'I was black with bruises. I didn't recognise myself.' Domestic abuse calls reach all-time high - but experts hope technology can help

Nicole Kidman's character in Big Little Lies challenges our typical conceptions of what domestic abuse looks like - Television Stills
Nicole Kidman's character in Big Little Lies challenges our typical conceptions of what domestic abuse looks like - Television Stills

“He was driving straight towards a lamppost; the kids were screaming. He was trying to kill us all.”

When 37-year-old Monica* first met her partner, she soon fell in love with his charm and presence. But 16 months down the line, things changed. He started punching her and hitting her with objects, leaving the former model “black with bruises. I could not actually recognise myself.” By the time that summer’s day came around in 2013, where he narrowly missing crashing their car by a few inches, she had spent three years desperate for a way out, too fearful to leave after threats that if she did, he would kill her.

“I was scared for my life, and scared for my children’s lives,” she recalls. I spent so much time kidding myself that I was in love with him I believed that he would change.

Tech vs Abuse - Credit: Tech vs Abuse
Quotes from survivors of domestic violence at a focus group on how to better improve resources Credit: Tech vs Abuse

“I didn’t know my dad when I was a child so for me, the children having their dad in their lives was more important than him beating me.”

Two million people suffer domestic abuse every year in England and Wales, with 100,000 of them facing death or serious injury. Ninety five percent of this group are women. Comic Relief, which is broadcast on BBC One tomorrow, has launched a domestic abuse initiative seeking to help victims; it says calls to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, which it supports, have reached record highs, with a million calls to police about domestic abuse in England and Wales recorded each year. 

Kristin*, 38, said she was completely unaware that she was a victim of domestic violence until her ex-partner was actually arrested.

“I don’t actually remember how many times he hit me but it must have been more than 10,” she recalls. On one occasion, while Kristin was pregnant with their twins, he hit her in the stomach and head. “I don’t know why I didn’t call the police. I thought it was my fault - I was brainwashed.” Two years later, on Boxing Day, he hit her for the last time. She called the police and he was arrested and removed from the house.

Kristin and Monica were both helped by organisations supported by funds from Comic Relief. The charity, in partnership with the government and the Big Lottery Fund, is to put more than £500,000 into projects set to develop technology in order to help victims of domestic abuse. Tech vs Abuse was born after finding that many women were searching online for information about abuse, and using technology to record and report it.

Monica says she couldn’t have got out of her violent relationship without the help of technology. “I started following Facebook groups on domestic violence every day for many hours and it was a very good support for me knowing that I was not alone. It gave me hope. I realised that it was very important to document everything, and started using my phone to record every conversation and some fights.”

The children having their dad in their lives was more important than him beating me

One of the main aims of the research projects funded by Comic Relief will be to learn how to make technology safer for victims of domestic abuse. Abusers often check their victims’ phones and computers and become more violent when they find out the women have accessed information about domestic abuse online. 

The project aims to create technology that will allow a victim to find help and record evidence of abuse: this might include designing websites which offer counsel but are disguised as shopping or cooking sites, and a means of automatically deleting helpline numbers from sufferers' call history logs. 

Tech vs Abuse - Credit: Tech vs Abuse
One of the 'experience maps' of a domestic abuse victim collated by the Tech vs Abuse research team Credit: Tech vs Abuse

The research found that women are, on average, left unmonitored by their abusers for no longer than 15 minutes at a time, giving them scant opportunity to find information, and that many existing sites listed phone numbers that didn’t work and guidance that was too difficult to find. The projects supported by Tech vs Abuse will change this. 

Danielle McLeod, who ran the focus groups for support workers during the research and works for SafeLives, the charity leading the research, said technology is the key to reaching victims on the widest possible scale. “There’s a video of 26 year old survivor on Facebook, who clearly has a large black eye, explaining how the 'love of her life' split her head open and punched her before she had the courage to leave. It’s been viewed 10 million times and there are 300,000 comments underneath it from women going through the same thing.”   

I spent so much time kidding myself that I was in love with him I believed that he would change

Hera Hussain works with Chayn, one of the projects involved in the Comic Relief initiative, which uses technology to empower victims of abuse. These include an app disguised as weather information showing where local refuges are, an online guide to help women protect themselves from stalking and harassment online, advice on how women can collect evidence and build their own domestic violence legal case without a lawyer.

Hussain said that it is often difficult for women to recognise they are victims of domestic violence - a storyline currently being explored in Sky Atlantic series Big Little Lies, which sees Nicole Kidman's character embroiled in a marriage that does not resemble what many might imagine an abusive relationship to look like. “There is a lot of victim blaming by abusers, which leaves victims asking whether it was something they said or did. Women are taught that marriage is a compromise that ups and downs happen” - it is this, Hussain believes, that often leads them to imagine their situation might improve.

Nicole Kidman - Credit: HBO
'Women are taught that marriage is a compromise that ups and downs happen' Credit: HBO

Though the initiative seeks to use technology for good, many of those involved in the research said it was often used as a tool of abuse by perpetrators. Monica’s husband “bought a camera disguised as a coat hanger to spy on me in the house, put a hidden tracker in my car that recorded my conversations and hacked into my emails and Facebook.”

The ways in which abusers use technology are dangerous and disturbing, Hussain adds.

“They use social media to stalk women [and engage in] revenge porn, online bullying, trolling. They can hack into your Amazon or eBay account and then they have your address. Abusers also use children so they will put trackers in children’s bags to find the child’s mother - or use nanny cams disguised as teddy bears or jewellery boxes.”  

Protecting children is also central to the new scheme. The NSPCC estimates that 1.75 million children in the UK have experienced domestic violence; Kristin said it had a terrible effect on hers. “After [my husband] was arrested they never even asked for him, never mentioned him once. Even now they are very nervous and don’t have a lot of self-esteem.” 

Hussain hopes that by bringing more information to families under the cloak of secrecy they so desperately need can change the future for families like Kristin and Monica's for good.

About | Domestic violence

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