Clare Wood was 36 when she was raped, strangled then set on fire.
She had been murdered by her ex-partner, a man she met on Facebook.
Clare had no idea George Appleton had a lengthy record involving domestic abuse.
Five days after she ended their relationship she walked into a police station and told officers he was enraged she had dumped him and had made several threats towards her. Over the following few weeks she made regular complaints to police but Appleton continued his campaign of terror.
Four months later on February 2, 2009, Clare was brutally murdered by Appleton and in the aftermath of her death it emerged he had a history of wooing women then terrorising them.
Today, the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme – known as ‘Clare’s Law’ – exists to try to protect women by allowing them and concerned family members to check whether a partner has a record of violence or might pose a risk of abusive behaviour.
Clare’s grieving father, Michael Brown, originally from Scotland, campaigned vigorously for change when it became known her killer had previous. He didn’t want another woman to suffer the same fate as his daughter.
Police Scotland says protecting women’s safety is a high priority, and earlier this week it emerged that five abusers had been sent to prison for a total of 61 years for domestic and violent behaviour towards women. Between them they were responsible for raping, beating and torturing at least 21 women.
In Scotland every NINE minutes police receive a call about domestic abuse and responded to 63,093 calls last year. Over 42,000 resulted in a crime being recorded.
These are sobering statistics and you could be forgiven for thinking we’re a progressive supportive nation where women’s safety is top of the agenda but events this week showed we still have a long, long way to go before we take domestic abuse seriously.
For the past six weeks the defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard has been a weird source of entertainment for some. Disgustingly, viewers worldwide have treated the proceedings as akin to watching a blockbuster movie – popcorn on their laps ready for the next ‘thrilling’ instalment.
Hashtags of #justiceforjohnny and #mentoo have been trending on social media prompting the watching public to take sides. And take sides they have – in their millions.
Heard was subject to vile abuse from the online community, joke memes were shared in their abundance on social media and people I thought were intelligent have taken to disparaging comments and cheerleading for a man who admitted sending texts messages fantasising he wanted to drown his wife then rape her corpse.
My heart sank when the jury awarded in Depp’s favour – because the social media circus surrounding this trial showed an appalling victimisation of a woman who had already been vindicated in a UK court. Legal issues aside, when you drill down into the US court proceedings it descended into a he says/she says situation and in the court of public opinion, Depp was always going to come out
on top.
Regardless of what camp you sit in (and just for the record I’m in neither) at the heart of this case is the public perception of domestic abuse. Would you slap your neighbour on the back and congratulate him on a job well done if you knew he had been accused of abuse?
I fear for women further silenced into accepting degradation and violence.
The public must understand what is at stake for people who try to extricate themselves from violent relationships and how
difficult it can be to protect themselves and seek justice often in the face of intransigence or scepticism from those looking on.
For Amber Heard that ended up being played out in a court room but others don’t live to see that day.
