existing training. I see no justificationfor this training taking a day of officer time when the entire first responder element of DA Matters is currentlysqueezed into one classroom day.

The trainer notes that accompany the slides are incomplete, or at least far less detailed than those thataccompany DA Matters. It does not look a very professional product, and may not have gone through therigorous design and testing processes that College training is subject to. I think that leaves the potential for anyinaccurate and/or unevidenced claims removed from the slides to be reintroduced by the trainers.

ManKind have firmed up rather than withdrawn their claim that DA is not gendered, presenting it as a ‘positionstatement’. This position contradicts the position of the College, the NPCC and other agencies (including theHO).

2

The CSEW data do not reflect the nature of domestic abuse that comes to the attention of the police. Using theheadline CSEW prevalence data in the context of male victims of coercive control, in particular, is deeplymisleading. The content of the training reflects a misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation of this data.

The academic evidence cited in the training is highly selective and does not include prominent studies reportingfindings from in-depth interviews with men presenting as victims.

The training still makes claims about women making false allegations to get injunctions and/or legal aid, whichare based on calls to the ManKind helpline, and anecdotal feedback from men’s advocacy groups. It is importantto note than ManKind do not undertake a needs assessment of callers to their helpline as RESPECT do (seebelow). There are still also claims about (implicitly) women self-harming to present as a victim and/or forattention or to seek revenge on their partner.

I would strongly advise that this training is not continued, and I do not have the confidence that ManKind will, orwould even want to, depart from some of the content and messages. That would be fine if we felt the claims weresupported by best reading of the evidence, but I do not believe they are.

More detailed comments on specific slides (please note: I could have written more with more time; this representscomments on the most salient parts):

Part 1, p5 – Most dictionary definitions of ‘gendered’ say something like: reflecting the experience, prejudices, ororientations of one sex more than the other (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gendered). So ifstatistically more victims are women, as they acknowledge, then domestic abuse is, by definition, gendered. Eventhe headline, decontextualized prevalence data from the CSEW shows it is gendered; when it comes to DA reportedto the police, I would say that, for imitate partners especially, it is very highly gendered.

Part 1, p7 – slide says the training is intended to ‘build on and complement’ existing training, yet some of themessaging is inconsistent with/contradicts existing training. The notes state existing training ‘generically focuses onwomen as victims’. I don’t believe that to be the case. The DA Matters training acknowledges men can also bevictims, but states that example cases mostly use female victims as that reflects the highly gendered nature of DAreported to the police.

Part 1, p7 – the academic research cited is highly selective and does not reflect some of the work done with menpresenting as victims by e.g. Hester and colleagues.

Part 1, p8 – First slide demonstrates lack of understanding of the data sources. The British Crime Survey no longerexists; it is now the Crime Survey for England and Wales. The reporting rates from the CSEW data are not especiallyhelpful as it is not always possible to isolate what type of abuse the victims is referencing. When I isolated abusethat involved frightening threats and/or ongoing denigration, it was a) more likely to be reported to the police andb) much more likely to be experienced by women. These issues of the general CSEW data not adequately reflectingDA reported to the police have been discussed extensively at the ONS DA statistics steering group at which ManKindare represented.

Part 1, p.10 – Interesting to note that the speaker notes state that (threats and actual) ‘false allegations’ are coveredby the national definition of coercive behaviour, even though they are not one of the things specified in the actualwording. I can only imagine that this is to support the narrative that was present when I observed the training whichsuggested only men suffered false allegations. I do not believe there is robust empirical evidence to support thatsuggestion.

Part 1, p11 – the ‘45 key facts’ on DA that can be found on the ManKind website are again drawn in part from theCSEW and are therefore highly problematic when used in the context of DA reported to the police.

Part 1, p16 – first slide – there is no indication of the whether this is intimate partner DA, or all DA. If it is all DA, thegender breakdowns here are less helpful as family DA will dilute the gendering of intimate partner DA. The trainersdid not know if this was raw numbers of victims, or incidents with male/female aggrieved. There is still noexplanation. By the nature of data collected via an FOI, it may be that different forces provided different things.

3

Part 1, p17 – I think it would be important to caveat that the ‘qualitative’ study by Liz Bates was based on self-reportsurveys, not face-to-face interviews. And that some studies that have used face-to-face interviews with menpresenting as victims (e.g. Hester et al; Gadd et al) have found some proportion of primary perpetrator narratives.

Part 1, p18 – the ‘cycle of abuse’ came out of in-depth interviews with female survivors. It has since beendisputed/re-conceptualised and we don’t use it in our training, on that basis.

Part 1, p19 – the power and control wheel originated from support work with female survivors. I’m pretty certain Iwouldn’t be the only person who would feel uncomfortable with it being ‘de-gendered’ and re-presented. I don’tknow if the people who designed/own the tool have been consulted on that, or whether there are any IPR issues.

Part 1, p20 – if you are going to define DA as about power and control, then you need also to acknowledge that theheadline CSEW data is not an appropriate data source. There is no mention of police or CPS data that shows veryfew women have been prosecuted for coercive control.

Part 1, p20 – slide lists example of coercive/controlling behaviours and then says men and women can experiencediffering levels of these behaviours and in differing ways. There are no trainer notes. This was the point at which itwas suggested that only men experience things like false allegations and control through children. Without anynotes to explain what is meant here, I would be extremely concerned that those claims will still be made (just not onthe slides).

Part 2, p10 – Again, there is little or no description of how the ‘exercise’ will be debriefed. The DA Matters trainerguide includes extensive notes and guidance on how to debrief each exercise, detailing the key learning and pointsthat need to be emphasised/challenged. Without that information, we cannot be confident that material will not bepresented that is not supported by robust empirical evidence (e.g. men are more likely to suffer x, y or z forms ofabuse).

Part 2, p12 – Helpline data is potentially problematic. The Home Office fund RESPECT to run the men’s advice line.Callers to that helpline are assessed so that their needs can be met appropriately. ManKind call this ‘screening’ in alater slide; RESPECT do not use that terminology. RESPECT’s analysis of their advice line data (presented in theirtoolkit for working with male victims) suggests around half of callers to the advice line are not ultimately classifiedas victims (some discuss issues and behaviours that do not constitute abuse as such; others are classified, or self-classify, as primary abusers by the end of the assessment). These findings highlight the potential problems withpresenting helpline data where callers have not received such a needs assessment.


Part 2, p36 – says there is a ‘low threshold’ for evidencing coercive control. What is the supporting evidence? Ourexperience is that it is seen in practice by police and CPS as a high evidence threshold.


Part 2, p37 – The notion that women self-harm to portray themselves as victims is retained in the speaker notes. Ido not see the value in this, unless it is emphasised that women consistently report lies and manipulation byperpetrators. The only reason I can see for including this type of example is to imply that women aredisproportionately responsible for making false allegations. There is already/still considerable scepticism amongmany officers about victims accounts; I think it is genuinely unhelpful to further fuel those views.

Part 2, p38 – there is still a slide devoted to false allegations which makes the claim that false allegations can beused as a tactic to access legal aid, and that (implicitly) women make false allegations out of revenge and for‘attention’. The only evidence cited in support is a BBC article based on anecdotal feedback from another men’srights organisation.

Part 2, p39 – slide still implies perpetrators manipulating the system and using children post-separation inexperienced solely by male victims. Very selective academic research is cited, but there is a wealth of researchshowing male abusers use these tactics.

4

Part 3, p41 – Claims ‘men are more likely than women to report problems with drugs and alcohol as a result of theirabuse than women, and to report worse physical health then women on presentation to DV services’. Not clearwhat evidence this is based con, unless it is the ‘unpublished’ data referenced just above.

Part 3, p52 – Again ignores the findings that the type of violence that men report to the CSEW is much less likely toinvolve fear and ongoing denigration.

Part 3, p68 – ‘women are much more likely than men to be victims of high risk or severe domestic abuse, andtherefore more in need of refuges and other forms of specialist accommodation based services’. – seems as thoughthey are presenting this as incorrect?

