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"Postcode Lottery in Domestic Abuse Response Puts Pets and Survivors at Risk"
A new report (One Response) by the animal welfare charity Naturewatch Foundation reveals a troubling “postcode lottery” in how police forces across England and Wales are trained to handle coercive control involving pets — a critical but often overlooked aspect of domestic abuse.
Despite the scale of domestic abuse – affecting an estimated 2.3 million adults in the year ending March 2024, and 12.6 million people (one in five adults) over their lifetimes – only 60% of police forces currently include training on how animals are used as tools of coercion, punishment and manipulation by abusers.
With 60% of UK households owning a pet, the intersection of domestic abuse and animal abuse is no small issue. It is a national safeguarding blind spot.
There are an estimated 900,000 crime scenes a year where a pet is...