Why the law on financial abuse as a form of Domestic Violence doesn't go far enough

Financial abuse is perhaps one of the easiest forms of abuse to hide... why is that? The answer is simply because it can be one of the hardest to prove. This is especially true in cases where you have a joint benefit claim. The reason for this is because the common way to pay out benefits is to place both parties money together and pay it out as a lump sum because it is cheaper to process this way than it would be to treat each person as the individual that they are.

Most of the time,  the current system works great because there are many more people who don't have any idea of what financial abuse is than there are who live with financial abuse.  However,  it's the small group who face financial abuse as a reality that we need to reach out to for the simple reason being that if someone is being subjected to financial abuse,  there's a good chance that they will be living with other forms of abuse and domestic violence as well.

As I said earlier, on benefit forms, there is a space to add card details where your benefits can be paid into, should your claim be successful. The card details that you put into this section doesn't have to be a card that is registered in your name... nor does it have to be a joint account for joint claimants - so, in theory, nothing stops you from using any random bank account to have your money paid into. There are no che checks at all made to see if you have access to the account or the money that is placed into it.

No one knows if the money is being withdrawn and shared out fairly or if one party is keeping every penny to themselves - and there is no way to prove this one way or the other.

As far as the new law goes, it's great that victims of this type of abuse have some small crumbs of protection - but unless someone, somewhere sees and recognises what is happening then has the courage to speak out on the victims' behalf... then not a lot is going to change.

The odds of the victim finding their own voice are slim to none - and even those who do want out of their domestic violence situation and don't have a bank account of their own are forced to try to stash money around the house in the hope that their abuser won't find it because even bank accounts leave a paper trail that could lead to their preparation being discovered before they are ready to finally leave.

Don't lock me in

A few months ago, I had to go to the hospital with my niece. Because we had no transport, we had to go in an ambulance. I remained in A&E with her until she was transferred up to a ward - at which point, I was told that I couldn't stay any longer.

By now, it was 5am and I had no money on me and at least an hour to wait for the first buses of the day to take to the road. The only things that I'd managed to grab were a phone and my cigarettes.

Obviously, there aren't going to be many family and friends up at that time in a morning - and those who are are either at work or going to work. So I did the only thing that I could. I called my husband and asked him what I should do to get home. He told me to call a taxi and he would pay the fare once I got home.



I went back into the hospital and called for a taxi using the phone provided. When the taxi arrived, my heart was in my shoes when I saw that it was a guy. As soon as I got into the cab, he wanted £10 before he'd pull away from the curb. Of course, I didn't have it to give to him. I managed to convince him to take me home though and avoided conversation with him for the most part.

Upon nearing home, the driver locked the doors to prevent me from running without paying the fare. I guess that is understandable - it must be a common problem for taxi drivers. The problem for me is that I don't trust men, II don't trust men who I don't know and I don't like being confined without my knowledge and consent.

Being locked in the taxi that morning was a very triggering experience for me, not only as a woman travelling by herself, but as a rape survivor. I have to admit that I really had to fight the desire to revert back to the unhealthy coping mechanisms that I turned to after my rape - all for the sake of £13?

It wasn't much of a fare - and the taxi driver was much taller and fitter than I was!  The point that I'm trying to make here is that in locking people in who have survived rape takes away their ability to feel safe and the feeling that they have a choice about being where they are. If I hadn't had other people present that day, I would have ended up back in hospital - which wasn't really worth it for the amount of the fare. It would be great if taxi drivers would use some common sense before locking the doors.

Do hypes really die out that fast?

Remembering 9/11 yesterday happened to get me thinking about other things that were around at about the same time - and one of the things that have stuck in my mind are the "Electrifying" arcade games from around 1999.

One of them was an Uncle Fester idea - which I believe came out at around the same time as an Addams Family movie. The other was a Giant Electric Chair (I suspect that this one might not have made it very big in America because of the chair being used as a form of execution).