Part 4, p100 – claims the DASH is focused on physical violence. DASH in fact covers both physical and non-physicalabuse, and there is no reason whatsoever it should not identify male victims. The question on pregnancy or recentchild is arguably the only question that may not apply to male victims, but actually it would apply in same sexrelationships and even in heterosexual relationships a competent officer would note the presence of a very youngchild even if it were a man presenting as the victim. Speaker notes claim ‘men are not being assessed to the samelevel/standard of risk and harm due to a believe (sic) they can bear more risk’. No idea what the evidence for this is,and a plausible alternative explanation is that they experience less high level abuse proportionately. This alsoappears to be ManKind’s explanation of why there are far fewer male victims at MARAC as opposed to there justbeing far fewer high risk male victims. I’m fairly certain any public protection officer (or any frontline officer, for thatmatter) would tell you there are far fewer high risk male victims, and that has nothing to do with the standard of riskassessment.

Andy


***Removed – outside scope of request***


Hi David,



Thanks,


Tel:Mob:

5


From:Sent: 31 October 2019 14:25To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc: >Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind Training Update





Thanks,


Tel:Mob:



Tel:Mob:


6


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1

Sarah Lawrence

From: College FOI

Subject: FW: Mankind training

From: Angela Whitaker < >Sent: 19 August 2019 13:11To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: RE: Mankind training

Hi David,

Funnily enough I asked Louisa’s PA to chase this today……………I’ll try and get her sign off ASAP- at some point-)

Are we still having our tele call catch up in the morning??

Ange

From: David Tucker [mailto:[email protected]]Sent: 19 August 2019 12:49To: Angela Whitaker < >Subject: Mankind training

Angie,

As you know, Andy was concerned about the content and I drafted a letter for Louisa. I am concerned that the issueswe wish to raise may get lost as being disruptive people who are anti-men (whatever the male equivalent ofmisogynistic is). I think there is enough in the slide deck for us to be able to evidence our concerns

, but I think it useful if we get the letter to HO asap.

dt

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To: 6th September 2019

DA Team, Home Office.

Dear

We wish to raise concerns about the content of the Mankind training on domestic abuse as it

is our understanding that it presents messages that neither the College of Policing nor

NPCC support.

The 2014 HMIC report Everyone’s business: Improving the police response to domestic

abuse, highlighted issues with domestic abuse training and the College worked with many in

the sector to develop DA Matters. This course is available to all forces and sets out clearly

the impact of domestic abuse and the importance of dealing with it effectively. Coercive and

controlling behaviour is addressed throughout the delivery of the course. It has been

independently evaluated and shown to increase understanding of abuse and empathy with

victims.

We understand that the Home office has commissioned the charity ManKind to deliver

training to police forces about domestic abuse as it affects male victims. Neither NPCC nor

the College were involved in this decision to commission national training for police forces.

A College of Policing subject matter expert attended a delivery of ManKind training and has

reported concerns about messages that are being promoted.

In particular, domestic abuse was presented as not being a gendered issue. The first slide

that contains DA related material stated that ‘Domestic abuse is not a gendered crime’. This

appeared to be based on headline prevalence data from the Crime Survey for England and

Wales. These headline measures are widely acknowledged to count ‘situational’ and ‘one-

off’ acts of violence, as well as violence and abuse that is coercive and controlling. Yet

statistics such as ‘1 in 3’ men being victims of domestic abuse were presented in a context

of domestic abuse as being about power and control. There was no reference to Walby and

colleagues’ analysis showing that women are much more likely to suffer high frequency

repeat assaults, or Myhill’s analysis which showed that women reporting abuse to the CSEW

were far more likely than men to say that the abuse they suffered was ongoing and

degrading and involved frightening threats. The headline CSEW data thus provided a

misleading context for the training as it does not reflect the nature of abuse dealt with most

often by the police and support services. These issues have been discussed extensively at

the ONS domestic abuse statistics steering group, at which ManKind are represented.

There were particularly worrying claims about men mainly perpetrating physical abuse and

women perpetrating coercive control; false reports/women lying to secure non-molestation

orders as a form of control/abuse over men; that certain forms of abuse, such as using

children to control somebody, are only experienced by men; and that women self-

harm/’create evidence’ to portray themselves as the victim. These claims were unreferenced

on the slides, but some appeared to be based on unfiltered data from the ManKind helpline.

Published research cited during the training was cherry picked and did not include studies by

highly regarded academics who have reported in-depth interviews with men presenting as

victims in which some proportion of ‘primary perpetrator’ narratives were identified.

Our view is that the course as it was presented on the day, is not something that we could

support. Furthermore, because of the fundamental problems with the approach – that is the

lack of recognition of the gendered nature of much domestic abuse reported to the police,

and the representation of false reporting entirely focused on women - it is unlikely that

amending the curriculum or the way it was delivered can achieve the changes that we would

require.

We are aware that several forces have already received this training and we would be

concerned if it is rolled out further. Whilst some content repeats messages contained in DA

Matters, other content contradicts some messages of DA Matters. A significant part of

content was not operationally relevant, seeming to promote the work of ManKind. We are

unaware of the basis on which the training was commissioned and cannot, therefore,

suggest a course of action that would address our concerns. We wanted to understand your

input before writing to forces to set our position with regard to the course content.

We have recently become aware of another course by AVA that the Home Office has asked

to be piloted with police forces. As far as we are aware, the College and NPCC have not

been consulted about this training. We are not able to comment on the quality of this

material, but we have concerns that national police training is being commissioned without

our involvement and that this could lead to contradictory or inaccurate messages being

delivered to policing.

In relation to other national training for policing, we would be pleased to contribute to

discussions so that NPCC and the College can offer advice and, in appropriate cases,

support the roll out of high quality training that will assist policing to deliver improved

services, particularly to vulnerable people.

Best wishes,

David Tucker Louisa Rolfe

Faculty Lead, Crime and Criminal Justice Deputy Chief Constable

College of Policing West Midlands

1

Sarah Lawrence

From: David Tucker

Sent: 06 September 2019 12:39

To: (CPFG)

Subject: NPCC CoP Ltr HO Mankind FINAL.pdf

Attachments: NPCC CoP Ltr HO Mankind FINAL.pdf

,

Please find a letter from Louisa Rolfe and me regarding ManKind training that we believe has been commissioned byHome Office.

Best wishes,

david

From: David TuckerSent: 06 September 2019 09:04To:Subject: NPCC CoP Ltr HO Mankind FINAL.pdfAttachments: NPCC CoP Ltr HO Mankind FINAL.pdf

,

Sorry to draw this out – I am slightly nervous about affecting the ability of a charity to deliver trainingwithout being sure of the ground on which we stand ( )! I asked

for a view and she suggested that we should be more precise with our concerns. I’ve askedAndy to add content and seek your sign off for this, I hope final, version.

david

1

Sarah Lawrence


From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 26 September 2019 08:39To: Angela Whitaker < >Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind Training

Yes, I sent the letter. I felt that they were in danger of conflating same sex issues with heterosexualrelationships (eg ‘make up sex’ and some aspects of CC).

I’ve pointed out some issues to HO and Andy is checking the whole slide deck. I’ll wait to hear what HOcome back with.

dt

Sent with BlackBerry Work(www.blackberry.com)

From: Angela Whitaker < >Date: Thursday, 26 Sep 2019, 8:07 amTo: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind Training

** Removed – outside scope of request***

Lastly, regarding the Mankind training…………..they really shouldn’t be saying it’s not a gendered crime…………I think Iknow what they’re trying to say which is men can also be victims of DA but……….I’m also not sure about advising victims to leave- police officers shouldn’t be doing that as we know the risks withleaving unless it’s done properly with the appropriate safeguarding and expertise……………we’ve worked hard tomove away from the ‘just leave’ position.There’s no real explanation of where all these stats/sweeping comments come from…………and what evidence basehas been used- such as women use weapons more.The LGBTQ element isn’t really explained………………we know there’s a large number of DA (man on Man) reported incertain areas, for example- Manchester who’ve done lots of campaigns with the LGBTQ community.I suppose the presentation itself isn’t too horrific- its more the commentary that goes with it- which isn’t included inthe presentation itself- if that makes sense……………………………..which can be confusing for police officers.Is there some way we can bring them close to try and influence as opposed to taking them on per se?Did you send the letter about our concern?AngieAngela Whitaker| National Domestic Abuse CoordinatorWest Midlands PoliceM:



2

From: David Tucker [mailto:[email protected]]Sent: 25 September 2019 14:00To: Sharon Stratton ; Angela WhitakerSubject: FW: NPCC Mankind TrainingViews?One of the first slides says that DA isn’t gendered

From: >Sent: 25 September 2019 13:43To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc:

>Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind TrainingHi Dave,Apologies for the delay.Please find attached the Mankind Training slides – PDF version.Should there be any issues please do get back to me.Thanks,


Tel:Mob:Click here to read the 2019 VAWG Strategy Refresh and Male Victims Position Statement

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 25 September 2019 11:54To: >Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind TrainingFine – no rush

From: >Sent: 25 September 2019 11:35To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: Re: NPCC Mankind TrainingHi David,I will send you the link via e-mail ASAP, currently in a training course with limited access to my laptop.Apologies for the delay.Thanks,

Sent from my iPhone


How should I access the slides? Are you going to deliver them?david

From: >Sent: 25 September 2019 09:27To: David Tucker <[email protected]>

3

Cc:>

Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind TrainingGood Morning David,We’ve managed to obtain now a PDF version of the training course ( 128 slides attached).Hopefully, there should not be any issues in accessing the slides.Thanks,




**Removed – outside scope of request***

From: >Sent: 19 September 2019 15:53To: ; David Tucker<[email protected]>Cc: >Subject: Re: NPCC Mankind TrainingHi David,We now have an electronic copy on the Mankind Training pack for you to view. However, due to itssize we are unable to forward the document to yourself and because of the security locks on thedocument we are unable to compress it.Hestia have offered to drop off a USB version which we could send over to yourself, alternatively wecould send you a photocopy.Could you please let me know which option suits you best and where we could deliver the USB orhardcopy to yourselves.Thanks,



From:Sent: 09 September 2019 14:59To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Cc: >Subject: RE: NPCC CoP Ltr HO Mankind FINAL.pdfHi David

4

Thanks for your letter and for raising your concerns with us. The funding was awarded to Hestia, inpartnership with Galop and ManKind, to undertake activity to support male victims of domesticabuse, with training for police being one strand. We will get in touch with the organisations toexplore your concerns further and come back to you.Kind regards



Please find a letter from Louisa Rolfe and me regarding ManKind training that we believe has beencommissioned by Home Office.Best wishes,david

*****************************************************************






*****************************************************************


**********************************************************************

5


1

Sarah Lawrence

Subject: FW: NPCC Mankind Training Update

From: David Tucker <[email protected]>Sent: 21 October 2019 15:19To: >Cc: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>; Sharon Stratton <[email protected]>Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind Training Update

,

Thanks for this. Do you plan to review content before it is delivered?

Best wishes,

david

From: >Sent: 21 October 2019 13:24To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: Re: NPCC Mankind Training Update

Hi David,

Just to give you an update we have had detailed discussions with Hestia and Mankind with regards to the concernsraised by yourself.

We have asked them to put together a revised training package based on the feedback and suggestions we providedduring a meeting we had on Fri 11th Oct.

I will update you in due course, however please do feel free to contact me in the interim.

Thanks,


Tel:Mob:


2

From:Sent: 26 September 2019 10:43To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: RE: NPCC Mankind Training



Tel:Mob:



Has anyone at Home Office looked at these slides? The issues raised in our letter are fairly obvious – e.g. slide 7 saysDA is not a gendered issue – we think it is. Slide 12 seems to be based on crime survey data that we know gives afalse impression of the nature of DA (further down that slide, the number of deaths is set out that gives a differentperspective – i.e. the death rate is 1:9).

Slide 23 suggests men are more subject to false allegations and slide 26 says that women use objects to assaultmore often.

I’m sure there will be more material that we might be concerned about if I carry on through the rest of the slidepack, but I wonder whether people at your end might want to have a look first?

david



Hi Dave,

Apologies for the delay.

Please find attached the Mankind Training slides – PDF version.

Should there be any issues please do get back to me.

3

Thanks,


Tel:Mob:




From: >Sent: 25 September 2019 11:35To: David Tucker <[email protected]>Subject: Re: NPCC Mankind Training


Sent from my iPhone





Good Morning David,

We’ve managed to obtain now a PDF version of the training course ( 128 slides attached).

Hopefully, there should not be any issues in accessing the slides.

Thanks,

4


Tel:Mob:


<image001.jpg>



From: >Sent: 19 September 2019 15:53To: >; David Tucker<[email protected]>Cc: >Subject: Re: NPCC Mankind Training

Hi David,

We now have an electronic copy on the Mankind Training pack for you to view. However, due to itssize we are unable to forward the document to yourself and because of the security locks on thedocument we are unable to compress it.

Hestia have offered to drop off a USB version which we could send over to yourself, alternatively wecould send you a photocopy.

Could you please let me know which option suits you best and where we could deliver the USB orhardcopy to yourselves.

Thanks,


Tel:Mob:


<image001.jpg>

From:Sent: 09 September 2019 14:59To: David Tucker <[email protected]>

5

Cc: >Subject: RE: NPCC CoP Ltr HO Mankind FINAL.pdf

Hi David

Thanks for your letter and for raising your concerns with us. The funding was awarded to Hestia, inpartnership with Galop and ManKind, to undertake activity to support male victims of domesticabuse, with training for police being one strand. We will get in touch with the organisations toexplore your concerns further and come back to you.

Kind regards


<image002.jpg>


Please find a letter from Louisa Rolfe and me regarding ManKind training that we believe has beencommissioned by Home Office.

Best wishes,

david

*****************************************************************





6


*****************************************************************


**********************************************************************

+

Domestic Abuse Awareness

‘Supporting Male Victims’

England & Wales Police Forces

April 2019 – March 2020

Funded by the Home Office

Housekeeping

• Fire Alarm Tests planned for today?

• Fire Exits are …

• Male and Female Toilets are located …

• Please ensure mobile phones are

switched off or turned to silent

• Health check

• Confidentiality

Today’s Trainer

Marilyn Selwood

The ManKind Initiative

Tel: 01823 334229

e-mail: [email protected]

www.mankind.org.uk


Purpose of the Training

To raise awareness and gain a better understanding of the issues

affecting male victims of domestic abuse and how to support

them

• Module 1: Background and Statistics

• Module 2: Domestic & partner abuse against men

• Module 3: Male victims: lived experiences and barriers

• Module 4: The signs of male domestic abuse and what you can do

• Module 5: How they can escape

• Module 6: How support services should respond

• Module 7: Male victim friendly – policy, services and

communications

• Summary

Module 1 - ManKind Initiative

Helping men and their children escape from domestic abuse

• First British Charity (over 18 years) set up to support male victims

and their families. Set up and run by women and men

• Based in Somerset providing:

– Direct services (helpline and drop-in)

– Advocacy through training presentations and helping others

– Statutory Boards (CPS, NICE, ONS, DAFs)

– National Conference

– Website (80,000 users per year)

– Specialist training for Armed Forces Welfare Staff

• Produced #violenceisviolence video: over 20 million hits on

various sites around the world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3PgH86OyEM


ManKind Initiative

Training Framework

• More victims are women

• Services are needed for men however no services

should be taken away from female victims

• Domestic abuse is not a gendered crime (gender

inclusion)

• All laws, public policy and guidance are gender neutral

• This training is about the differences (the gender

inclusive approach)

Domestic/Partner Abuse

The cross-government definition of domestic violence

and abuse is:

Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive,

threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those

aged 16 or over who are, or have been, intimate partners

or family members regardless of gender or sexuality. The

abuse can encompass, but is not limited to:

Psychological, physical, sexual, financial, emotional (also

stalking, forced marriage/honour and cyber

stalking/revenge porn)

Domestic/Partner Abuse

Controlling behaviour is: a range of acts designed to

make a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating

them from sources of support, exploiting their resources

and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the

means needed for independence, resistance and escape

and regulating their everyday behaviour.

Coercive behaviour is: an act or a pattern of assault,

threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is

used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim.

