A recent article in the Metro reported that in England and Wales, two women in England and Wales are killed by a former or current partner, every week. Whereas 10 per year fall victims to this crime in Scotland.
Clare Wood became one of the victims in 2009 when she was strangled by her boyfriend, George Appleton, a man with a history of violence and known to the police, who she met on the internet.
The Government's Victims' Commissioner Louise Casey is mounting a campaign called Clare's Law to allow people to find out whether new partners have a violent past. Police would be able to warn women if a new partner had a violent past under plans to reduce the number of deaths and injuries from domestic abuse.
A campaign for the change was launched in July 2011, with the support of police chief. The proposal, which is modelled on
Sarah's Law, is backed by Ms Wood's father Michael Brown, comes amid concern that women are increasingly meeting men via the internet with little or no knowledge of their pasts.
Ms Blears
said: ''Women in Clare's situation are often unaware of their partner's previous relationships and this can mean they start a relationship with someone with no idea if they have a violent past. Clare's tragic death shows how vulnerable women aren't always protected under the current law, and until women are given the right to know if their partner has a history of serial domestic abuse, they can't be sure of the risk that they face."
Ms Blears believes that changing the law women will be empowered to take informed action about their relationship which will give them the chance to protect themselves and prevent domestic abuse from happening before it begins.'
There has been a lot of media coverage regarding the proposal, with varied opinion. One report from the
Guardian states that "Clare's Law" is based on the assumption that people would make safe choices about relationships if they were better informed. However, it's thought that the proposal would not be able to stop serial abusers to continue. The Guardian's Lucy Reed continues, the scheme could allow the sharing of information, however, she also predicts potential victims being persuaded that the accusations to be malicious gossip, a misunderstanding, perhaps mistaken identity or, that their partner was defending themselves against a violent ex-partner.
Domestic violence is at epidemic levels in this country and
Libby Brooks is concerned that resources for those escaping it are badly funded and under-imagined. After reading into this, it is clear that there are many opinions and contrasting views on this subject.
But what do you think? Should this law be past? Do you think this would help reduce the number of cases of domestic violence? Or do you think that it would be a false sense of empowerment? We would really love to hear your opinion on this subject, so please let us know by commenting on our facebook page or you can tweet about it and follow us on twitter.
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