The aim of both games was pretty simple in that you had to hold on to 2 "metal" pegs for as long as you could while they delivered "shocks" in the form of vibrations through the pegs and into your arms. The prize was a receipt that stated how many volts of electricity you were able to stand.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a picture of the chair version of this game, but I did find one of the Fester version:-

As far as I can remember, these were the "Must Play" games for around 2 years before they vanished entirely almost as quickly as they appeared in our amusement arcades. I can't help but wonder why they disappeared almost overnight? I understand that most fads tend to be pretty shortlived... but given the cost to purchase these things in the first place, arcade machines usually last at least a little longer than this fad did.

My initial thoughts were that maybe it'd turned out that there was some sort of accident associated with the machines - which is why they vanished as fast as they did, but I've done some research on Google and as yet I've been unable to find anything that would explain why they were shipped out as fast as they were. Past experience also tells me that the stigma of ride malfunctions and accidents aren't exactly easy to cover up, with the results being easy to find online months or even years later.

The most frustrating part for me has to be that I never did get the chance to get my receipt for either this or the chair.

What is abuse?

First things first, I'm hoping that this will be the first post in a series about Domestic Violence. I want to look a little more into individual areas of Domestic Violence and how it can present itself in our daily lives.



Okay people, today, I want to talk to you about abuse. Typically when we think of abuse, it's physical abuse that tends to spring to mind because we all like to think that we'd spot if our loved ones suddenly started walking around with bruises and other wounds that couldn't be easily explained away. The thing is that there are many different ways in which someone can be abused and because there is no "How To Abuse Your Partner 101", you can expect the odds to be good that no list will ever cover the full signs of abuse.

Most people who have lived with abuse, if they are honest, will admit that looking back, the signs were there from pretty early on in their relationship with their abuser. Personally speaking, I can think of 3 different relationships of mine that showed warning signs from early days of the relationship.

One thing that I get asked a lot is "If you could see warning signs, why didn't you get out?". The thing is that it's not always as cut and dry as simply walking away because of the nature of abuse. Abuse relies on a degree of secrecy - and unfortunately, there are times when the victim enables it either because they fear that they won't be believed or because other areas of abuse make it hard, if not impossible for them to leave. Even if the victim is living with just one type of abuse (which is unlikely) they might fear returning to the life that they had before the abusive relationship... especially if their lifestyle was destructive in some way. Chances are that you might not know if someone's lifestyle is destructive or not from the outside looking in. It's kind of hard to miss alcohol or drug addictions, but mental illness is much easier to hide because we can appear normal on the outside - regardless of the invisible battle that we fight.

Another issue faced by men who live with domestic violence is the children. Although his wife might not be beating their children, it's always in the back of his mind that she might start if he's not there to protect them. Unfortunately, the law tends to remain in favor of awarding custody of children to the mother.

On the other side of the coin, even the state enables abuse to happen. Because of an old law that basically means that a woman becomes a man's "property" upon marriage, many couples are dealt with as a "family unit" by the DWP. Of course, that's not a problem if both the husband and the wife have access to the account that their money is paid into... but, unfortunately, no one actually checks this out before benefit claims are awarded. Naturally, I'm aware that financial abuse can happen from the husband to the wife as well as from the wife to the husband - which is why equal access is an important factor to me... at least that way, the party who is being abused at least stands a chance of beating their abuser to their only source of income for 2 weeks.

As I briefly mentioned earlier on, abuse requires a degree of secrecy in order to maintain its effectiveness... so isolation can also be a clue that someone who you know and love might be being abused by their partner. In general, people are highly unlikely to suddenly change their tastes and hobbies overnight - in much the same way as they suddenly have no time for friends who they were once very close to.

If you had or have a friend who once spent hours talking to you but now seems to be antsy in your presence or is openly ignoring you, always try to keep the door open for him or her because it is possible that they might be being abused. They might one day open up to you about what they are living with.