Quiz

Overall Picture

Recognition and context

• 60% of male victims do not recognise they’re a victim

• 29% of men who suffer partner abuse have physical injuries

• 26% of victims who have children and live with their partners

are men

• Same pattern as for women in terms of lifestyle (age, marital

status, social class and home ownership)

• 49%of gay/bi men experience at least one incident of DVA

since the age of 16

• Younger men are more likely to be victim but leave sooner

• Almost 6,000 women are prosecuted every year for domestic

abuse (69,000 men)

Overall Picture

Crime (2017/18)

• 1 in 6 men and 1 in 4 women will be a victim in their

lifetime

• 1 in 3 men are victims of partner abuse every year

(404,000 men & 936,000 women)

• 7 men were killed by partner or ex-partner (63 women)

• 159,000 men (480,000 women) reported to Police

• 1 in 5 victims of forced marriage are men

• 1 in 4 victims of stalking are male

• 1 in 4 victims of revenge porn are men

Police Data – Wiltshire

The national average is 24%Source; ONS

Police data for WILTSHIRE

YearMale

victims

Female

victims‘Unknown’ Total

Male % of

total

2012 456 1712 54 2222 21%

2013 652 2231 105 2988 23%

2014 1348 4431 0 5779 23%

2015 1415 4614 0 6029 23%

2016 1665 3663 76 5404 31%

2017 1891 5963 0 7854 24%

Total 7427 22614 235 30276 25%

National Police Data

Year Male VictimsFemale

Victims‘Unknown’ Total

Average %

of male

victims

2012 73,554 311,606 2,176 387,336 19%

2013 91,548 330,051 2,227 423,826 20%

2014 105,830 392,832 9,323 507,985 21%

2015 119,078 418,444 12,445 549,967 22%

2016 134,914 432,709 9,697 577,320 24%

2017 158,974 482,157 17,749 658,880 24%

TOTAL 683,898 2,367,799 53,617 3,105,314

Overall Picture

Who do men tell?

• Male victims (49%) are 2.5 times more likely than

women (19%) not to tell anyone they are a victim

• 25% of male victims (46% women) will tell their family,

32% (53% women) will tell a friend/neighbour and 14%

will tell work colleagues (11% women).

• 15% of male victims will tell the police (18% women) and

11% (21% women) will tell a health professional

• Homophobia / biphobia / transphobia further silence GBT

victims in addition to the abuse

Helpline Trends

Our helpline receives over 1,800 victims calls per year

• 50% of men who call have never told anyone

• 71% of those who say would only call if anonymous

• Suffering an average of 3 years before they call us

• c35-45 average age but do get full age range including

pensioners

• 66% have children in the household

• 20% of callers are family, friends & professionals

Type of Abuse

Average length of abuse reported to the helpline is 6 years with the longest being over 30 years

Source MKI helpline survey 2017/18

Emotional 95%

Physical 64%

Financial 20%

Sexual 3%

Psychological 35%

Coercive control 14%

Who can it happen to?

Young and Old People

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi6saKwuo7iAhWYBWMBHR-KB1YQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/domesticabuseinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2017&psig=AOvVaw0rEgX6aGaHOLdjzgR--R2V&ust=1557490741535262

Module 2 - Domestic Abuse

and Men

Male P&C wheel

Power & Control Wheel

Using privilege

Emotional abuse

Economic abuse

Using children or

petsSexual abuse

Threats

Isolation

Intimidation

Cycle Of Abuse

Power and Control

Domestic abuse and partner abuse is about controlling and

coercing a partner – to exert power so they have no identity

or independence.

All victims with some male nuances

Physical, verbal, isolation, emotional, financial, sexual,

threats, use of children & pets, stalking, family

intimidation, use of sexuality, digital & social media

Distinct male experiences

• Use of children whilst still in household & post separation

• Parental alienation

• False allegations and threats

Group Exercise

In your 5 groups use the flipchart paper provided to list;

On the left – different acts of abuse…..

• Slapping• Kicking• Poking• Burning

On the right – the signs of this type of abuse…..

• Bruising• Flinching• Scratches

• Change of clothing

Physical Abuse

Physical Abuse is any behaviour which hurts, wounds or is

intended to do so

• The most visible and most lethal

• Fear or anticipation of violence/physical intimidation

• Assaults start small then escalate - small shove,

grabbing the wrist/arm/hair, being kicked, punched,

pinched, slapped, choked and bitten

• Women will often use objects rather than direct violence

- knives, weapons, scalding, burning and poisoning

Psychological

& Emotional Abuse The impact of psychological abuse can be more devastating than

physical assault and have much longer term effects.

• Often goes unseen and harder to prove, the victim often may not

recognise they are being abused.

• Combination of other abusive traits all at the same time such as

intimidations, threats, verbal abuse, isolation and stalking

• Undermines sense of self worth, self belief, confidence, sense of

identity

• Deliberately inconsistent behaviour towards the victim by the

perpetrator (praises victims one day, calls him a failure the next)

• Particular techniques include:

- Gaslighting

- Prevent leaving relationship using threats to child access

- False allegations

Verbal Abuse

Verbal abuse undermines sense of self worth, self belief,

confidence and sense of identity (erosion process)

• Constant barrage

• Traits include;

- Name calling / putting down (worse when in front of

others – especially peers)

- Using critical, insulting or humiliating remarks

- Withholding conversation

- Ridicule / being laughed at criticism

- Abusive words in the written / text form

Isolation

A victim is cut off from their social and family networks

leaving no means of escape and no alternative sources of

identity or power for the victim (part of the grooming process)

The abuser will control:

• Who the victim sees, who they speak to & what they do

• Restrict use of the phone and email

• Does not allow friends or family to visit

• No more after work drinks or going to the football

• Often will use familial alienation

Gay/bi men may be further isolated from their LGBT+

community or be ostracised from family/friends

Financial abuse

Financial abuse can take many forms and is often not recognised as abusive. Society has different expectations for men & women financially.

• Money used to further control the victim

• Denying access to funds

• Demanding explanations for every penny spent,

scrutinising all bills & receipts

• Gifting – inconsistent with victims financial status

particularly with young people

• The abuser often shifts responsibility of providing for the

family onto the victim at the same time denying them

ability to do so

Sexual Abuse

Sexual abuse can be defined as any sexual encounter

without consent and includes any unwanted touching or

forced activity.

• Threats to leave to find a ‘real man’

• If they don’t ‘perform’ they will be ‘punished’ and abuser

requires proof “you love me”

• The abuser may insist on ‘make up sex’ following a physical

attack to ‘prove’ they have been forgiven

• Continued taunts about sexual prowess or performance

• Male sexual abuse does happen at the hands of a female

partner although not always recognised in law

• Higher levels of sexual violence & exploitation is experienced

by GBT men by male partners

Threats / Intimidation

Threats are designed to further control the victim by instilling fear

and ensuring compliance.

• Part of psychological and emotional abuse & can be as

debilitating as physical violence

• Victims do not doubt the abusers ability carry out threats

• Abusers often demonstrates their ability to harm by displaying

aggressive behaviour

• Includes threats to have victim ‘locked up’ or ‘sectioned’

• Abuser frequently threatens to leave, self harm or end their life

• Threats by family members including dowry system

• Threats to employment or positions of trust

• GBT victims often further threatened because of sexuality or

gender identity

Intimidation – Verbal Abuse

https://vimeo.com/233453642

A film produced by City College Norwich students working with Norfolk Police



Using Children and Pets

Abusers will often use children and/or pets as

‘weapons’.

• Threatening to leave with the children or prevent

contact

• Reporting partner to Social Services as an unfit or

abusive parent

• Using children as a ‘go-between’

• Threatening to harm or have the family pet ‘put

down’

• Parental Alienation & misuse of Family Courts

Online Harassment

& Social Media

Cyber-stalking or on-line harassment is defined as

unwanted communication that causes fear, alarm or

distress and is more often experienced from ex partners.

• Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.)

– false and malicious information on the victims or others’ social

media about the victim

– trolling

– no control on your content or not allowed to have access

– use of revenge porn

• Stalking, GPS tracking & hidden apps

• Monitoring e-mail – personal & work

• Increased and/or abusive mobile phone calls & texts

False Allegations

Male victims are increasingly reporting they have been falsely

accused by their abuser claiming they are the one that has been

abused. Others state they are threatened with false allegations if

they leave.

False allegations can be used as a tactic to access Legal Aid with

some professionals recommending it but never in writing!

Abusers can also use this tactic including accusations of child abuse

to thwart child contact.

False allegations appear to serve three major perpetrator functions:

• providing an alibi

• seeking revenge

• obtaining sympathy and attention

Self Harming

In order to deflect the attention from themselves and their

abuse, the abuser can use extreme measures such as:

• Burning themselves

• Cutting themselves

• Bruising themselves

They then claim to the police, GP, A&E, Health Visitor or

other professionals that they are the victim. They will often

create evidence to support this.

So Called ‘Honour’ Based Abuse

A growing number of victims report ‘Honour’ based abuse from extended family or their wider community.

