"Can we have an ambulance please, my daddy has just attacked my mammy." These are the haunting words uttered by an eight-year-old on a 999 call which show the grim reality of domestic violence in Wales. As the call continues, the child's voice disappears and is replaced by muffled screams as a man continues his barrage of abuse.
The child was calling after her stepfather had attacked her mother who was pregnant at the time. The attack was so violent that he broke her mother's ankle in two places meaning she needed to use a wheelchair for months. Her mother, who we are calling Emma for legal reasons first heard the call when it was played in family court as she battled for custody of her children.
This was the first time her partner had been violent towards her but the emotional abuse wagered at her was already taking its toll. He had been exercising coercive control methods as well as emotional abuse throughout their relationship, including isolating her from friends, deciding what clothes she wore and launching tirades of verbal abuse.
Read more: The sickening domestic abuse epidemic gripping Wales by those who have survived
Between April 2021 and May 2022 police in Wales attended 47,354 domestic abuse-related incidents, according to the Office for National Statistics. This equates to around 130 call-outs a day.
Abuse charity Refuge says it is estimated that less than 24% of domestic abuse crimes are reported to the police. And while it is universally acknowledged that men are affected by such abuse too, the vast majority of abuse is still wagered at women, around two-thirds according to most recent statistics. Which in itself are difficult to define and compile.
Speaking to WalesOnline as part of an investigation into domestic violence in Wales, Emma has bravely opened up about the horrific abuse wagered at her and her family. You can read that here.
"It [the relationship] started off quite very fast moving. He liked everything I liked, it was like he was the perfect man. And then he started saying he couldn't live without me, love bombing. We moved in together, we got engaged, I was quite keen to get married, but I wasn't in a rush to get married. And then we bought a bigger house. In this time, there was a lot of coercive behaviour."
Despite the obvious emotional abuse, the first violent incident came in early 2017, after the pair were watching rugby in the pub with their prospective groups of friends. Emma had just found out she was pregnant with her second child, her first with her partner.
"We went to the rugby, and had a lovely time. I’d just found out I was pregnant. But before that, I'd had numerous miscarriages. Absolutely numerous, to the point of having to be hospitalised for one of them. So I was just ecstatic. I was ecstatic." As the pair arrived home Emma said there was a supermarket food delivery waiting for them which she asked him to help her take in.
"Obviously I didn’t want to do anything to risk the pregnancy because well my miscarriages were in the double figures by that point probably so I asked if he could help me carry it in and he told me to “F off you stupid c***”. He was screaming and shouting abuse, it was constant verbal attacks."
The mum from Swansea says to this day she still doesn't know what triggered him to make this night different to any others. It wasn't the fact he had been drinking, "He was equally nasty sober as he was as he was drunk," she said.
WARNING DISTRESSING CONTENT: This is the harrowing phone call made by an 8-year-old after her stepfather attacked her mother.
"I had my phone in my hands, he grabbed the phone and flung it, it bounced off the wall and completely smashed. He charged in and grabbed me. His hands were on my neck, on my shoulders, and he was just shaking me like a rag doll. He was violently shaking me, to the point where I felt like my teeth rattling. My daughter jumped on his back to get him off and he sent her flying.
"He was shaking me so violently that I lost my footing and my ankle snapped. As I yelped in pain it didn’t scare him to stop, he just carried on. It snapped up the bone and across the bone. And then he just went back into the bedroom, our bedroom, as if nothing had happened.
"I was on the floor in agony, absolute agony. My daughter got my phone and rang for an ambulance and that’s when he started again as you can hear on the call."
The 999 call handler sent police to the home and he was arrested and released the following day as Emma decided not to press charges against him. "The police officer did ask me to press charges and consider it but obviously I was in shock. I didn’t know what to do. I was embarrassed, I was in shock. I was in shock for a long time. I couldn’t believe what had happened," she said.
"I didn't tell anybody. I was so embarrassed. I've run through the whole night. What could they have done to upset him? What would have triggered him? Why, we had some quite nasty name calling and things like that but nothing to this degree. For at least six months after I kept going over it."
She has decided to open up about her experience in the hopes that it will help other women in a similar position. "I want women to use my story as a survival guide to find their voices and to fight the perpetrators. I just want to turn it into a positive and help others. I was lucky, very, very lucky because they [Women's Aid and Cafcass] were absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing. And they were so supportive.
"I'm lucky because I've had the Survivors Network to support me through it, as well as friends and family. I wouldn't be where I was unless I'd been in the Survivors Network and had that support."
While survivors of domestic abuse have been documenting the signs of coercive control for decades, it was only officially considered a crime in 2015 under Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act. Coercive behaviour offences that reached a first hearing at magistrates' court rose 38,400% from just five in the first year of the act to 1,925 for the year between April 2021 and March 2022.
If you or someone you know is affected by domestic abuse visit the Live Fear Free website or call the helpline on 0808 80 10 800.
Read next:
- Man murdered his wife by strangling her then cutting her throat
- Less than one per cent of police officers and staff facing complaints about treatment of women were sacked, figures show
- 'I was a happy little girl then my biological father sexually abused me every night for six months'
- Man imprisoned woman in his house and threatened to shoot himself if she left
- The new head of Wales' biggest police force on the challenges of lockdowns, drugs and knife crime
