Aurora New Dawn are currently working with police to explore how information sharing about extremely dangerous perpetrators could protect the public, as well as protecting victims of domestic and sexual violence.

Two cases have hit the headlines in recent years where the behaviour of the perpetrator in his relationships provided key indicators of the high level of danger these men posed – not just to individual intimate partners, but to the wider public.

Levi Bellfield was tried and convicted for the murder of Millie Dowler whilst already serving his sentence for the murders of Amelie Delagrange in 2004, Marsha McDonnell in 2003 and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy in 2004.

A number of Levi’s ex-girlfriends described a similar pattern of behaviour by Levi. While charming and affectionate at the start of the relationship, a typical pattern of domestic abuse emerged within weeks. Bellfield was a known domestic violence perpetrator: he would isolate his partners, preventing contact with friends and family and even requiring them to seek his permission to go out.

During their relationship, Bellfield told one former partner that he had thoughts of hurting women.

One of Bellfield’s ex-girlfriends came forward after the murder of Amelie and identified him as a potential suspect. His name was added to the 129 names on the ‘Ex-girlfriends’ list.

Peter Tobin was convicted in 2007 for the murder of Angelika Kluk, with further murder convictions following in 2008 and 2009 for the murders of Vicky Hamilton and Dinah McNichol. He was also convicted of child abuse, although the full extent of his crimes remains unknown and is the subject of an ongoing police operation.

Tobin’s relationship history was one of extreme abuse, characterised by strangulation, sexual violence and ‘house arrests’, as well as physical assault. In one particularly brutal incident, his partner was assaulted so badly she bled through the ceiling.

Aurora’s Operations Manager, Zoe, said “What intelligence could we have had about these individuals if we were looking at their behaviour in their relationships?”

One of the key problems here is the silencing of victims and the consistent issue of not believing allegations of abuse or violence – an issue that has shaped a number of key campaigns this year, including MumsNet’s WeBelieveYou and the hashtag in solidarity with the victim of footballer Ched Evans, #WeBelieveHer.

“The victim’s perception of abusive behaviour is one of the most accurate ways we have of measuring risk,” said Zoe.

“In cases where victims have been murdered by their partners, we look back and see that she was consistently saying she was extremely afraid and believed he was going to kill her.”

Not all perpetrators will pose a public risk, Zoe makes clear.

“Most perpetrators are not a danger to anyone else other than people they are in a relationship with. However, with some cases, their abusive behaviour in the home tells us about a wider risk and the risk assessments we undertake with victims can provide information that could be used for public protection and even crime prevention.”

Aurora are currently working with a range of partner organisations, including the police, to explore how the information victims and survivors share with our staff – particularly in relation to sexual violence – might be shared with public agencies to make better links around public protection.

“Victims’ perceptions must be taken seriously,” said Zoe.

“Think about it. A victim knows her partner and she knows their behaviour – more so than anybody else.”

This article is based on a presentation given by Zoe, our Operations Manager to a number of 2^nd year Criminology students from the University of Portsmouth recently.

The presentation draws on Criminal Behavioural Analyst Laura Richards’ DASH Risk Assessment Masterclass, which examines the process of risk assessment in domestic abuse cases and explores the relationship between domestic abuse and wider public protection issues. Both Zoe and Aurora’s Chief Exec Shonagh are accredited by Laura Richards to deliver the Masterclass.

If you would like more information on booking a speaker from Aurora New Dawn, or want to find out more about the DASH Masterclass Training, please contact us on 023 9247 9254.

Joe Wells becomes an Aurora patron

We are delighted to welcome the fantastic, funny and fabulous Mr Joe Wells as our new patron. After working with Joe last year at the White Ribbon Comedy Night, we’ve been looking for a way to get him involved with Aurora New Dawn ever since – and now we have!

Although Joe never fails to make us laugh, he’s unquestionably serious about the issue of violence against women, with misogyny and discrimination frequently appearing as targets of his razor-sharp wit during his stand-up shows.

Who is Joe Wells?

Joe Wells is not only a brilliant stand-up comedian, but he is also a published writer and public speaker. Initially, Joe’s career began with the release of the book ‘Touch and Go Joe’, later he went to work delivering political stand-up comedy. In addition to stand-up, Joe Wells also hosts a podcast.