• Forcing or trying to force the victim to marry a chosen wife

• Using the dowry system as a form of control

• May include threats to other family members & friends

• Forcing the victim to work in the family business

• Expecting them to follow a certain way of life

• May include genital mutilation

Stalking

Stalking is a term commonly used to refer to unwanted, obsessive attention and is a crime in it’s own right

• Willful and repeated following or watching

• Obscene or silent phone calls

• Multiple text messages, emails, calls, etc.

• Damaging property

• Tracking via GPS or other methods/devices

One in every three people who is stalked is a man.

Most stalkers are former partners or friends of their victims.

Case of Extreme Stalking

A Dutch woman called / text / e-mailed

victim

65,000 times in one year!!!

This equates to an average of

178 calls/ text / e-mails

Per Day!!! (News Europe 14 September 2011)

Controlling & Coercive

BehaviourThe new offence came into force on 29 December 2015.

An offence is committed if the perpetrator repeatedly or continuously engages in

behaviour towards the victim, that is controlling or coercive.

There are two ways in which it can be proved that the perpetrators behaviour has a

'serious effect' on the victim:

If it causes the victim to fear, on at least two occasions, that violence will be used

against them or if it causes the victim serious alarm or distress which has a

substantial adverse effect on their day-to-day activities.

This may include, but is not limited to:

• Stopping or changing the way someone socialises

• Physical or mental health deterioration

• A change in routine at home including those associated with mealtimes or household

chores

• Attendance record at school

• Putting in place measures at home to safeguard themselves or their children

• Changes to work patterns, employment status or routes to work

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/controlling-or-coercive-behaviour-intimate-or-family-relationship

The Effects

What do you think are the effects of

Domestic Abuse on a male?

The Effects

• Physical and psychological damage

• Loss of self esteem and self confidence

• High level of stress / anxiety

• Depression / Panic attacks

• Eating disorders/Obsessive behaviours

• Isolation/withdrawal from others

• Appearing scared or jumpy

• Aggressive / defensive behaviour

• Drug or alcohol abuse

• Sleep deprivation or insomnia

• Suicidal thoughts or attempts

• Bankruptcy and other financial ramifications

Alex’s Story

Alex Skeel’s former partner Jordan Worth was the first

female in the UK to receive a custodial sentence for

COERCIVE & CONTROLLING BEHAVIOUR.

Jordan was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison in 2017.

Medical professionals believed that Alex was just 10 days

from death when he finally received treatment.

Alex’s Story

Effects on Family and Friends

• Many victims of domestic abuse suffer in silence feeling

too embarrassed & afraid to tell anyone about the abuse

• Often family, friends & colleagues discover the abuse

only when it has got so bad the victim cannot hide it

anymore

• Family and friends experience a whole range of

emotions once they become aware of the abuse:

– Anger

– Guilt

– Sorrow

– Helplessness

– Frustration

IS IT THAT TIME ALREADY?

Module 3 - Lived Experiences

and Barriers

20 Stories

https://youtu.be/MbH4vZv774g

https://youtu.be/MbH4vZv774g

Cycle Of Abuse

Male Specific Barriers

1. Masculinity

2. Belief systems

3. Lack of public policy & story

4. Lack of visible services

Men feel trapped and isolated as these bear down on them

in addition to the abuse they are suffering.

Three times more men than women

tell no-one they are a victim.

(1) Masculinity

The male script developed by three British leading psychologists (Seagars, Barry and Sullivan):

(1) Be resilient

(2) Be a provider and a protector

(3) Control over your own life and choices

“Men will seek help and are as emotionally literate as

women but they do so in different ways” (M Seagars)

Additional points from Tim Samuels (Who Stole My Spear):

(4) Men like to be liked

(5) Sense of belonging

(6) Men want to be taken seriously and be respected by others

What do we think

a man looks like?

1) Using your stick man, draw what

you think a stereotypical MALE looks like

2) Using your stick man, draw what

you think a stereotypical MALE VICTIM

looks like

Think about his hobbies, clothing, career,

family life, income, social patterns, etc.

Masculine Outcomes

Male victims;

• Do not understand or recognise they are a victim

• Feel a sense of shame, embarrassment and lack of pride

• Do not have control

• ‘Magical Male Thinking’ (If I ignore problem it might go away)

• Do not want to draw attention to problems

• Minimise and cope

• Feel they are not strong, resilient or providing security

• See it as a weakness & may be stigmatised for getting help

• Will not leave children behind

• Feel alone but hide it

#Violenceisviolence


At least 20 million hits (on 50 sites around the world)



(2) Belief Systems and

Societal OutcomesBritish societal belief system is still that only women can be

victims of domestic abuse, some support agencies or

individuals have the views that:

• Men cannot be victims

• Men generally need less help

• Male victims should be ridiculed, blamed or must have

done something to deserve it

• Violence against a man is more acceptable

• Women cannot be perpetrators

• Male victims are often told it’s “just a domestic”

• GBT victims not identified as it is seen as ‘mutual abuse’

Belief Systems and

Societal OutcomesThe views of influential policy and decision makers can be

responsible for the unsupportive actions of commissioners.

They often reflect the opinion that:

• Men are less deserving of help

• Men should just “man up”

• Men should change and use current service provision

• Men have more money so can easily escape

• Men do not need safe houses/refuge accommodation

• Men do not have children to care for

• Men can physically & emotionally bear more risk

Belief Systems and

Victim Outcomes

Therefore male victims feel;

• They won’t be believed by friends, family, work colleagues,

police, health service or other professionals

• They will face ridicule from their male peers

• They will be the ones accused of being abusive

• They are the only man ever to suffer this

• Must have done something to deserve it (self blame)

• Losing contact with children

• Fear of the unknown (Where to go? What to do?)

• There is no help available

Social Red Lines

Part of female socialisation, they are not taught not to harm a man:

they have no red lines

Part of male socialisation, they are taught not to harm a woman: they have a red

line

Part of male socialisation, they are not told they could be a victim

of domestic abuse: they have no expectation

Part of female socialisation, they are told they could

be a victim of domestic abuse:

they have an expectation

Dr Nicola Graham-Kevan

Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Central Lancashire

(3) Public Policy and Story

UK Law is currently defined as gender neutral but policy makers believe

domestic abuse is gendered (female victim/multi dimensional).

This can lead to;

• The view that ‘women have problems - men are problems’ and

therefore men are less deserving of support (Empathy Gap)

• Lack of inclusion in domestic abuse policy, strategy and plans (VAWG

relegates male victims to a footnote)

• Men and their children becoming second class victims

• Funding is primarily for female refuges (c130 bed spaces for men in

the UK, only 34 dedicated)

• Lack of male-victim friendly services and information on the ground

(specialist DV services, housing, GP surgeries, courts)

• Still some pockets of disbelief when men disclose (police and courts)

• Lack of training for front line staff

Examples

• Male victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence & abuse, forced

marriage and stalking are classed as “Violence Against Women and

Girls crimes” by Home Office, CPS and Police when reporting.

• “Women are much more likely than men to be victims of high risk or

severe domestic abuse, and therefore more in need of refuges and

other forms of specialist accommodation based services. We expect

our fund will primarily focus on the needs of women and children

suffering violence as set out in our VAWG Strategy”

• “Police and Crime Commissioners, local authorities and health

commissioners to support community-based services and promote

best practice. They will be encouraged to make joint bids for funding

with women’s charities…”

Who is telling the story?

• Lack of conversation about the issue of male domestic

abuse by people, society, media and the state reinforces

barriers to self-recognition, disclosure and escape.

• Female victim dominated conversation leaves male

victims voiceless and feeling that no other man has been

a victim so no one will believe them.

• There is a gender empathy gap towards men who are

vulnerable which is reflected in their lack of voice.

Communication Example

“One in five women and one in ten men will be a victim of

stalking” – Home Secretary December 2016

Poster for female victims Poster for male victims


Disrespect Nobody Campaign

“If you’re checking your

girlfriends phone…”

“If your boyfriend is telling

you how to dress…”

“If you turn to violence

when your girlfriend

disagrees with you…”

All examples portray girls as victims and boys as perpetrators


Home Office Domestic Abuse consultation March 2018

Tweeted 21 March 2018 #thisisabuse

Oct 2018 – Co-operative Bank Financial Abuse Campaign

Tweet from Oct

2018 in relation to

an on-going

storyline in

Coronation Street

whereby Tracy

finds out Steve has

cheated on her and

punches him in the

face.

