DOMESTIC violence refuge boss Charlotte Kneer said she made a controversial decision to allow a documentary team inside her safehouse in a desperate bid to show how cuts are putting women’s lives at risk.
In a TV first, Channel 4’s Dispatches ‘Safe at Last: Inside a Women’s Refuge’ will air on Tuesday, following the lives of women and children fleeing abuse.
Charlotte, who is herself a domestic violence survivor, said: “From the minute I was asked to help make this film, day in and day out, it has caused me to lose sleep because I have had to make sure that everyone was kept as secure as possible.
"Refuges have to be kept hidden for a reason. Lives are at risk if women are tracked down but now lives are at risk because of government cuts too.
“It was a very difficult decision but one I still stand by because years of harsh cuts have amounted to abused women and children roaming the streets with no safe place to go.
“We used to be able to focus on caring but now we literally don’t know where our next lot of money is coming from.
"This documentary is not just about the women’s survival but the survival of the refuge itself. We are terrified the whole time.”
WATCH AND SUPPORT
Channel 4’s Dispatches ‘Safe at Last: Inside a Women’s Refuge’ will air on Tuesday 26 February at 10pm.
If you are a victim of domestic violence call freephone 0808 2000 247 for the 24 Hour National Domestic Violence Helpline (run in partnership between Women’s Aid and Refuge).
Or visit www.womensaid.org.uk.
To donate to Reigate and Banstead Women’s Aid visit www.rbwa.org.uk
The Government announced a landmark domestic violence bill in January which introduced the first ever statutory definition of domestic abuse to include economic abuse and controlling and manipulative abuse that isn’t physical.
But harsh cuts have left victims struggling to secure a refuge bed, with the most recent figures showing 60 per cent of them are unable to be housed, most commonly due to lack of space.
Local authority spending on refuges has been cut from £31.2m in 2010 to £23.9m in 2017.
There are currently 302 refuges in England and Wales but 1 in 6 has closed in the last 8 years.
The Sun on Sunday successfully campaigned to allow women and children fleeing violence to continue paying for refuge accommodation with housing benefit — which makes up 53 per cent of refuges’ funding.
HARSH CUTS
Ministers tried to remove it in reforms which would have led to 39 per cent of the 270 refuges in England closing.
Mum-of-three Charlotte, 48, who has worked with a close-knit team at the 11-bed Reigate and Banstead Women’s Aid (RBWA) refuge for 10 years, added: “Refuges can’t afford to be secret any more. We need to show people the work we are doing to raise awareness and in the hope we will get funding.”
The documentary, narrated by Julie Walters, follows the lives of brave women who agreed to face the cameras during their 6 month rehabilitation programmes despite huge risks.
One pregnant mum-of-three fled 200 miles after her partner beat her and threw their tiny daughter across a room.
Another mum described being beaten and abused for 16 years. Their teenage son started skipping school to try to protect his mum.
And a middle aged lady who fled to the refuge after decades of brutal marriage misery, broke down in tears when she saw the toiletries waiting for her in her room. “I hadn’t had all that at home,” she said poignantly.
Charlotte’s own story is also featured in the documentary.
She and her daughters Daisy, 19 and Dani, 18, are seen packing up their belongings and preparing to move house because of fears that their violent dad has tracked them down.
Charlotte’s ex is now free after serving a seven year sentence for 2 counts of threat to kill and 3 counts of ABH.
The end of his probation period means there is no longer any protection for his ex wife and children.
Charlotte still recalls the courage it took her to leave Wayne Prior when Daisy was just one.
She says: “I met Wayne in 1994 when I was a single mum with a six-month-old son and my brother was dying from leukaemia. Looking back, I can see that I was quite vulnerable.
“He was incredibly attentive. He wanted to know what I was doing, where I was going, who I was with.
"I thought, ‘Wow, he loves me so much’. I’d heard he’d previously abused women but I didn’t want to believe it. But all the danger signs were there.”
HE SAID 'I'M GOING TO KILL YOU'
Her rose-tinted view of Prior, a carpenter, was shattered at a wedding in the summer of 1995.
