Domestic abuse helpline calls soar following Archers storyline

Calls to the national domestic abuse helpline have soared by nearly a fifth in a year, fuelled in part by a hard-hitting storyline about coercive control in The Archers.

Britons have been listening with growing horror as the long-standing character Helen Archer has been psychologically bullied and abused – and perhaps even raped – by her husband Robert Titchener.

The storyline coincides with the introduction of the new coercive controlling behaviour offence, which criminalises extreme psychological and emotional abuse which falls short of physical violence.

Charity chiefs credit an “Archers Effect” with helping to raise awareness that domestic abuse affects all sorts of people, including middle-class independent women in sleepy villages.

Figures released to the Press Association show that 6,774 calls were made to the national domestic abuse helpline in February this year compared with 5,783 in February 2015 – an increase of 17%.

Polly Neate, chief executive of the charity Women’s Aid, told the Press Association: “It is really powerful – I think it will make people stop and think and help women understand what is really happening to them.

“I think it has made quite a big difference to people’s perception of domestic abuse itself.”

She said the way The Archers has portrayed the gradual drip-drip effect of the abuse, slowly chipping away at a victim’s self-confidence, is highly realistic.

She said: “The experience on The Archers is very typical. A lot of the time women don’t realise they are being controlled until they are hit by the fear.

“Suddenly they get a glimpse into what might happen to them if they break that person’s control, and suddenly it becomes very real and it is really obvious then that they are in grave danger.

“But they might not have necessarily seen themselves as being in an abusive relationship until that point.”

The BBC Radio 4 storyline about the arrival of the charming farmer Rob, who whisked Helen off her feet before embarking on a subtle but deeply horrifying campaign of emotional abuse, has gripped and appalled the country.

Over many months Rob has gradually, but determinedly, isolated Helen from her friends and family, manoeuvred her out of her job, and played on her insecurities so she has become a shadow of her former self.

The storyline has provoked a massive outpouring on social media and prompted one fan to set up a Just Giving page which has raised more than £65,000 for the domestic violence charity Refuge.

It echoes the real-life experiences of many women, including mother-of-one Rachael, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.

She was an independent woman working at a multinational corporation, but all that changed when she got into a controlling and coercive relationship.

Her husband persuaded her not to return to work after having a baby, controlled to the last penny what she could buy, what she could wear and where she could go.

Rachael, who is in her 30s and lives in the south of England, told the Press Association: “I lost my voice, I lost my rights, I lost my liberty to have a say in what went on.

“By the time I left him I was so without liberty I could barely raise my eyes to look at him in the eye for fear of being out of place and being insolent and speaking out of turn. I wasn’t allowed to do or say anything.”

She said she hopes The Archers will reach out to women suffering in silence, as she did for several years.

She said: “I feel encouraged that it is on Radio 4 and in that context, because there will be an awful lot of ladies listening to that who are abused in quiet, middle-class, deceitful marriages and relationships.

“That will reach out to a lot of untouched ladies.”

The Freephone 24-Hour National Domestic Violence Helpline, run in partnership between Women’s Aid and Refuge, can be reached on 0808 2000 247.

An insight into the life of a woman psychologically bullied by her husband

At first glance Rachael must have looked like she had it all – a nice home, a newborn baby and a husband who had wooed her with romantic getaways and was happy to be the breadwinner as she spent time at home with their baby.

But in reality she was a victim of psychological and emotional bullying that left her so scared of her husband she could barely bring herself to look him in the eye, for fear of looking like she was being insolent.

She told the Press Association: “It all happened very quickly, I was swept off my feet and really charmed, treated really nicely – lots of flowers and big loving gestures which I had never been used to before.

“I bought a house very quickly, I got engaged very soon afterwards, I got pregnant when I was engaged, I got married after I was pregnant. And then after I was married, literally within a few days, he turned into a complete nightmare.”

Rachael, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, said her husband became highly abusive, cornering and shouting at her if he felt she had not paid him enough attention.

While his rages could turn violent, he was careful to leave no marks.

“He was physically aggressive in that he would throw things around the room and throw things at me, and he would physically restrain me from walking away from him and leaving an argument,” she said.

“He had expectations of how I would behave, and if I didn’t meet those expectations I would be severely punished, and those punishments would be in the form of verbal reprimands that would last for a considerable amount of time.”

He would tell her off for not asking about his day, and block her from tending to their crying baby if he was shouting at her.

He set about controlling every aspect of her life, beginning by persuading her not to go back to work after having their baby – prompting Rachael to volunteer in secret just to maintain her CV.

“It was completely a double-edged sword”, she said: “He would kindly advocate that I didn’t go back to work, that he was the breadwinner and he could provide for us and my job was to be at home and be a mummy.

“But then at the same time, at the flick of a switch, if it wasn’t for him I would be nothing and he was keeping me in the lifestyle I was accustomed to.”

Rachael was not allowed to join classes with other new mothers, and was so scared of misspending money she would linger in the aisles at Sainsbury’s carefully weighing up the cost of handwash.

She said: “That was where my life was at – having previously held down a job in a multinational global corporation earning good money and being held in high regard, I had dribbled down to this woman who had clothes that didn’t fit her properly, and had to hide any charity shop clothes I had under the bed so he wouldn’t know I had bought myself new clothes.

“He used to keep tabs and say, ‘I haven’t seen that before, where did you buy it? How much did it cost?'”

Looking back Rachael sees that her husband was laying the foundations for the “gendered” roles during the early days of their relationship, but she had not spotted it.

“It wasn’t until I was well and truly stuck in it that I realised I was in this sticky mess and needed to get out,” she said. “I lost my voice, I lost my right, I lost my liberty to have a say in what went on.

“By the time I left him I was so without liberty I could barely raise my eyes to look at him in the eye for fear of being out of place and being insolent and speaking out of turn. I wasn’t allowed to do or say anything.”

_{Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2016, All Rights Reserved. Pictured are Louiza Patikas as Helen Archer and Timothy Watson as Rob Titchener, as calls to the national domestic abuse helpline have soared by nearly a fifth in a year, fuelled in part by a hard-hitting storyline about coercive control in The Archers. (c) Pete Dadds/BBC/PA Wire.}