Sky News (Jan 2017)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_-cRCQwVVc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_-cRCQwVVc

Funny…or not so funny

Good Communications

Bin men in Tameside helping get the message out that no matter what your

gender or your group, you can speak out about abusive relationships.

Good Communications

Communications

Either run separate or identical gender specific campaigns.

Gender neutral ‘all victims’ campaigns will not help men as they just ‘assume’ campaigns are for women only – all effective campaigns must say ‘male’ and ‘female’.

Communication campaigns should be based on five factors:

1. Masculinity Messaging

2. Design

3. Location

4. Methods

5. Case Studies and third party endorsement

Tell the public story be gender inclusive

CPS Public Statement

Matters are changing

In 2017 the UK issued the first-ever public

statement on male victims for VAWG crimes by

prosecuting authority in the world recognising

there are barriers to male victims reporting such

crimes.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/equality/vaw/public-statement-male-victims-

crimes-covered-by-CPS-VAWG-strategy.pdf

(4) Lack of Visible Services

Problems:

• Lack of voice means lack of people speaking up for services

• Limited services mean men feel nowhere to go to and when

they do disclose, where can they be helped / referred to?

• One of Britain’s last great taboo’s – the main population do

not ‘want’ to talk about it – so need leadership

Requirements:

• Need political and service leaders to be leaders for all victims

• Need strong awareness campaigns

• Need good literature and websites

• Need visible services

Things are getting better

Contracting Example

Bromley Council (June 2019 & Jan

2017))…As a requirement of the contract we are asking that the

provider shall deliver the following as part of the Domestic

Violence and VAWG Service:

✓ Independent Domestic and Sexual Violence Advisors

addressing all forms of VAWG.

× Standard, Medium and High level support to females

× An appropriate service for male victims and relevant

signposting when necessary.

DASH &

Lack of Risk Assessment• ONS statistics show that one third of men have

experienced Domestic Abuse

• Police statistics show 20-25% of domestic abuse

reports from men

• However, only 5% of cases heard at MARAC are for

male victims

• Only 1.2% of referrals to MARAC were for high risk

LGBT victims whereas 1 in 4 LGBT people have

disclosed experiencing DVA

• GBT victims are more likely to present with higher levels

of risk and complex needs

Why Is This?

• Under-reporting

• Non-recording

• Under-recording

For example; DASH Question 9: Are you pregnant or have

you recently had a baby (within the last 18 months)?

There is a risk attached to using MARAC numbers as a

proxy for the amount of High Risk male victims, giving

falsely low statistics.

Progress

Oak Book Directory

• 2012: c65 support organisations

• 2018: c184 support organisations

Refuge/Safe House

• 2012: 8 organisations offer refuge or safe

house (36 spaces – 17 dedicated)

• 2018: 26 organisations (130 spaces – 34

dedicated)

Refuge and Safe Houses

26 refuges or safe

houses

130 bed spaces

34 for men

96 non-dedicated

(available for men or

women)

Module 4 - The Signs of

Domestic Abuse

Key Signs

1. Changes in behaviour or demeanour

2. Changes in physical appearance

3. Changes in contact pattern

4. Changes in work behaviour

Think about your stick men this morning…..

(1) Behaviour Changes

From being a physically or mentally ‘active’ person

to becoming ‘passive’ (always something else on

his mind)

• Nervous or tense

• Insular

• Clockwatching

• Non-committal

• No longer laughs, joins in or engages

• Fatigued – looking or feeling tired all the time

(2) Physical Changes

Physical appearance and/or demeanour changes:

• Visible bruising and/or single or repeated injury

with unlikely explanations (“walked into door”)

• Change in the manner of dress (long sleeves)

• Not caring about appearance (physical and

clothing)

• Looks unwell (tired)

• Increased alcohol and drug intake

(3) Contact Pattern

• No longer sees or contacts friends

• No longer sees family

• No longer goes to regular social or sporting events

• Constantly checking phone and emails

(sometimes has no mobile anymore)

• Constantly receiving calls where he does not

take part (being talked at), monitored

(4) Work Behaviour

All of the changes included in the previous three

slides plus:

• Impact on punctuality and attendance including

lateness, illness, leave early or exactly on time.

Alternatively they are in work too much!

• Reduced quality and quantity of work

• Change in the use of the phone / email

• Clothes change (un-ironed shirt, scuffed shoes

etc)

Employee Stats

• 56% arrive late for work at least five times

a month

• 28% leave early at least five days a month

• 53% miss at least three days of work a

month

Victim Support

What You Can Do?

• Believe them

• Do not judge them

• Reassure them

• Focus on supporting him and building self confidence

• Encourage him to seek the help

• Be patient

• Find sources of help for them (call helplines on their

behalf)

Report by Citizen’s Advice Bureau called “Linking the Chain”

The Three R’s

RecogniseRespond Record

Module 5 - How Men Can Escape

and Access Help

Why Stay?

Why Stay?

• Concerned about the children: 89%

• Marriage for life: 81%

• Love: 71%

• Never see the kids again: 68%

• Thinks she’ll change: 56%

• Not enough money: 53%

• Nowhere to go: 52%

• Embarrassed: 52%

• Doesn’t want to take the kids away: 46%

• She threatened to kill herself: 28%

• Fears she’ll kill him/someone else he loves: 24%(Hines and Douglas 2011)

Planning & Support Networks

Creating a strategy and plan is vital to escaping and must

include:

• Formulating a plan and assembling a support network if

you can (trusted friend or family member)

• Gathering evidence

• Informing the authorities

• Exit Plan A - strategy (planned leave)

• Exit Plan B - strategy (back up strategy if you need to

go urgently)

Gathering Evidence

Victims should;

• Keep a diary of all incidents

• Log each incident (always noting the time and date as

well as any witnesses)

• Take photos of any damage to you, property or

belongings (always note the time and date)

• Save all text messages, emails and voicemails

• Consider using app i.e. BrightSky & On Record to

store info securely

Informing the Authorities

Victims should;

• Report each incident of injury to GP or hospital

• Report each incident to a specialist trained Domestic

Violence Officer

– Make appointment to see the Officer in person

– Obtain Crime or Log Reference number (crucial)

– Take an IDVA if possible or other support

• Take advice regarding injunctions from a reliable solicitor

who is experienced in working with domestic abuse

victims.

Local Provision

Organisation Telephone Category Web address

Booth House Swindon 01793 401830 Housing www.salvationarmy.org.uk/booth-house-swindon

Cotswold Centre (MOD)Civilian: 01225 810 358

Military: 94382 4521Armed Forces

www.gov.uk/government/publications/services-cotswold-centre/services-

cotswold-centre

HELP Counselling 0117 950 2511 Counselling www.help-counselling.org.uk/index

HELP Counselling Services (H.C.S.) 01225 767 459 Counselling www.helpcounselling.co.uk

Revival Wiltshire RASAC 01225 751 568 Sexual Abuse/Rape www.revival-wiltshirerasac.org.uk

Salisbury Trust for the Homeless01722 338510

07940 834 915Housing www.stfh.org.uk

SEAP'S Military Advocacy Service (mAs) 0330 440 9000 Advocacy - Military www.seap.org.uk/services/mas

Splitz Support Service 01225 775276 Information & Support www.splitz.org/wiltshire

Stopping Violence Programme (The) 01225 775276 Perpetrators www.splitz.org/perpetrator-programmes

Swindon Woman's Aid 01793 610 610 (24 hr) Information & Support www.swindonwomensaid.org

The Swindon & Wiltshire Sexual Assault

Referral Centre01793 781916 Sexual Abuse/Rape www.firstlight.org.uk/swindonwiltshiresarc

Turnaround Programme (The) 01225 775276 Perpetrators - Male www.splitz.org

Wiltshire Counselling Service (Part of

Wiltshire Mind)01225 706532 Counselling www.wiltshiremind.co.uk

Wiltshire Joint Advocacy Outreach Project Advocacy www.swanadvocacy.org.uk/advocacy/wiltshire-joint-advocacy-outreach-project

Wiltshire Law Centre 01793 486 926 Legal - not family www.wiltslawcentre.org.uk

Wiltshire Mind 01225 706532 Mental Health www.wiltshiremind.co.uk

http://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/booth-house-swindon

http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/services-cotswold-centre/services-cotswold-centre

http://www.help-counselling.org.uk/index

http://www.helpcounselling.co.uk/

https://www.revival-wiltshirerasac.org.uk/

http://www.stfh.org.uk/

http://www.seap.org.uk/services/mas

http://www.splitz.org/wiltshire

http://www.splitz.org/perpetrator-programmes

https://www.swindonwomensaid.org/

http://www.firstlight.org.uk/swindonwiltshiresarc

http://www.splitz.org/

http://www.wiltshiremind.co.uk/

http://www.swanadvocacy.org.uk/advocacy/wiltshire-joint-advocacy-outreach-project

http://www.wiltslawcentre.org.uk/

http://www.wiltshiremind.co.uk/

Where to refer - nationally

Specialist Services;

• Karma Nirvana – supports victims of Honour Based

Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline 0800 5999 247

• GALOP – LGBT+ DVA Helpline 0800 999 5428

• DV Assist – Free confidential help in obtaining injunctions

0800 195 8699

• NCDV – 24hr Helpline & free injunction advice

0800 970 2070

• National Stalking Helpline – supports victims of stalking

0808 802 0300

Exit Strategy A: Planned leave

Victims should plan when, how and where to escape to.

