Don’t just walk by if you are worried

Ask if they are ok. Tell someone. Call the police.

On New Year’s Day 2019 Karen Ingala Smith recorded the 1,000th woman killed by a man on the website Counting Dead Women which she started seven years ago.

As of 15 June 2019 at least 47 women in the UK have been killed by men – or a man is the principal suspect – this year.

So it is vital that people who hear someone being threatened, or who hear signs of violence, call the police. Someone’s life might be at risk.

And recording what is going on is constructive.

In the aftermath of the news last weekend about a row between would-be Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his partner Carrie Symonds and the intervention by neighbours, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, speaking on an LBC phone-in said recordings of such incidents, like those made by the neighbours can, she said: “be helpful for us, if there is evidence of a crime that we are then going to be investigating, if somebody has made some sort of recording.”

And domestic abuse charities have signed a joint statement encourgaing people to take action if they have concerns about someone’s safety, to counter remarks that no one should have intervened ‘in a domestic’:

‘The weekend has been full of comment about the relationship we have with our neighbours.

It’s not for us to judge what happens in anyone’s relationship, but it is for us all to take action if we are concerned about someone’s safety. That’s a natural human instinct. Let’s support it rather than challenge it.

Don’t walk on by if you are worried. Ask if they are ok. Tell someone. Call the police.’

Signed by:

Suzanne Jacob, Chief Executive, SafeLives

Isabel Boyer, Chair of Trustees, SafeLives

Nicole Jacobs, Chief Executive, Standing Together Against Domestic Violence

Frank Mullane, Chief Executive, AAFDA (Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse)

Sarah Green, Co-Director, End Violence Against Women

Gudrun Burnet, Co-Founder, Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance

Kelly Henderson, Co-Founder, Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance

Sam Smethers, Chief Executive, Fawcett Society

Jemima Olchawski, Chief Executive, Agenda

Nicola Sharp-Jeffs, Founder and Director, Surviving Economic Abuse

Mary Mason, Chief Executive, Solace Women’s Aid

Nicki Norman, Acting Co-Chief Executive, Women’s Aid Federation of England

Pragna Patel, Director, Southall Black Sisters

If you, or someone you know, is in immediate danger, call 999 and ask for the police.

If you are not in immediate danger but want help, you can call the Freephone 24-hour National Domestic Violence Helpline on 0808 2000 247 run by Women’s Aid and Refuge.