Males make up 1 in 3 of all domestic abuse reports in the UK each year. This means that according to the ONS (Office of National Statistics), 1.6M adult women and 712,000 adult males reported to have been victims of domestic abuse related crime in the year preceding March 2024. When we then consider that the BBC reported in 2024 that male victims fail to report in 49% of cases, this shows that over 1.5M adult males experience abuse each year. That is 1.5M males who are being ignored by the Labour Governments decision to advertise and market solely based on women and children. This alone is an oversight of massive proportions. With boys being victims of domestic abuse simply by being present and witnessing it (as are girls), the boys witnessing such crimes are now disconnected with the government who is supposed to support them and therefore any services they may have been able to connect with for help.

We still however, are ignoring the larger problem. The bigger issue here is not the number of males not being considered. We must start to look into the psychology behind male victims and why only 49% report the crimes against them. Historically, society has seen males as the provider, the strong and bold supplier of support to the world. It is only in very recent years we find ourselves looking at males as being vulnerable and affected by their mental health. Andy’s Man Club has become a leader in the country for mental health support but their service is generalised to offer help to those with any mental health issue and has met negative press with the service being accused (on a few occasions) of protecting paedophiles within their ranks. Little exists to offer support to male victims for specific cases such as domestic abuse. Abuse which is often long standing from childhood (by parents or other family members) or over multiple partners as the victims minds return to their comfort of familiarity in abusive environments. Yes, abuse is a comfortable place for most victims regardless of gender. Our minds find a consistent, familiar part of our lives to go to and when that changes, regardless of how bad that situation is for us, our minds will naturally return to that consistent and familiar space. Abuse victims are the main culprits of this action, often accepting abuse from new partners as the patterns of behaviour are familiar and comforting regardless of their evil nature.

To further enforce a male victims decision that reporting is pointless, we must consider the tales of how the family courts and police have treated male victims of the past. In part of my own case, upon reporting to the police, I was told that I was ‘a big guy’ and surely could ‘handle a little bit of grief’ from my wife. Phrases like ‘man up’ and ‘just get on with it’ were often used to tell a male victim his concerns were being ignored, his plight was being discarded and his cries for assistance were going unheard. You could argue that times have changed and that the police and family courts are no longer like this but you would be wrong. Police forces are a postcode lottery of training and funding for domestic abuse in general. Often male officers look to protect the ‘poor female’ in a scenario due to their in built genetic desire to protect and often ignore the fact that the woman is the perpetrator, twisting his actions just as much as she twisted the real victim in all of this, the male partner. Officers fear the backlash from getting things wrong where a woman is the victim to such an extent that their judgment can be clouded and in a case where things are not clear, it is far ‘safer’ for them to issue the Domestic Violence Protection Order to the man in the room and make him leave for a period of time rather than issue that same ‘DVPO’ to the woman. In cases where it looks 50/50, the man will usually be the one requested to leave. A narcissistic female playing the victim finds a police officer an easy target for the manipulation she needs to show herself as the victim.

The family courts are running on laws that are no longer fit for purpose and with officials who are often from an era where male victims were not recognised at all or only marginally so. Non Molestation orders that are supplied Ex-Parte despite no investigation being made into the validity of the claims. In cases where false claims are made with falsified evidence (a regular occurrence with female perpetrators playing the victim), this leaves the victim with a non-molestation order which is no only unfair and protecting the wrong person but now removes the option of MARAC support for the real victim. We also find now that the true female victims of such crimes have their stories diminished by the falsehood of their abusive peers. Of course a non –molestation order in these cases is issued as only an interim order which can be argued against but because of the over burden on the court system, it is often three to four months before the victim can get into a court room and in that hearing, the only thing they can do is state that they wish to argue against the order. With the chances of a further hearing being another three to four months away, many falsely accused victims will give up on fighting the case due to being anywhere between half way and three quarters of the way through the order before they can even start to argue their case. With a society that ignores males being victim and then tells them to get on with it, it seems there is little benefit to arguing the case at all and so they simply give in.

In cases where the victim is falsely accused of being the perpetrator and where there are children involved, they victim then has to admit guilt (which is false) to obtain a course that CAFCASS and the Ministry of Justice (through the family court) demand they complete. This course however, has been removed as a possibility by CAFCASS and the Ministry of Justice themselves. RESPECT have released an announcement on this matter in 2022. Now, an impossible task is being requested by the very people who made it impossible and the consequence is that children are removed from the one parent who is stable and supportive, leaving them with the perpetrator.

All of these systems have good intentions at heart and the courts report a very low number of cases where false accusations are being made. I would argue this is because in most cases, the male simply gives up due to the overwhelming feeling of helplessness and an extreme lack of hope.