Dear Baroness Hallett,
You have invited submissions to your U.K. COVID-19 inquiry that contain information or insights that might otherwise be overlooked.
We’ve got one for you.
We submit that you should look into the payments that the U.K. Government handed over to domestic violence agencies during Covid lockdowns. In our view, those hand-outs are among the most unwarranted of that period. We urge you to bring a sceptical, impartial mind to bear on the reasons that were given for those payments. We invite you to bring the same forensic rigour to the uses to which that money was put as you will no doubt apply to other Government hand-outs supposed to mitigate the harmful impact of the Covid restrictions.
We can be sure, for example, that you will want to hear, in detail, about the £29 million plus which Michelle Mone is alleged to have made from contracts to supply PPE equipment. At the same time, your inquiry’s learned counsel will assuredly dig into the evidence that Bounce Back loans totalling more than £10 million were blithely handed out to Russian and Lithuanian businessmen. Similarly, discussion is bound to be aired about the £34.5 million purloined in a host of internet frauds.
Add all those amounts together, however, and the total comes nowhere near the £125 million plus which the U.K. Government handed over between April-June 2020 to domestic violence agencies on the grounds that they were facing unprecedented calls for their services.
Everybody, without question, regards that money as having been spent in a good and deserving cause. Nobody doubted it at the time and we would bet good money your Covid inquiry will not question it for a second unless (even if) we press the case.
However, the domestic violence agencies obtained that money on the strength of un-evidenced claims about an increase in domestic violence resulting from stay-at-home orders. We submit that those agencies ought to be asked to account for that money and, if they cannot, to give it back.
Here’s the background:
As soon as the Government announced its COVID-19 restrictions in March 2020, the domestic violence agencies began to say that demands for their services were turning into a ‘tsunami’ and that they were confronting ‘a perfect storm’.
In April 2020, Refuge reported a “120% increase in calls to its helplines since the crisis began”. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline reported a 49% increase in calls. The Counting Dead Women Project said 16 women had been killed in domestic incidents in merely three weeks – the highest number for 11 years.
The Victims’ Commissioner, Dame Vera Baird, relayed that murder figure to the House of Commons committee which was considering the effects of lockdown, telling it that the number represented a doubling of the normal rate. The Chair of that Committee, Yvette Cooper, solemnly thanked Dame Vera for her “grave and serious evidence”.
The former Prime Minister Theresa May assured the House of Commons that “clear evidence” proved that abuse was increasing because victims were locked up with their abusers 24/7 and had no chance of getting away.
Without exception, the mainstream media uncritically relayed the same picture. Panorama transmitted an entire edition devoted to the subject, tearfully fronted by Victoria Derbyshire, who drew upon her own experience of living with a father who hit his wife, her mother.
In emotional terms, the picture everybody was seeing seemed completely logical and it naturally tugged the heartstrings of society’s instinctive wish to protect defenceless women and children.
The response of the U.K. Government was prompt and unstinting. Before the end of May 2020 more than £125 million had been handed over to domestic abuse agencies in extra subsidies to deal with the coronavirus crisis. One of the first to shell out public money was Nicola Sturgeon, then First Minister of Scotland, who announced as early as March 30th that she would be giving more than £1.5 million to Scottish Women’s Aid and Rape Crisis Scotland. She explained, “There is a real risk that women and children already subject to domestic abuse will feel even more isolated and vulnerable during this crisis, so this funding will ensure they have access to support services.”
Not a single official or elected representative appears to have asked at any point whether independent verification existed to support the claims of the domestic violence agencies. Not one journalist asked to see the evidence. As is the established custom with these agencies, they shake the begging bowl and find it filled to the brim by the state and by well-meaning patrons and donors. The experience of more than half a century has taught them that nobody is going to check their claims, doubt their probity or scrutinise their expenditure.
In the case of the Covid lockdowns, however, it looks doubtful that a tsunami of domestic abuse occurred. No perfect storm was over the horizon.
I made FoI applications to every police force in the U.K., asking for their records for January-May 2019, 2020 and 2021, showing figures for numbers of reported incidents of domestic abuse, arrests, charges and homicides.
More than half of those forces did not reply or withheld the information but 21 police forces delivered their figures – a more than adequate sample.