Joe Wells, achievements

• The Portsmouth Guide Award for Best Comedy 2014, 2017, 2018 – Winner
• Comedy Central Funniest Student 2010 – Winner
• New Act Of The Year (formerly Hackney Empire) 2011 – Finalist
• Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year 2012 – Runner Up
• The Guide Award for Best Comedy 2011 – Shortlisted
• London New Comedy Awards 2010 – Finalist
• The Guide Award for Best Comedy 2009 – Shortlisted

Joe Well’s at work

Joe Wells and Amnesty International

In addition to supporting women’s rights, Joe Wells has worked with Amnesty International by appearing on Amnesty TV – Episode 8. Here he is, doing what he does best for Amnesty International, discussing the misrepresentation of the human rights act by tabloid newspapers and how this affected a Tory Party conference speech.

You can also check out the fabulous Mr Wells (though not in a library book kinda way) AND show solidarity for victims and survivors of violence and abuse at Brighton’s Stand-Up to End Violence Against Women in December.

Joe Wells Think Tank

In 2015, Joe worked on a project called ‘Think Tank’ which was a live show and podcast in which comedians had the opportunity to voice their opinions and express ideas to a panel of real-life politicians. This show was held in the square tower in Portsmouth.

What is Joe working on now?

These days, Joe Wells can be found doing stand-up tours of the UK. He performs in a variety of comedy clubs across the nation, regularly performing at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, The Top Secret Comedy Club in London and in his hometown of Portsmouth.

Reviews of Joe Wells

And here’s what everyone else is saying about Joe:

“Joe Wells is a skilled jokesmith who threads great gags through intelligent political material that, whilst razor-sharp, is never particularly angry or dark. As the first gross gags open up into smarter, topical ones it’s clear that this is a tightly-structured, well thought-out set. Excellent jokes and sly political comment wrapped tightly in a western union online neat parcel which delivers regular, powerful laughs from a delighted audience. He spins new life out of easy targets like bankers and the BNP with some wonderful imagery” British Comedy Guide.

“A star of the future… some of the most surprising and thought-provoking material coming from any comedian in his early 20s” The Guardian.

“A much-needed voice against hypocrisy as well as a wonderfully talented stand-up comedian, Joe Wells uses his comedy to burst a gigantic hole in the sides of homophobia, misogyny and racism while still managing to remain funny throughout” Portsmouth Evening News.

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This article appeared originally on Women’s Views on News.

I listened with a howling sense of pain-wracked frustration to the otherwise fabulous Jane Garvey interviewing domestic abuse survivor Tina Nash on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour yesterday morning (interview begins 1 minute in).

I’m used to victim-blaming and its ugly companion, the invisible perpetrator, in mainstream media coverage of domestic abuse.

But I’ve noticed it more and more since I became a Writer in Residence for Aurora New Dawn, an organisation working with victims and survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

Mainstream news media often just replicate dominant social attitudes and reflect them back to us with authority. It’s not right, or actually ok, but it’s the reason WVoN exists so I’ve made a sort of angry, activist peace with it. For now.

Listening this morning, though, I felt like Jane Garvey’s feminist teacher, standing on the sidelines and calling, “Come on Garvey, pull your socks up! You can do better than this!”

Here’s why.

I recommend that you listen to the interview before or after reading this. For me the questions are actually worse in context not better, but make up your own mind.

JG: It would be easy to think of you I suppose as a victim, but you’re more than that, aren’t you?

TN: I’m a survivor now.

This would have been a great opportunity to talk about the issue of victimhood, the journey to feeling like a survivor and the difference between the two. Nash herself brings this up several times in the interview after she raises it here.

She talks about how she did not perceive herself as a victim during the abuse even though it was so severe, and about how on many occasions Jenkin, her abuser, would convince her that he was actually the victim in the relationship.

Garvey follows up on none of these.

If you’re learning about domestic abuse for the first time, understanding the dynamic  of victimhood is central. But if you’re a broadcaster doing an interview about an abusive relationship, I would hope – with a little preparation and research – it would be Interviewing 101.

After asking how they met, Garvey begins to sound a little like a barrister building a case that the victim should have ‘known better’:

JG: …he was a man with a bit of a reputation.

Nash obligingly clarifies that she had heard of his reputation, yes, but 10 years before they began dating, at which point Jenkin portrayed himself very much as a changed man.

Four months into the relationship, Jenkin pushed Nash over after his violence to strangers in a nightclub caused him to be thrown out. She banged her head on the pavement. Nash packed www.orderwu.com her things and left.

JG: See, at this point Tina, people will be thinking, ‘Well, that would be enough’. He may not actually have hit you on that occasion but there were indications that this was a man you wouldn’t be close to for any length of time. Why did you keep in touch with him?

Later, Nash talks about Jenkin laughing at the panic room installed for her by the police.

