Star comment: Supporting victims of abuse is vital
The hidden and secretive nature of domestic abuse means that it is not perverse to welcome a surge of reported incidents in the West Mercia police patch.
Bit by bit, a wall of silence is being broken down. Victims - mainly, but not exclusively, women - are coming forward and speaking up about the torment and misery they are having to endure, but should not have to endure.
In 2013/14 there were 4,497 reported cases in West Mercia. The figures have risen year on year and now stand at 11,442, which means the number of reports has more than doubled.
There has been a substantial rise too in the number of calls to the helpline of West Mercia Women's Aid.
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These days there is a lot of talk of the "culture" within a strand of society or a specific organisation. The culture in this country used to be that a man more or less owned his wife, and that it was legally impossible for him to be guilty of raping her, as there was no such crime of raping a wife.
Consequently the law did not adequately protect women. It was as if such abuse within the four walls of a house was a private matter, a little relationship difficulty in which outsiders should take no part and essentially mind their own business.
Thankfully the days when the law looked the other way when it arrived at the front door are over.
Yet there continue to be women who are being terrorised by their husbands and partners, both physically and psychologically. They are living, or rather existing, in a climate of fear.
These figures show that many continue to live under a reign of terror but that the culture is shifting and something that was in the shadows is being brought out into the open.
That is all to the good. What is less easy to determine is whether this increased number of reports means that the problem has grown substantially worse, in which case it will be a case of one step forward through more openness in addressing the problem, and one step backwards in that the problem is increasing.
The courts need to send out strong messages to the abusers when sentencing. In a recent case a Telford man was sentenced to 18 months in jail for a sustained campaign.
Increasingly victims of domestic abuse are saying: Why should I have to put up with this?
They shouldn't have to put up with it. They need to be encouraged to speak up, and supported when they do.