The spreadsheet tabulating those figures is below. It makes amazing reading. In many areas, the number of recorded incidents of domestic abuse actually fell in the lockdown months of 2020, compared with 2019. Overall, the number of calls reporting incidents did rise by 9% in 2020 compared with 2019 and the number of charges rose by 3.25%. If the domestic violence agencies received a similar increase in calls, it would be understandable that they might have needed to augment their services. But a 9% rise does not a tsunami make; and did they really need to spend £125m to cope with that increase in calls?
With a sleight of hand that is never called out, the agencies habitually conflate calls to their helplines with actual incidents of violence, as if the first invariably connotes or leads to the second. However, that 9% increase in the number of calls to the police is not reflected in a commensurate rise in charges (3.25%). Police Scotland explained – on the record – that in 2020 the gradual rise in the number of reports they received throughout lockdown was largely attributable to disputes about custody and access to children – incidents which did not necessarily lead to criminal charges.
In fact, as the spreadsheet shows, charges were lower in 2021 than in 2019 (although marginally higher in 2020). More tellingly (and contrary to the claims of the Victims Commissioner and Counting Dead Women Project), the number of murders in the areas for which we have figures actually fell between January-May from 26 in 2019 to 23 in 2021, and the number fell from 35 in 2019 to 32 in 2020, at least in the 21 areas that responded to my FOIs.
Our partial survey is not the only source on this subject. The ONS reports on Homicide in England and Wales for the years ending March 2021 and 2022 show that there were 114 domestic homicides in the year ending March 2021 and 134 in the year ending March 2022 when, as the ONS observed:
Homicide returned to pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic levels [compared with] the year ending March 2021 when Government restrictions meant there was less social contact.
Why the fall? The answer is contained in that ONS observation that “Government restrictions meant there was less social contact”. So far as domestic violence is concerned, this means that fewer people killed each other at home, mostly because they hadn’t first gone out and got mad.
Going out has always proved one of the flashpoints for domestic violence. Suspicions of infidelity – whether of flirting or going further – are dynamite between couples, especially when they are themselves lit up by drink and/or drugs and they burst into flame most frequently when people are at the pub, the club or at parties. Even if they were drinking while they were confined at home during lockdown, couples who were isolated from the temptations of company had one major thing less to fight about.
Murder, as recorded by the police, is the most reliable of all indices of domestic violence. Dead bodies don’t lie. If, therefore, the number of domestic murders fell during lockdown, it can be reliably assumed that the number of domestic violence incidents will also have fallen.
So, Baroness, if the domestic violence agencies were faced with only a small increase in calls to their helplines and, at the same time, incidents of domestic violence between 2020-21 were likely falling in locked-down homes, what did they do with all that money they received? We urge you to ask that question. We respectfully suggest you should press it very hard.
But, of course, we realise that’s never going to happen. You won’t be calling anybody to account over this scandal. The domestic violence agencies operate on holy ground which is sacrosanct. It would be an unthinkable heresy to question their probity.
We can be certain that the domestic violence gravy train will roll on unhindered. No awkward questions will be asked in your inquiry – even though it was appointed specifically to ask such questions.
They know they are immune.
Neil Lyndon is a British journalist and writer. He has written for the Sunday Times, the Times, the Independent, the Evening Standard, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph.
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Well yes, but what about the billions spent on furlough that damaged the economy and people’s work ethic, the billions spent on poisonous “vaccines”, the billions spent on paper “masks”, the hundreds of millions spent on covid propaganda, the billions spent on “track and trace” and “covid testing” etc etc
All for a “pandemic” that did not in fact exist, for an entirely fictitious “public health emergency”.
Absolutely spot on..
Now now tof, you and I both know that the real purpose of throwing billions of pounds about was to increase public debt and further screw the economy. It worked a treat didn’t it? And all under the cover of “help.”
Yes indeed I should have written “all supposedly for a pandemic that did not in fact exist”
Well said Sir!
Why Was £125M Given to Domestic Abuse Agencies During Lockdown Despite Data Suggesting a Decrease in Domestic Violence Incidents?
Probably because someone was in the right place at the right time to make a nice little earner out of it. Just like the billions spewed on Covid..
Same as it ever was.. insider criminality..
