2 cases on the Isle of Man this past week show nothing has changed since we first started this petition, so much so that a visitor to the Island felt shocked into writing to the Newspaper as follows:
"While over visiting my parents, I picked up their copy of your newspaper.... It is great to see how optimistic and successful the beautiful Isle of Man has become until page 9 where I found the story of the man who had been given a suspended sentence, despite attempting to angle grind his way into the home of his former partner and her two children, because he was "eloquent" in Court and "spoke from the heart".
"Well, that's all right then.
"I then could not believe it, when four pages on, I read of another violent man throttling his partner, almost into unconsciousness, who was given probation because he was "under financial pressure".
"I am almost without words. This Island needs to look inwards and address the attitudes towards and realities of, domestic violence."
So there we have it, she is absolutely right. Domestic violence remains completely misunderstood and unrecognised in its severity by the Courts. The impact on the victims is not reflected in sentencing. Cases still going to Magistrates Courts when they should be criminal. Assaults in the home are held to a different standard to similar offences out on the streets. The significance of strangulation and the extremely high risk that any form of throttling, choking or suffocation indicates in a domestic abuse case, totally missed. Will it take the actual death of one of these strangulation victims before our Courts wake up to this threat? Please keep signing and sharing, 10,000 people must be heard.