JG: He was laughing at the authorities and…but…in a way Tina I’ve got to put it to you, you allowed him to do that because you kept buying his lost little boy routine, didn’t you?

Finally, Garvey asks a question that is made more offensive to me as a listener by the calm, dignified and eloquent answer given by Tina Nash following it.

JG: For the people listening who think ‘Why did she allow this to happen to her?’ how would you try to explain that?

TN: It was a steady progress, it didn’t happen overnight. It wasn’t like I met him on the first night and he hit me and I stayed with him. It didn’t happen like that. I fell in love with him. He made me see a side of him that I didn’t think other people got to see so I thought he must love me. I thought it was completely different with me than he was with everybody else. Silly me, I fell for it.

At this point, I genuinely don’t know how, as one human to another, Garvey felt no inclination to challenge Tina Nash on that last statement. Possibly because almost every question that led up to it has implicitly pointed to how Nash failed to identify, challenge and escape a man who is now serving an indeterminate sentence in a mental hospital. I assume a jury put him there because they had fewer problems than Jane Garvey in identifying that he was the one to blame for his own behaviour.

Instead, Garvey asks:

JG: How many chances did you give him, in fact?

At which point I face-palmed myself so hard I swept my own feet out from under me and fell on my ass.

Given everything we know about domestic abuse, about patterns of coercion and control and about the reality of living – and surviving – an abusive relationship, it’s disappointing that broadcasters still feel comfortable asking variations of: Why doesn’t she just leave?

Chats overheard in the pub? Yes.

Woman’s Hour? No.

Interviews like this not only remove the focus from Jenkin’s actions but also – and if I were a man, this would be far more offensive to me – position the extreme violence of men like Jenkin as inevitable, or somehow to be expected, from all men.

What would I like to have heard? More about what it’s like to make the journey from victim to survivor, for a start, and an acknowledgement of the difficulty of the transition between the two.

Shame, isolation and self-blame are reasons that the Aurora team hear every day from victims and survivors to describe why they feel powerless to leave their perpetrator.

Of course, they also work with victims and survivors who have left and are now in more danger than they have ever been in before as a result – another reason why so many victims stay.

Media coverage of domestic abuse must start to reveal the reality (linked video carries Trigger warning) – and complexity – of abusive relationships, including painting a picture of how commonly it happens. As writers and journalists, we must shift the focus away from victims and move toward asking questions about perpetrators, who might find themselves with fewer places to hide as a result.

Taking this approach in the media would help to build a society where victims feel less isolated and less ashamed of behaviour that, ultimately, isn’t theirs. That alone would go an incredible length of the way to making the journey out of an abusive relationship easier and quicker.

The new edition of the IRIS newsletter has hit the stands and is now available to download from your computer, here.

IRIS is a GP-based domestic violence and abuse programme that provides training to health teams and enables them to refer patients experiencing domestic abuse to specialist support services and advocates.

This issue looks in more detail at what the IRIS programme is, and how it works in practice. There’s also an interview with one of the Southampton IRIS team.

It’s a great issue, but don’t take our word for it, find out for yourself!

You can also find out more about IRIS by visiting their website here.

[Image credit: Sarah Klockars-Clauser, openphoto.net]

We were delighted to see Aurora New Dawn’s patron, Lauren Atkins from The Malins Group, in The Times today.

Lauren appears in an article about a new generation of women property developers. She talks about why she employs an all-female office and some of the challenges facing women in business.

“I recognised that there were so many talented women out there who didn’t want to work 50 hour weeks in the City because they wanted more of a balance in their lives. And I was more than happy to offer flexibility so that I could harness their untapped expertise.

We are all women with children, some work school hours and some part-time, but we are all incredibly dedicated.”

We’re an all-women team here at Aurora and know firsthand the challenges facing women in the workplace as well as the unique benefits that women bring to the working environment.

These similarities in our working ethos and practice have been really useful to Aurora in helping us explore innovative and dynamic approaches to the challenges posed by the current economic environment.

“It’s great to see Lauren and the Malins Group receive the recognition they rightly deserve. Lauren is a consummate professional woman working in the private sector, and we’re delighted to have her as our Patron,” said Aurora’s Chief Executive, Shonagh Dillon.

“Her knowledge of how the private sector and the voluntary sector can best work together is a fantastic and a much valued resource for us in the current climate. Equally, I hope that we contribute to the broader social goals of the Malin’s Group, which I know are very close to Lauren’s heart.”

The article can be read on The Times website – paywall warning!

Congratulations to Lauren and the Malins Group on the feature.

Lauren Atkins is our patron and her company, The Malins Group, is an official corporate partner to Aurora New Dawn.