Come and join us at the Abbey Theatre on 7th November at 7.30pm for a spectacular in person performance of Nell Gwynn by Jessica Swayle.
The Guardian said: ‘Jessica Swale’s play about the orange-seller turned actor cannily mixes Carry On gags with an explicitly feminist message,’ while London Theatre called it: ‘a glorious celebration of theatrical life.’
Tickets are available at https://www.tickettailor.com/events/hertsdomesticabusehelpline/1356426 and all proceeds will go towards supporting HDAH.
Violence against Women and Girls report - 23rd July 2024
Today saw the publication of a report on Violence Against Women and Girls by Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth. DCC Blyth, Deputy CEO of the College of Policing and NPCC lead for violence against women and girls, referred to VAWG as an ‘epidemic’
Over one million VAWG related crimes were recorded during 2022/23, accounting for 20% of all police recorded crime.
Police recorded VAWG related crime increased by 37% between 2018/23.
At least 1 in every 12 women will be a victim per year, with the exact number expected to be much higher.
Child sexual abuse and exploitation increased by more than 400% between 2013 and 2022.
Not only is VAWG growing, but we are also seeing ever more complicated types of offending which causes significant harm to victims and society as a whole. One in every six murders related to domestic abuse in 22/23, with suspected victim suicides following domestic abuse rising year-on-year.
You can read the full report here:
Women’s Aid have responded that ‘although the statistics are alarming, it is important to remember that many survivors will not report their experiences to the police, therefore we know the issue will be much larger than the data shows.’
National News May 2024
Child to Parent Abuse survey Respect have launched a landmark survey aiming to create a national picture of the public’s understanding and experiences of child and adolescent to parent violence and abuse, known as CAPVA: This type of abuse is known as a hidden harm: 40% of those experiencing CAPVA refuse to report it. The anonymous survey will explore adults’ and young people’s understanding of CAPVA, and – in cases where people have needed support related to the issue - we are asking them whether they sought support, if they didn’t seek support, what the reasons were, if they did access support, how they would rate the effectiveness of that support, how their experiences or identity impacted their help seeking, and whether they have any suggestions to improve things for people in their position. The survey is now open for anyone aged 13+ based in the UK, and will close on 29 August at 5pm.
Respect launches landmark CAPVA survey | Respect
The creation of sexually explicit "deepfake" images is to be made a criminal offence in England and Wales under a new law, the government say: Under the legislation, anyone making explicit images of an adult without their consent will face a criminal record and unlimited fine. It will apply regardless of whether the creator of an image intended to share it, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said. And if the image is then shared more widely, they could face jail. It will be introduced as an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament.
Head to our blog page to read our latest blog “Sharing is not aways caring”
Britain’s biggest building society has said it will offer safe spaces to people experiencing domestic abuse at more than 400 branches across the UK: Nationwide last year promised that everywhere it has a branch, it will still be there until at least 2026 – ensuring face-to-face services are protected. Upon asking a member of staff to use their Safe Space, individuals will be able to use a private room to help them deal with the issue – access to a phone if they need one, and the chance to discreetly contact family, friends or specialist support. This initiative, launched by the charity Hestia as part of the UK Says No More campaign. The bank joined Hestia’s safe spaces scheme in April 2022, and said that since then more than 200 people have used a HSBC UK safe space. HSBC UK has said it experiences an average of two customer calls per day mentioning domestic or financial abuse.
Fatal domestic abuse reviews renamed to better recognise suicide cases: The government is taking action to better recognise the often hidden victims of domestic abuse who die after suicide, coercive and controlling behaviour, and economic abuse. Fatal domestic abuse reviews renamed to better recognise suicide cases - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
March 2024
We are delighted to have received a prestigious High Sheriff Award!! The recognition for our efforts in supporting those dealing with domestic abuse is really growing and we're extremely proud to continue this work.
Thank you Liz Green, High Sheriff, and Herts Community Foundation for such an amazing evening at Micklefield Hall, Sarratt, and huge congratulations to all the other winners. We are also receiving a grant of £2,000 which will be a nice start to 2024-5!
Secondly, we are pleased to tell you that Sally Burton DL has agreed to become one of our Patrons. Sally became a Deputy Lieutenant in 2012 and was High Sheriff of Hertfordshire in 2022-23. During that time her focus was on helping the vulnerable following the pandemic, with particular emphasis on the impact of addiction to drugs and alcohol, so she is well aware of the overlap with domestic abuse. Sally has been very interested in our work for a couple of years – so it seemed an obvious next step to ask her to join us.