She recalls: “He’d been drinking all day and got verbally aggressive so I said I wanted to go home.
“I was walking towards the car when he punched the back of my head. Then he repeatedly punched me in the face. I should have left then. But the next day he came round crying, so I forgave him.”
Six months later he made his first threat to kill Charlotte.
She says: “He pulled me out of bed, straddled me and repeatedly punched my head. He said, ‘I’m going to kill you’ and bit a chunk out of my neck. Then he dragged me by my hair to the kitchen and got a knife. I grabbed it and I ran.”
Prior convinced Charlotte he needed help and she dropped all charges. She went on to have two children with him.
She says: “It took a final serious assault for me to leave. He tried to strangle and stab me so I fled to a refuge and got a non-molestation order. He breached it straight away and was arrested.”
Two of Prior’s ex-girlfriends with similar experiences were also prepared to bring charges against him.
In 2011, at Lewes Crown Court, Prior admitted seven counts of actual bodily harm, two counts of making threats to kill and one of common assault against the three women from 1993 to 2010.
He got a seven year sentence.
WATCH AND SUPPORT
Channel 4’s Dispatches ‘Safe at Last: Inside a Women’s Refuge’ will air on Tuesday 26 February at 10pm.
If you are a victim of domestic violence call freephone 0808 2000 247 for the 24 Hour National Domestic Violence Helpline (run in partnership between Women’s Aid and Refuge).
Or visit www.womensaid.org.uk.
To donate to Reigate and Banstead Women’s Aid visit www.rbwa.org.uk
Now, as the boss of a refuge herself, it is Charlotte’s job to care for women and children who have been living her old nightmare. She says: “Doing this job gives me strength I didn’t know I had.”
Each family at the RBWA refuge lives independently but has access to specialist help from Family Support Workers, counselling and health advice.
There are trips to the cinema and seaside. Crucially, the refuge team distributes food vouchers, toys, toiletries, bedding and school uniform vouchers.
The families have often fled, fearing for their lives, with seconds to spare. They have nothing.
'I WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES'
Despite the risks involved in making the Dispatches documentary, Charlotte said she refuses to be cowed by fear: “There is no point in encouraging people to report this crime if there is nowhere for them to go.
"Shadows come into this refuge and women leave but we can only help aid these amazing transformations with the right support and security.”
Her therapeutic refuge currently costs £375,000 per year to run. £98,000 is funded by Surrey County Council; £115,000 comes from housing benefit and the rest must be found by Charlotte and her team through one-off grants and fundraising.
She added: “I will do whatever it takes to make sure we all survive.
"What we really need is corporate donations.”
Finally, Charlotte coyly reveals at least one happy ending in the documentary. “My family and I are now settled and happy in our new home.
"It is a huge relief not to be looking over my shoulder everyday and I can also reveal that I have been in a relationship for six months and we are looking to move in together.
"So it looks like I have got my happy ending and I’m determined to make it happen for all the other strong, amazing women who deserve the same.”
'HUGE RELIEF'
Sian Hawkins, Head of Campaigns and Public Affairs at Women’s Aid, explained why the organisation supported Charlotte’s decision to go public, adding: “Life-saving refuges have been doing extraordinary work hidden away in our communities for decades.
"The very real threat of abusers hunting down survivors and their children means that these refuges have had to keep their work secret.
“In recent years, squeezes to their budget mean that they have no choice but to shine a light on their work. Domestic abuse services around the country have been lurching from funding crisis to funding crisis with many having to reduce their provision or face closure.
"This is leaving more women and children with nowhere to turn. 94 women and 90 children were turned away from refuge on just one day in 2017.
"To survive many services are having to go public to ask you for your support. Reigate and Banstead Women’s Aid has taken the courageous step to work with Channel 4’s Dispatches on this TV first, Safe at Last: Inside a Women’s Refuge.
"By highlighting the value of their service and how they are saving lives against the odds, the refuge hopes that the general public will be moved to donate to them so that they can keep their doors open."
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