150 attacked every day in domestic abuse shock

Sep 20 2009 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

MORE than 150 domestic violence attacks a DAY were made on North men and women last year, the Sunday Sun can reveal.

Figures show 55,168 incidents of abuse were reported to the region’s police forces for 2007/08. Yet shockingly only a third led to an arrest.

Domestic assaults have risen across the region over the last four years, by 7pc from 51,700 in 2004/05. But campaigners welcomed the figures, saying they show abused partners are finding more courage to seek help.

Claire Phillopson, of Wearside Women in Need, said: “My personal take is that things have improved enormously over the last few years, but there are still thousands of women out there living in absolute terror.”

Only one in four calls to cops over abuse led to an arrest in the Durham Constabulary area – on paper, the worst arrest rate for the region even though the force saw a drop in the number of incidents, by 4.3pc over the last four years.

The highest arrest rate was in Cumbria, where more than a third of incidents – 34.9pc – led to an arrest, compared to 25.8pc four years ago, and the force also saw the sharpest drop in reported attacks by 18.9pc.

While calls to cops over abuse soared overall, the arrest rate has slowly improved over the last four years, from 25.39pc across the North to 32.3pc - higher than the national average of 30.1pc.

The figures were unveiled by the Liberal Democrats, who also revealed that a mere 6.4pc of the incidents of domestic violence reported to the police resulted in a conviction in court.