Tamasin Wedgwood
Mar 27, 2018
Thank you all for signing. Our website has a link to an excellent programme on coercive control broadcast this morning on BBC Radio 4, where women shared their experiences of coercive control and/or their concerns for family members in coercive relationships. It is well worth listening again. We should also remember that the degree of coercive control is a far more accurate indicator of the likelihood of domestic homicide than is a history of prior assaults. Coercive control is extremely dangerous and the women experiencing are at highest risk, this is why we need a law that covers it - before control escalates to attempted murder. Similarly to the women speaking out on this morning's BBC radio programme, in response to this petition many people have either shared their personal stories via their comments on the petition, or have been in touch by email or messenger to explain their experiences of domestic abuse. This includes both victims who have narrowly escaped with their lives, and parents who have lost their daughters due to murder by an abusive partner. Diana Parkes is one such parent and Diana founded the Joanna Simpson Foundation in memory of her daughter. Diana has shared the following and is happy for us to use her words to help publicise this issue and why it is so important that the law is changed. Please continue to share the petition widely in memory of all those (mainly) women who have lost their lives, so that we can helpfully save lives in the future. Here is Diana's reaction to our petition in response to the IoM case: "My daughter was killed in 2010 by her estranged husband, a British Airways Captain, who was very well respected in his work place but privately was a coercive, cruel and controlling man. In my opinion, at his trial he was given a lesser sentence of manslaughter rather than murder because of his profession and managing to hoodwink the jury into believing that he was the victim. It does not matter what walk of life you come from, male or female, the punishment must fit the crime. One wonders what might have been the outcome if the 14 year old daughter had not called the Police."
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