A BURNTWOOD councillor has spoken of her own experience of domestic abuse as part of a call for action to prevent violence against girls and women.
Cllr Kathy Coe MBE was behind a motion at Lichfield District Council urging members and officers to do all they can to prevent abuse.
It asked the local authority to seek White Ribbon accreditation and appoint a violence against women and girls champion to “amplify the voices of survivors”.
The motion was eventually passed following a passionate speech by Cllr Coe who highlighted her previous role as chief executive of local organisation Pathway Project.
She said:
“That is my passion still – and I still volunteer for Pathway Project now. The other reason is because I am a survivor of domestic abuse.
“As a survivor, I’m blessed to be sitting here because many women don’t survive. Two every week die and three others commit suicide because they can’t see any way out of the relationship they are in.
“In 1988 I left a violent and addicted husband at 11pm at night with my children who had only a carrier bag each with their night clothes in and we went to a friend’s house. We had to fight our way through the door to get out, but we managed to get into the car and make a dash.
“I could have been dead many times during that relationship, so I know how fortunate I am not to have died.”
Cllr Coe told a meeting of the council that her initial efforts to set up Pathway Project had been challenging due to it being a “different world” at the time.
“I appreciate things were very different in that era, but when I was talking to different councillors back then and asking for support I was basically patted on the head in a patronising way then told to go home and forget about it because there wasn’t any domestic abuse in Lichfield – and they didn’t want to bring those sort of people into our area.
“I didn’t know anything about it so how would I ever be able to manage to do it? But thousands of women – and more recently men to as well – are really glad that I didn’t stop fighting for that because there are people in Lichfield district today whose lives have depended on being able to seek support from Pathway.
“When I came to the council to seek help as a homeless person I was interviewed by a female who told me to go home and then when I was hit again I could get an injunction. I sat there thinking ‘I might be dead next time’.
“So is there domestic and sexual abuse in Lichfield? Of course there is.”
Although organisations like Pathway Project are now able to support survivors, Cllr Coe said there were thousands of calls each year highlighting that the issue is still a relevant one.
She told councillors:
“Domestic abuse happens in this area. I remember well a case where a woman was separated from her partner. She was in bed asleep and woke up to the sound of her house being broken into.
“Knowing who it was likely to be, she rang the police. They arrested her ex-partner who was trying to break in and he had a murder kit in his car – a tarpaulin, ropes, stuff to stick over her face so she couldn’t scream, knives and a cleaning kit. He had everything needed to commit a murder. That happened in our district.
“We get over 5,000 calls a year, so there is domestic abuse in Lichfield I’m sorry to say.
“The statistics say that one in ten homes in this district have someone suffering domestic abuse now as we speak.
“It’s time to make changes. The White Ribbon campaign asks men to step up, to call other men out and to be supportive of these steps that need to be taken to support women and girls.
“We need this to stop and it can only stop if people support us in what we are doing.”
