Camilla’s tears for victims of domestic abuse
THE Duchess of Cornwall was moved to tears yesterday by the harrowing stories of women who survived domestic abuse – and those who lost their lives at the hands of violent partners.
Red- eyed and struggling to keep her emotions in check, Camilla listened intently as each woman recalled her experience.
Among them was Rachel Williams, 43, who was blasted in the legs with a shotgun by her husband Darren shortly after filing divorce papers following 18 years of abuse. Her son, Jack, hanged himself weeks later, unable to come to terms with what had happened.
Also there were the mother and best friend of Joanna Simpson, who was killed by her violently manipulative husband, Robert Brown, a British Airways captain, in 2010.
He bludgeoned his estranged wife to death with a claw hammer within yards of their children. He was found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
It is believed that about a million women suffer at the hands of violent and emotionally abusive partners in the UK.
The Duchess, who was at the event at the Oval, south London, to learn more about SafeLives, a charity dedicated to ending domestic
abuse, has campaigned on the issue of rape and sexual assault.
She wrote about her experiences in the field in the Daily Mail last year and yesterday spoke about her desire to see the issue of domestic abuse on the national stage.
‘It’s so important that people like yourselves speak up otherwise we gloss over it,’ she said. ‘And this is too important an issue to ignore.’
She also made a beeline for the weeping mother of Joanna Simpson, saying: ‘Another incredibly brave lady. Stories like this just have to be aired otherwise domestic abuse becomes a taboo subject. I want to do anything I can to help raise this issue. All of you going around and talking about it does create awareness.’
The Duchess took her place next to the women, sitting in a circle in the centre of a presentation room.
Mrs Williams, from Newport, South Wales, clutched a wristwatch she was wearing when her husband attacked her. It stopped at 2.26pm and still bears scratches caused by her attempts to defend herself. She called police seven times in the six weeks before she was shot in 2011. Her husband, a lorry driver, was arrested twice in a week for threatening to kill her and assaulting her. But he was released on bail to live nearby, despite Mrs Williams being classed as ‘at high risk of harm’. Days later, he burst into the hairdressers where she worked, smashed her in the head with the butt of a sawn- off shotgun and fired two shots into her legs.
He hanged himself six hours later in an area of local woodland. Six weeks after the attack – while Mrs Williams was recovering in hospital – her son hanged himself at the same spot. ‘Jack took his life at just 16 years of age because he could not cope with what his father had done to me,’ she told the Duchess. Hetti Barkworth- Nanton recounted the shocking catalogue of emotional abuse her best friend, Joanna Simpson, suffered in the years leading up to her killing by her husband, Robert Brown.
With Joanna’s weeping mother Diana Parkes sitting next to her, she told of the anguished phone calls she shared with her friend. After months of harassment and
‘Warm, caring and selfless’
intimidation, the airline captain battered the ‘warm, caring and selfless’ mother over the head with a hammer he had hidden inside his children’s homework bag..
The Duchess comforted Mrs Parkes and promised to look into what she could do to support the charity.
Last year SafeLives, which was founded in 2005, helped 67,500 high-risk victims – as well as their 76,000 children – through its network of independent domestic violence advisers.
Mrs Parkes said it was ‘absolutely brilliant’ that Camilla had found time to listen. ‘The Duchess of Cornwall was obviously quite moved by all of us,’ she added.