• Ensure all items are close to hand, easily accessible

and if possible leave them with a trusted friend.

• Inform safe friend or family member - at least tell

someone.

• Take originals or copies of key documents and items for

both self and children:

Passport, NI details, birth certificate, bank details,

credit/debit cards, medication, driving licence, car

documents, keys, housing tenure documents, address

book, important telephone numbers

Exit Strategy B: Urgent Leave

The following information should be given to victims planning to leave an abusive relationship if the exit is urgent (victim is at a high risk of injury)

• If possible escape from the situation and leave the premises

(personal safety is paramount)

• If not possible to leave, lock themselves in a room and call 999.

• Stay on the line with the operator until police arrive.

• Do not retaliate physically or verbally - this could lead to arrest

• Report abuse to the police

• Tell family and friends immediately exactly what is happening

(do not cover up the abuse or make excuses)

• Take advice regarding injunctions from a reliable DA solicitor

Module 6 - How to Respond

Group Exercise

In your 5 groups read the scenario and

decide what actions you would take.

You have ten minutes to discuss.

Scenario 1

You are a paramedic attending a call out in the early hours of the

morning to a male in his early 50’s. He is very drunk and has multiple

injuries of varying ages. The injuries include scratches to the face and

neck, bruises to the torso and bite marks.

You are doing initial assessments at the scene and a female arrives.

She is the partner of the male. She is aggressive and challenging.

Whilst in the ambulance the patient discloses that the female has

caused the injuries but then quickly denies this, saying he was joking.

When you arrive at A&E you handover to the triage nurse.

What action do you take to safeguard the patient?

Scenario 2

You are a nurse at a primary school. You are made aware of on-going

incidents at the father’s home of one of the Year 1 pupils. The child

does not reside there and Mother is stopping contact as she has

become increasingly concerned about her daughters safety.

It has been reported that father’s new partner/wife is abusing him

physically.

The child appears to be well cared for and no concerns are reported

directly in relation to her.

Your school’s policy is to follow up any safeguarding concerns within 48

hours. You are busy getting ready for the new intake in September.

What action do you take?

Scenario 3

You are a Police Officer on duty on an evening shift. You take a call out

to a house after a young person has called 999 and reported their

stepfather being assaulted by their mother.

When you arrive at the address the caller has locked themselves in the

bathroom and both adults appear to be heavily under the influence of

alcohol. There are other children present at the address.

The stepfather has injuries to his face but claims they were caused by

him walking into a door. The young person insists that the injuries were

caused by the mother assaulting the stepfather.

When you get back to the station you write up your report and check

PNC (Police National Computer) and see that there have been several

call outs for the female and she has a history of violent behaviour.

Despite the male denying any assault, what action do you take?

Scenario 4

You are a Practice Nurse at a GP Surgery. At morning surgery you are

visited by a middle aged male patient and his female partner.

She reports that he is feeling very low, crying a lot and his alcohol

consumption has increased recently. He does not talk in her presence

but when she leaves he breaks down and says he is struggling to cope

with her behaviour.

You are aware that the female partner is known to services locally and

you are concerned about his welfare. You suggest he comes back to

see a GP at the earliest convenience.

When you look on the patients notes you see that he visited the GP just

a few months earlier with an injury to his shoulder caused by the

female.

Is there anything else you might do?

Scenario 5

You are at work when you notice a colleague has injuries to his face.

He tells you that he incurred them after falling off a ladder whilst doing

some DIY at the weekend.

Over the next few months you notice a change in his behaviour. He

becomes withdrawn. He struggles to focus at work and has more time

off sick.

At the Christmas party you notice him and his new partner having an

argument and she pours a drink over his head.

He later tells you that she’s been violent towards him. She’s stabbed

him and caused injuries to his arm and his head.

Would you report this to anyone? What do you think will happen?

In memory of David Edwards

These scenarios are based on the findings from the homicide review that

took place following the murder of David Edwards.

We have carried out this exercise with the kind permission of his family.

The Domestic Homicide Review can be found at:

http://chorley.gov.uk/Documents/Enviromental%20Health/DHR%20Final%20Version%20for

%20DE%20amended%20March%2014th%202018.pdf

Acknowledgement-Positive-Action

Combination of three key themes that recognise and work

within Masculinity and the associated Belief Systems:

(1) Acknowledge and believe they are a victim

(2) Ensure they receive a positive response from

your service

(3) Build an action plan

(4) Refer them to specialist services where

necessary such as Galop & Karma Nirvana

Acknowledgement

The first five seconds is everything

• believe them & reassure them you understand

Then

• actively listen/let them talk (no interruptions unless need to prompt)

• be patient & non-judgemental

• acknowledge what they are experiencing are abusive behaviours

• build trust and rapport

• reassure them about their disclosure and whether it is confidential

Remember

• it is likely that you are the first person they have ever told

• they want to know your service is male-victim-friendly

• they will not necessarily believe they are a victim

Do’s and Don'ts

Do:

• Ask if something is wrong

• Express concern

• Listen and validate

• Offer help

• Support their decisions (even if you disagree with them)

Don’t:

• Wait for them to come to you

• Judge or blame

• Pressure them

• Tell them what to do

• Place conditions on your support

Action

• Encourage them to build an action plan - men want

practical actions

• Talk about how others have escaped – use positive male

case studies

• Tell them it is a sign of strength to seek to help

Challenge society’s stereotypes

Do not be surprised if they are not in touch

after receiving initial support

A Word About Screening

As an anonymous confidential helpline, we do not advocate the screening of all callers for this type of service.

Screening is only appropriate when it is a direct face to face service and warranted.

• Cannot be confident you are making the right judgement

• Men who are not believed will not contact any service making them and their children more vulnerable

• Unethical to promote a service asking people to contact you and then not automatically believing them

• Equality policy would mean screening all victims regardless of gender

Relationships

In your groups open the envelope on your table and decide

which statement goes where on the matrix.

For example;

“Your partner ignores you and does not respect your

opinions when there is a difference of opinion.”

Is this a healthy, unhealthy or abusive way of

communicating?

Healthy Unhealthy Abusive

Communicating

Your partner ignores you

and does not respect your

opinions when there is a

difference of opinion.

RelationshipsHealthy Unhealthy Abusive

Sharing feelings You feel safe and strong enough to tell

your partner how you really feel.

You feel awkward telling your partner

how you really feel.

You are afraid to tell your partner how

you really feel because you fear getting

put down or threatened.

Communicating You respect and listen to each other

even when you have differing opinions

on a topic.

Your partner ignores you and does not

respect your opinions when there is a

difference of opinion.

Your partner treats you with disrespect

and ignores or makes fun of your ideas

and feelings.

Disagreements You can have disagreements and still

talk respectfully to each other. You

resolve your disagreements.

Your disagreements often turn into

fights.

You are afraid to disagree because you

do not want to unleash your partner’s

anger and violence. The disagreement

is an excuse for abuse.

Intimacy and Sex Both of you can be honest about your

feelings about physical affection and

sex. Neither of you feels pressured to do

anything you do not want to do.

You are embarrassed to say how you

feel because you think your partner may

not listen or care. You “go along” with

some things.