Picured below L-R are Sally Burton, Chris Roach - Helpline Chair, Hayley Star - Helpline Manager and Mel North - Helpline Administrator.
International Women’s Day
We wanted to say a huge thank you to The Hub on Verulam who hosted a women’s wellness event for International Women’s Day. The evening was full of insight and connection and almost £500 was raised!
16 Days of Action
The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international campaign that kicks off on 25 November, also known as white ribbon day, and runs until 10 December, Human Rights Day. This year’s theme is investment in prevention. UNITE! Invest to prevent violence against women and girls | UN Women – Headquarters
We invested our time this year holding education and awareness sessions for Watford FC, PayPoint and Herts County Council. We also joined forces with the Hertfordshire Domestic Abuse Partnership to create a social media schedule that covered relatable content every day over the 16 days.
September 2023
Welwyn Hatfield Community Lottery
Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council have just launched their Community Lottery and we have signed up to be one of the beneficiary charities! For every £1 ticket sold where we are the nominated beneficiary charity, we will receive 50p and you could be in with a chance of winning £25,000 or some of several smaller prizes. Please support us if you can. Details are here.
COSAREF Grant
We are delighted to announce that COSAREF Foundation have granted us £3,500. This very generous sum will cover the costs of our phone and email service for a whole year, allowing us to keep it as a free service to any caller. Our grateful thanks to the Foundation You can read more about COSAREF here.
March 2023
National News 2023
Legal Age of marriage in England and Wales rises to 18: Marriage And Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act 2022 (legislation.gov.uk) came into force on 27 February 2023. Throughout England and Wales it is now an offence to cause a child under the age of 18 to enter a marriage in any circumstances, without the need to prove that a form of coercion was used. The Act will support a crackdown on forced marriages by introducing: • new criminal offence to cause a child to marry, with sentence up to 7 years in prison • offence includes forced marriage in non-legally binding ceremonies The government’s statutory guidance and multi-agency practice guidelines on forced marriage have also been updated to reflect this legislation, and are available at The right to choose: government guidance on forced marriage
Domestic abusers face crackdown in raft of new measures: GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Domestic abusers will face tougher management under new measures to protect women and girls. The law will be changed so that the most dangerous domestic abusers will be watched more closely. For the first time, controlling or coercive behaviour will be put on a par with physical violence, which will mean offenders sentenced to a year or more imprisonment or a suspended sentence will automatically be actively managed by the police, prison and probation services under multi-agency public protection arrangements. In addition, abusers could be fitted with a tag, prevented from going within a certain distance of a victim’s home, and made to attend a behaviour change programme, as part of a trial of domestic abuse protection notices and domestic abuse protection orders in three areas in the UK. Click the link above to read about the full range of measures.
Claire’s Law update: New updated DVDS guidance was published on 20 February 2023, intended for police and criminal justice agencies specifically. It sets out best practice for managing applications that are received online, including setting out that links to specialist domestic abuse services must be provided, and safety measures such as quick escapes must be in place on online portals to help protect applicants. Under the new guidance, the police will be required to disclose information on perpetrators quicker. Police will have 28 days to disclose the information, down from the current guidelines of 35. This will mean victims and potential victims should have the information that could be critical to their safety faster.
Female Genital Mutilation: (FGM) has been illegal in the UK since the enactment of the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, subsequently amended by sections 70-75 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. It is a form of child abuse, with life-long health consequences for girls and women, and carries a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment and/or a fine. The Home Office introduced a Female genital mutilation resource pack - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) in 2014 to provide clarity and support for the public and professionals to increase awareness and confidence in preventing and responding to FGM. An updated version of the pack was published on 6 February 2023, equipping commissioners and partners with data on the scale of the problem in their areas and tools to combat it effectively.
Non-fatal strangulation: Strangulation is common in domestic abuse and sexual violence cases. It can have serious medical consequences with victims of strangulation in domestic abuse being seven times more likely to become a victim of domestic homicide. A new specific offence of Strangulation and Suffocation has been introduced in Section 70 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which came into force on 7 June 2022. You can find full details here - non-fatal_strangulation-domestic-abuse-circular-2022-01.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Looking back over 2022 with HDAH… What a year it’s been!
