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No one knows if the money is being withdrawn and shared out fairly or if one party is keeping every penny to themselves - and there is no way to prove this one way or the other.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