Calling on the Ministry of Justice, Yvette Cooper, Jess Phillips

Kaleidoscopic UK is a charity of survivors for those subjected to any form of domestic or sexual violence at any point in their lives. As survivors ourselves we wanted to create a charity that provided ongoing, open ended and threshold free support to children and adults who had been subjected to abuse, having found that lacking for us and our children, continuing for the majority we also support. In addition, we discovered the benefit in having peer support from those who truly understand the reality. We have established exactly that and have been growing our service provision in line with the rates of referrals for our support across the country since 2019.

Our founder Victoria Robertson BEM recognised these needs resulting from her own very shocking lived experiences of abuse. Her first childhood perpetrator was convicted and imprisoned for abusing her as a toddler, she was removed after he returned having served half his sentence. Vickie’s natural sibling Stacey was tragically murdered aged just 7 years old. After 20 years of campaigning and with the help of her MP Vickie has finally been successful in securing a cold case review of her sister’s murder (31 years after it happened).

She has also spent many years campaigning for other changes. She set out with the vision to change the way the systems currently exist after also being subjected to abuse in adulthood that lasted nearly 13 years, resulting in her perpetrator receiving multiple convictions during and post separation. She experienced first hand the gaps, lack of provision, lengthy waits for trials and stark reality for those escaping abusers, with little protection.

After experiencing the family court system alongside fellow survivors she met during her journey she was inspired to help and was the first to person to petition for mandatory training for the family court judiciary. As a charity of survivors, part of our constitution is to educate about the realities, impacts and gaps faced by those subjected to all forms of abuse in our country. While there have been amazing steps made in creating vital change, we still see, on a daily basis, the impacts on victims and survivors, the gaps and also additional barriers that many face, with the ideal versus the reality.

We have had great pleasure in developing and delivering our #Educate2eradicate programme to thousands of students so far and those that support them by delivering prevention training. We have received a vast amount of positive feedback for our bespoke education provision covering all areas of abuse which has been delivered by us to schools, organisations, individuals and statutory services. One of the largest gaps that we have identified throughout all areas of our work with clients and through delivering training is around Post separation abuse. The misconceptions, minimisation and victim-blaming around this type of abuse combined with the gaps, lack of provision and accountability, plus no real protection, combined with the missing education is deeply concerning and dangerous. This is why we implemented the first ever Post separation abuse awareness week #PSAAW in September 2023.

PSAAW in 2023 revealed many causes for concern, with many national and even international counterparts joining in our week to highlight the reality and gaps so many victim-survivors faced within their services and communities. The sheer volume of those who commented, shared resources or completed our survey revealed that the numbers who are subjected post separation abuse is much higher than previously thought. (Our survey revealed 92% of those who escaped an abuser were subjected to post separation abuse, with over 67% for more than 5 years)

Some of our resources were converted into other languages, while this is amazing it shows the need and concerns and highlights clearly that PSA is still an area that needs much more robust support, prosecution, protection and education in place.

Escaping an abuser is proven to be the most dangerous time for any victim/survivor. It is well evidenced and recognised that abuse escalates in severity post separation and along with that the risks to the victim/survivor and their families is vast. Separation is a key indicator in femicide with 2 women a week still murdered in the UK by a current or ex-partner and featured as a stage in the 8 stages to homicide by Dr Jane Monkton Smith. Domestic abuse related murders remain a sad reality, and averages for the last 10 years remain unchanged, proving our current approaches and systems are not working, (*femicide census).

While PSA is placed as an addition under the Coercive and controlling behaviour law 2015 many victim/survivors are advised not to report to police, to stop reporting altogether, are victim blamed and not listened to, some even accused of being the perpetrator for reporting. Currently they do not have the right to know about any previous offence history of their perpetrator from Police under Claire’s law, as they have physically left that relationship. Some will return to the abuser/relationships at this point because it is safer and easier than putting up with the intense post separation abuse, threats and risk posed which is exactly what the perpetrator wants. Our systems currently aid in this also, sadly with many statutory bodies not understanding that abuse usually continues long after the relationship and the coercive nature of abusers using systems to further their abuse by using whatever means they can.

During the second ever Post separation abuse awareness week we are writing this open letter to call for action upon the government to:

Implementing a holistic approach with accountability, prevention and stronger protection for those subjected to post separation abuse would decrease the amount of reoffending. It would help to identify PSA, in turn would help to stop the victim-blaming and positively impact those who are subjected to this abuse, enabling them to have some justice, feel seen, heard and validated and, very importantly, give them the ability to safely move on with their lives without continued abuse and fear.

Claire’s law being extended will help to break the cycle so victim/survivors have the information and support to escape and move on, being equipped with better knowledge and safety measures with restraining orders.

Our society and government needs to be sending a strong message to perpetrators that their abusive behaviour is not acceptable, it will no longer be tolerated and punishments need to be put in place to fit the crime. These measures would reduce the escalation of abuse by implementing early interventions and the appropriate support.

Signed; Victoria Robertson BEM, CEO Kaleidoscopic UK