20th Anniversary Tea and Queens Award for Voluntary Service Presentation
The Herts Domestic Abuse Helpline has had a double celebration this year! In June the charity received the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. This highly regarded award is the equivalent of an MBE for the voluntary sector. Everybody at the charity was delighted that the contribution by its volunteers - both call takers and Trustees - was recognised.
The award was received as HDAH also celebrates its 20th year of operations. To mark both of these achievements, HDAH held an afternoon tea on Friday 25th November for past and present volunteers, supporters and staff. Robert Voss, the Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire presented the Award.
The afternoon tea was planned to coincide with the first day of the national 16 days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. Domestic Abuse impacts over 21,000 people a year in Hertfordshire. One in four women and one in six men in this country will be impacted in their lifetime. As are 750,000 children. Domestic abuse costs the economy over £60 billion a year.
During its 20 years of operation, HDAH has tirelessly innovated and looked for new ways to assist those in need. Over 2,000 people are signposted to help each year. If you would like to talk to someone about domestic abuse, either for yourself or someone else, please call 08 088 088 088 or email kim@mailpurple.org.
HDAH relies on donations and fundraising from the public to be able to continue its free service. It has recently launched its 20th anniversary “Tea and Cake for HDAH” fundraising campaign. Please get involved by visiting the ‘Help Us’ page for more details. You could make a difference!
JKC News!
The free domestic abuse legal advice drop-in service at JKC Lawyers in Watford is still open from 10am-4pm. If you prefer you can still book an appointment on 0203 9355 999.
Our 20th Anniversary fundraising campaign is finally here. Please visit the “Help us” page for more information on how you can get involved by hosting a tea and cake event.
R&G skydive for HDAH
We wanted to say well done and thank you to the members of the Raise and Give committee at Herts Uni who teamed up with Endeavours Adventures to take part in a charity Skydive in May. The team managed to raise over £4,000 on the day with £ 2976 going to HDAH!
The Queens Award for Voluntary Service Winners are….
Celebrating 20 years of HDAH!!!
Thinking about becoming a Trustee? Read more about opportunities to help us - go to the Help Us tab.
Charity Preview Evening - 3 Women
We would like to say a huge Thank You to the Abbey Theatre in St Albans. The theatre supported us by donating ticket proceeds to a special preview on 21st April of the play “3 Women” – a comedy drama by Katy Brand. We raised £918 and had a great evening! If you would like to buy tickets to watch the show please visit:
Fireworks spectacular gives record amount to charity!
Chris Roach, our Chair, attended Sunday’s service at the cathedral on behalf of the Helpline.
A record amount of £40,000 has been donated by the Cathedral Fireworks Organising Committee to the 2021 charities, Age UK Hertfordshire, Highfield Park Trust and ourselves. On 12th December we were delighted to receive a cheque for £10,000 from new Dean, Jo Kelly-Moore.
Thank you to every single person who bought a ticket and supported the event.
16 Days of Action
You may have noticed that between 25th November to 10th December, the HDAH logo’s turned orange across all of our social media platforms. This was to support this year’s theme and in particular the Soroptimist campaign “Orange the World” to raise awareness for the 16 days of activism against gender—based violence.
Our Social Media platforms were filled with facts and news stories, supporting other organisations events and even taking part ourselves by wearing orange to our board/team meetings. We were delighted to be joined by the DA commissioner, Nicole Jacobs, who also wore orange to show her support for the 16 days.
SME awards 2021
What a great evening everyone had at the SME Herts business awards. Our commercial trustee made one of the welcoming speeches, highlighting the impact of domestic abuse on our society and the services provided by the helpline. She was also delighted to announce the awards for Sustainability and Lockdown leader. Congratulations to the lucky raffle winner and a massive thank you to everyone who took part, we raised £1,407 for the helpline. Special thanks also to Peer2Peer Boards My Mustard
The Helpline’s operating hours are
9am-9pm Monday to Friday
9am-4pm Weekends and Bank Holidays
If you cannot get through first time please wait a few minutes and try again.
We also have a confidential and anonymous email service for those who prefer to access signposting support by mail (if it is safe to do so) or face barriers accessing support by phone. Email us on Kim@mailpurple.org and we will get back to you within 3 working days.
We use LanguageLine to assist callers whose first language is not English. In addition, JKC Lawyers in Watford operate a 24 hour legal helpline 0203 9355 999. Their team speak the following languages: Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Arabic and French.