The Long-term Effects of Verbal Abuse

Image courtesy of Sonas, Ireland.

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Domestic violence education needed

Domestic violence is considered “a norm” by too many men and some women in today’s society – what we really need is a compulsory education about domestic violence and what a healthy relationship is – both in schools and across workplaces.

One woman killed by a present or former partner or spouse is one woman too many.

One of these women was 21-year-old Hannah Fisher from England – she was killed in 2009 after breaking up with her boyfriend.

Her mother, Debbie, and cousin, Leoni Harrison, are now campaigning for lessons on domestic violence to be made compulsory in schools.

Debbie says her daughter was “very bubbly, bright, loved reading and very chatty”.

She added: “She always wanted to see the best in people, she didn’t like people running anybody down.”

Hannah met her ex-boyfriend Simon when she was back in Swindon during a break from university.

He was having trouble getting a job and decided that the couple should move to Grantham in Lincolnshire together.

‘More controlling’
Debbie says that, at that early stage, there were no signs of him being particularly controlling and says that Hannah “was completely taken in by it”.

She says that from this point on, her and Hannah’s relationship started to break down as Simon started to tell her she wasn’t good enough to be at university.

“He started being less charming and more controlling,” she said.

“He stopped her seeing all her other friends. He wanted to know what she was doing all the time.”

Debbie says that one day Hannah called her and said she wanted to leave Simon. She says Hannah had lost lots of weight and didn’t look well when they brought her home.

They say they had “a really nice Christmas” but Debbie was worried that Simon was still in contact with her daughter.

“I took her back up [to Leicester] on the Sunday before university was going to start,” she said. “That was the last time I ever saw her alive.”

Wiltshire police say they found Hannah’s body at Simon’s bedsit.

“He murdered her, then left and killed himself,” she said.

She says she thinks that Hannah met up with Simon after he had got hold of her new mobile number and told her he just wanted to be friends.

Police say that they believe Simon threw himself off the roof of the building later that night.

“We’ll never know the full details,” said Debbie. “I don’t want people to forget who she was and what she went through.

Taking onboard our experience

It may be that we have a big part of the solution. As with everything else in life – if you have the experience and when you have personally gone through something, then undeniably you will have a diversity of insight, understanding, ideas and thus answers and suggestions to help get closer to solutions to the different parts of this widespread problem.

To authorities, politicians and policy makers, I would just like to say – get the insight and the knowledge from us who have experienced it, let us join together in this important work, let us be a part of it. Get knowledge and genuine understanding of this issue from ‘the real experts’.

It is time to let us ‘get on the train’ when it comes to creating durable, long-term and effective solutions. It is from us the real answers and solutions can come. Whether it is that we can have a voice through words, through campaigning, lectures, as advisers or with political work – it is worth taking our experience onboard.