Interesting article and, like probably most people, I never thought to question the received wisdom. However, a couple of issues spring to mind: 1) on scanning the figures by region, I’m not entirely sure I’m seeing huge statistical differences year on year (showing a marked fall) although I’m definitely no numbers person, and 2) what does that additional £125 mill represent as a percentage of the dosh already received? Is it big, small, middling? Finally 3) didn’t just about everyone – including the WHOs pre-existing pandemic plan – point out that domestic violence and child abuse were known side effects of lockdown, that’s why it wasn’t recommended to begin with? While I don’t want to play down any egregious claims these organisations may have made, TOF points out the much bigger fish fried to perfection in the plandemic scam.
“We submit that you should look into the payments that the U.K. Government handed over to domestic violence agencies during Covid lockdowns. In our view, those hand-outs are among the most unwarranted of that period.” A mere drop in the ocean. Chicken feed. What about the £37,000,000,000, yes that’s £37 billion of taxpayers’ money, or more likely debt for their children and grandchildren to pay off spaffed up against the wall for the track and trace projects. For no good reason. And then there’s the £10,000,000,000 or so of lockdown support payments that Rishi mislaid.
Blimey, of all the “gravy trains” you could have pointed the finger at it’s kind of strange to point the finger at this. Just to say if I was a victim of domestic violence, I might not have antagonised my abuser (particularly if I had children) by getting the police round only to find that they’re not interested because “it’s just a domestic” and all at a time when my other escape routes had been shut down. The data may not reflect what actually happened here.
This article shows a lack of awareness both of how the police respond (recently failing to come out when a young man was threatening passers by with a baseball bat in the sleepy neighbourhood I live in) and a real lack of understanding of domestic violence and the psychology of victims and abusers (both of which can be men or women).
I know, right? Sounds like something that controlled opposition would say. Especially since it makes lockdowns somehow look good.
Are you sure you want to concede that domestic violence went down during lockdown? With the implication that it was not only in spite of, but possibly even *because* of lockdown? Because that would only give ammunition to the pro-lockdown zealots.
Most domestic violence is nonlethal though, albeit grossly underreported. And the best evidence shows a significant NET increase during lockdown in many countries, including the USA. If the UK really did see a net decrease, then the UK would truly be an anomaly.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/06/shadow-pandemic-of-domestic-violence/
https://counciloncj.org/new-analysis-shows-8-increase-in-u-s-domestic-violence-incidents-following-pandemic-stay-at-home-orders/
Don’t fall into the trap of inadvertently shilling for lockdowns as a good thing.
Oh, and child abuse likely increased as well:
https://bmjpaedsopen.bmj.com/content/6/1/e001553
And yet infanticide involving abuse increased by 20% between 2020 and 2021? Someone make it make sense. https://dailysceptic.org/2023/08/05/covid-lockdowns-used-as-cover-by-abusers-to-inflict-tragic-child-abuse-experts-warn/
As someone who has worked in the field of child and adult abuse for 40 + years I find it hard to understand the motivation behind this article.
whilst I would agree with the need to criticise the waste of money on needless lockdowns test and trace and vaccines I do not think that spending money on trying to ameliorate the impact of enforced social isolation was all a waste although better they had not created the situation in the first place.
I continued working during the lockdown remotely offering telephone counselling to those who have been abused and suffered domestic violence during the lockdowns. One example of a single mother who had been subjected to 5 years of all types of abuse including gaslighting to the point of illegal sectioning was struggling to work through the aftermath of that experience some 2 years after having eventually summoned the strength to leave the abusive partner.
She was confined to a small flat with no garden and a 5 year old who had just started school who had to adjust to ‘zoom’ teaching.
The pressure of that those restrictions is difficult to describe let alone have any real idea as to its effect. How she did not murder her child is testimony to the tenacity of mothers and their sometimes innate instinct to care.
Thus was just one example of the unique pressures that were put upon those who had already been abused – there are countless others.
The agency I work with operates with a small number of paid staff approx 15 and 30+ volunteers.
The demand for the service increased at one point when there was a two year waiting list, (currently down to about 12 months.)
the implication of this article that money was wasted on an unnecessary service and somehow fed some greedy fat cats is so far from the truth. As a result of some grants received, I did receive payment in order to increase my caseload to help meet the demand. I know of private counsellors who charge £120 per session – I was paid £15 per hour.
other comments have pointed out the use of statistics quoted is over simplified and does not present a true picture. Increased surveillance by controlling partners may well have reduced the opportunity for the most abused, to report or seek refuge. The draconian restrictions on movement adding to their difficulties.
I whole heartedly agree the reaction to Covid has probably generated the biggest waste of money in my lifetime but this was not.
I thought child abuse went up?