Your partner ignores your needs and

wants. Your partner pushes you into

situations that make you uncomfortable

or frighten or degrade you.

Trust You trust each other. You are

comfortable with your partner spending

time with another person.

Your partner feels jealous every time

you talk to another person. You feel

jealous every time your partner talks to

another person.

Your partner accuses you of flirting or

having an affair, and orders you not to

talk to another person.

Time Alone You can each spend time alone and

consider this a healthy part of your

relationship.

You think there may be something

wrong if you want to do things without

your partner. Your partner tries to keep

you to themself.

Your partner does not allow you to

spend time doing things on your own.

Your partner sees this as a challenge or

threat to your relationship.

Violence You and your partner take care not to

speak harsh words or make mean

comments. There is no physical violence

in your relationship.

There have been a few incidents of

emotional abuse or controlling behaviour

in your relationship. There is no pattern

of abuse or violence.

There is a pattern of increasing, on-

going abuse in your relationship:

emotional, physical, sexual and/or

intimidation.

Module 7 - Male Friendly

Domestic Abuse Services

In Summary

Male victims and their children need;

Inclusive and equal approach to recognition

Inclusive equitable approach to provision

• Political, commissioner and service provider leadership

• Partnership working across statutory and third sector

(including co-commissioning)

• Local male victim friendly services

• Strong male victim friendly awareness campaigns

• Good communications, literature and websites

Legal and Political Tests

The government Domestic Abuse definition is gender

neutral:

• Male and female victims are equal under the law,

guidance and equalities act.

• Same duty of support for a man or woman with same

level of risk and need

The Equalities Commission previously used:

“Men. Women. Same. Different.”

Key Laws

Same laws, legal duties, statutory guidelines and statutory

duties apply for men (with children) as they do for women

(with children)

Key specific laws

• Care Act 2014: Adult Safeguarding

• Serious Crime Act 2015: Controlling and Coercion

• Housing Act 1996: Emergency Housing

• Equality Act 2010 and Public Sector Equality Duty

Protection Measures

All of these legal protection measures apply to male victims

as well:

• Non-Molestation Orders (civil court)

• Restraining Orders (criminal court)

• Legal Aid criteria

• Domestic Violence Protection Notices / Orders

(DVPN/DVPO)

• Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme

(DVDS known as Clare’s Law)

• Stalking & Harassment Protection Orders

• Forced Marriage Protection Orders

Forced Marriage Protection Orders

A FMPO is a civil law remedy, the aim of which is to provide protection to someone who

is at risk of or has already been, forced into a marriage without giving their full and

free consent.

A FMPO can be sought under Section 63A of the Family Law Act 1996 ( Part 4A,

Family Law Act 1996 was created by the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act

2007) and will be unique to each case, contain legally binding conditions and

directions aimed at changing the behaviour of a person or persons trying to force

someone into marriage. An application for an FMPO can be made by a victim or the

person at risk of FM, a relevant third party (a local authority) or any other person with

the permission of the court.

A FMPO can be made to protect a victim from a spouse, family member or anyone

involved. Involvement can include aiding, abetting, counselling, procuring,

encouraging, or assisting another person to force or attempt to force a person to

marry. FMPO’s can last for a specified period of time or if the court so desires for an

indefinite period i.e. until varied or discharged. The order can relate to conduct either

within or outside of England and Wales.

www.gov.uk

Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF2_4uRtHJs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF2_4uRtHJs

Message for Victims

Questions?

Thank you for attending the session and if

please feel free to ask questions…

Marilyn SelwoodService Associate (IDVA/DVSM)

[email protected]

Admin: 01823 334229

Helpline: 01823 334244

www.mankind.org.uk

www.twitter.com/mankindinit

www.facebook.com/pages/ManKind-Initiative



http://www.twitter.com/mankindinit

http://www.facebook.com/pages/ManKind-Initiative

+

‘Supporting Male Victims’

Further Information

Further Reading and Research

ManKind Initiative:

Statistics and Research: http://new.mankind.org.uk/statistics/

Survivors Stories: http://new.mankind.org.uk/survivors-stories/

Video and audio (free to use): http://www.youtube.com/ManKindInitiative

Oak Book Directory: http://new.mankind.org.uk/for-professionals/directory/

Media coverage articles and public cases on male victims (from 2007): http://new.mankind.org.uk/media-and-policy/media/ (look for media coverage file)

British Crime Survey:

• Domestic abuse in England and Wales - Appendix tables

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/domesticabusei

nenglandandwalesappendixtables

• Focus on Violent Crime and Sexual Offences

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/compendium/focusonviol

entcrimeandsexualoffences/yearendingmarch2015

http://new.mankind.org.uk/statistics/

http://new.mankind.org.uk/survivors-stories/

http://www.youtube.com/ManKindInitiative

http://new.mankind.org.uk/for-professionals/directory/

http://new.mankind.org.uk/media-and-policy/media/

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/domesticabuseinenglandandwalesappendixtables

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/compendium/focusonviolentcrimeandsexualoffences/yearendingmarch2015

Further Reading and Research

AcademicsDr Nicola Graham-Kevan: Intimate partner risk factors for men and women

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287327606_Intimate_partner_violence_Are_the_risk_fac

tors_similar_for_men_and_women_and_similar_to_other_types_of_offending

Dr Brian Dempsey: Men’s experience in Scotland

http://www.abusedmeninscotland.org/Final%20What%20We%20Know%20LitRev%20June%2020

13.pdf

Dr Ben Hine: Invisible Men

http://repository.uwl.ac.uk/2097/1/The%20Invisble%20Male%20-%20A%26S%20Conference%20-

%2003.02.16.pdf

Dr Elizabeth Bates: Testing Predictions

http://new.mankind.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Testing-Predictions.pdf

Dr Abigail Thornton: Review of Perpetrator Programmes (UK)www.researchgate.net/publication/304112934_Review_of_Domestic_Violence_Perpetrator_Progr

ammes_in_the_UK

All their work is worth following

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287327606_Intimate_partner_violence_Are_the_risk_factors_similar_for_men_and_women_and_similar_to_other_types_of_offending

http://www.abusedmeninscotland.org/Final%20What%20We%20Know%20LitRev%20June%202013.pdf

http://repository.uwl.ac.uk/2097/1/The%20Invisble%20Male%20-%20A&S%20Conference%20-%2003.02.16.pdf

http://new.mankind.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Testing-Predictions.pdf

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/304112934_Review_of_Domestic_Violence_Perpetrator_Programmes_in_the_UK

Further Contact

Frontline domestic abuse practice

Marilyn Selwood Services Associate/IDVA/DVSM

(01823 334229) and [email protected]

Lori Busch IDVA/Charity Manager


Public Policy, PR/Media, Communications, Case

Studies and Commissioning

Mark Brooks MCIPR/DVSM





ManKind Initiative

Helpline01823 334244

Office 01823 334229

(answerphone)[email protected]

www.mankind.org.uk

@mankindinit



1

Sarah Lawrence

Subject: FW: Two issues to discuss

Attachments: FW: ManKind DA Awarenss training for Police

Importance: High

From: Andy Myhill <[email protected]>Sent: 25 April 2019 10:13To: Angela Whitaker < >Cc: Louisa Rolfe < >; Sharon Stratton <[email protected]>Subject: Two issues to discussImportance: High

Hi Ang,

This is just to raise two issues that I think we need to discuss in terms of whether we put out some kind ofposition or response. Perhaps we can discuss when you are back from leave?

**Removed – outside scope of request***

ManKind training

This was flagged to me also by a force specialist. Apparently, ManKind have received Home Office funding(no, me neither) to produce training on responding to male victims of DV. It seems as though this has beenpresented to forces (by ManKind, see email attached) as almost compulsory. As it is free, however, I canimagine there may be some take-up. I have not seen the training, but the obvious concern would be that itconflicts with some of the messages from our training (e.g. around the gendered nature of DV). I would forexample be interested to see if they have included the headline data from the CSEW which we deliberatelydon’t include as it presents a misleading picture of domestic abuse that comes to the attention of the police.I imagine that if I request to see the training they likely won’t let me see it! But they might respond to arequest by you. If we don’t get to see it, then we may need to discuss what if anything we would like orneed to say about it…

All the best,

Andy

Dr Andy MyhillEvidence and Evaluation Advisor

E: [email protected]

College of Policing1-7 Old Queen Street, Westminster, London SW1H 9HPwww.college.police.uk