Tackling child deaths and coercive control

I agree with your editorial (10 June) and the letters (also 10 June) on the deaths of Dylan Tiffin-Brown and Evelyn-Rose Muggleton. The underlying structural chaos that formed the backdrop to the tragedy of these young children’s murders is of great significance. I was a child protection professional for many years in Northamptonshire, and over time attempted to learn and implement lessons learned from the all-too-bulky catalogue of public inquiry reports into child deaths. That catalogue reveals many common factors, including structural failures, specifically lack of coordination between agencies responsible for child protection.

But one factor is clearly not given the attention it deserves, after all these years since the Maria Colwell report in 1974: the sheer terror that the women and children who live with violent men experience on a daily basis is the same terror that social workers confronting these same men have to deal with, often with no protection. Having myself been in that situation feeling very threatened and alone, I know what it is to be compromised by a sense of personal powerlessness, humiliation and professional inadequacy.

There needs to be far greater support, both from management and other services, notably the police, in recognising when protection is required and for whom. And yes we need Sure Start as a platform to launch preventive services to enable our newest members of society to live happier, safer, healthier lives.
Annie Clouston
Barnard Castle, County Durham

• Unlike the tragic case of Sally Challen, my psychologically abusive ex-husband did not drive me to murder him (Report, 8 June). The gas-lighting and belittling he subjected me to during our marriage was as subtle as it was insidious. I told no one. By the time I divorced him for adultery, he had reduced me to a shadow of my former self. Four years after no contact, the chemical imbalance he has caused in my brain still leaves me so mentally fragile that I have decided to quit my job. I recently sought specialist psychotherapy and now believe I no longer love him but it will take me a long time to recover properly. Unlike Richard Challen, my ex-husband has not paid for his crime. Coercive control ruins lives, but where there is no violence, it will always remain very difficult to prove.
Name and address supplied

• Sally Challen’s case highlights the lack of legal protection afforded to victims of domestic abuse who are driven to offend. Well over half of women in prison report that they have experienced domestic abuse; most women in prison are there for non-violent offences. Their offending is often driven by coercive relationships. In 2017 the then Home Office minister for crime, safeguarding and vulnerability, Sarah Newton, said there needed to be “a root and branch review of how women are treated in the criminal justice system when they themselves are victims of abuse”. A new statutory defence should be added to the domestic abuse bill, to protect those whose offending is driven by abuse. This would strengthen recognition of the links between victimisation and offending and deter inappropriate prosecutions.
Katy Swaine Williams
Senior programme manager, Prison Reform Trust

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