\n<\/p>\n
Police should be trained in how pets can be used in coercive control cases, according to a charity that found a \u201ctroubling gap\u201d in awareness about the links between violence against animals and violence against humans.<\/p>\n
A report from the Naturewatch Foundation found that only 60% of police forces in England and Wales teach officers about pets being used as tools of coercion, punishment and manipulation, even though more than half of UK households have a pet.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a police officer, you\u2019re more likely to turn up at a household with an animal than not, and there is a very clear link between abuse against animals and abuse against humans,\u201d said Mark Randell, a former senior detective who is a campaigns manager at Naturewatch.<\/p>\n
He said there were many instances of domestic abusers \u201cmanipulating or punishing an animal\u201d in order to exert more control over their victim.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be to say \u2018if you leave me I will hurt your dog or your cat\u2019, for example. Or it could even be setting down the rules about how you\u2019re going to treat that animal, telling someone they\u2019re not allowed to take it out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSurvivors often form deep emotional bonds with their pets, particularly in the context of abusive relationships. So a police officer who turns up at a domestic abuse crime scene needs to know how to link that pet to the relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has presented the findings of the report, One Response, to Scotland Yard as part of a call for mandatory training for all frontline officers and for more collaboration between domestic abuse professionals and animal welfare experts.<\/p>\n
Samantha Billingham, of the Survivors of Domestic Abuse centre, which runs training and support sessions, said there was not enough awareness among professionals about the importance of pets in coercive control cases.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cA lot of people are staying in that situation because of their pets, because there are not a lot of refuges you can take your pets to. In some cases these are dogs and cats that have been in the family for many years.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd these animals are controlled, they\u2019re abused, violent things happen to them because the perpetrator has to be in control all the time. So this has got to be in the training of coercive control where police forces are concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Billingham was in an abusive relationship for many years and witnessed how animals could be used for violence and control. \u201cI went to bed one night when my partner didn\u2019t want me to, and a few minutes later he came into the bedroom and he\u2019d actually killed our pet bird. He brought the bird in on the knife to show me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Labour\u2019s 2024 election manifesto pledged to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, and a strategy is due to be published this summer. Naturewatch said rolling out mandatory training could be a key component.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government really needs to embrace this, it\u2019s not new thinking,\u201d Randell said. \u201cWe need to start looking at the whole picture, and that includes animals. It\u2019s not going to solve all the problems, but this is happening in case after case after case and opportunities are being missed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Police should be trained in how pets can be used in coercive control cases, according to a charity that found a \u201ctroubling gap\u201d in awareness about the links between violence against animals and violence against humans. A report from the Naturewatch Foundation found that only 60% of police forces in England and Wales teach officers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[1553,1554,1386,1552,1551,1424,1388],"class_list":{"0":"post-9372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-abusers","9":"tag-charity","10":"tag-domestic","11":"tag-pets","12":"tag-police","13":"tag-train","14":"tag-violence"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}