• Every minute in the UK, the police receive a call from the public for assistance for domestic violence. This leads to police receiving an estimated 1,300 calls each day or over 570,000 each year. (Stanko, 2000). Of these, 89% were calls by women being assaulted by men. However, according to the government National Delivery Plan, less than 24% of domestic violence crime is reported to the police (Walby and Allen, 2004).

 

• However, only a minority of incidents of domestic violence are reported to the police, varying between 23% (Walby and Allen, 2004) and 35% (Home Office, 2002; see also British Crime Survey, 1998; Dodd, et al., 2004).