Domestic abuse and stalking

This lesson is about harm from a partner, an ex-partner or a family member, and about stalking. If someone close to you frightens you, the phone numbers are in the box headed "Help first", just after the next one, and nothing here will tell you what to do.

You decide

Two sentences from the services set the rules for everything below. Refuge, which runs the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, says on its helpline page: "We will never tell you what to do."⁴ The US Hotline's page on guns says that "you are the expert in your situation", and that you are the best person to decide what will keep you safest.¹⁴

So this lesson describes; it doesn't direct. It does not tell anyone to stay or to go, and it never says "just leave". If you are helping someone else, the same rule holds for you, and the last part of the lesson is about how.

Lessons 4 to 6 were about lowering the odds at home, on the street and when travelling. None of that is a plan for living with someone who frightens you, and nothing here suggests the person being harmed caused it or could have prevented it. Refuge says on "What is domestic abuse?" that abuse "is never the fault of the person who is experiencing it, and it is a crime."¹⁵

One label, said once. Most of what the services advise is, in this course's labels, practitioner opinion: guidance from their work that no study the course read has tested. The lesson marks it where it matters rather than after every sentence.

What the services call abuse

Refuge's page opens with a definition: "Domestic abuse (sometimes called 'domestic violence' or 'intimate partner violence') is an incident or a pattern of behaviour that is used by someone to control or obtain power over their partner or ex-partner."¹⁵ The US Hotline's is close to it: "Domestic violence (also referred to as intimate partner violence (IPV), dating abuse, or relationship abuse) is a pattern of behaviors used by one partner to maintain power and control over another partner in an intimate relationship."¹

Two words carry both definitions. Pattern means the harm is in the repetition, so a single incident can look small when the whole is not. Control means the question isn't whether any one act was violent, but what the acts, taken together, are for.

Each service then lists the forms it sees, and the two lists are not the same, so here they are separately, each in its own words. Refuge names six: "Emotional abuse, including gaslighting / Coercive control / Physical abuse / Tech abuse / Economic abuse / Sexual abuse".¹⁵ The Hotline's types of abuse page names nine: physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, technology-facilitated abuse, sexual coercion, reproductive coercion, stalking and spiritual abuse. It adds that "Multiple forms of abuse are usually present at the same time in abusive situations".²²

Emotional abuse, on the Hotline's page, is "non-physical behaviors that are meant to control, isolate, or frighten someone", and its examples include "Monitoring your activities with or without your knowledge, including demanding to know where you go, who you contact, and how you spend your time."²² Its list also covers cutting someone off from family and friends, threats against children or pets, and blaming the person for the abuse.²²

Coercive control

Refuge gives coercive control its own page. It describes it as an act, or a pattern of acts, of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation that an abuser uses to harm, punish or frighten, and says it is a purposeful pattern rather than a single incident.²³ Because it can be hard to see from inside, the page gives questions instead of a definition to test against. Among them: does your partner isolate you from friends and family, monitor how you spend your time, keep track of what you do online, control when you sleep, where you go, who you see and what you wear, keep control of your money, or stop you getting to work or using transport?²³

Refuge's helpline site has a shorter test still: "Anyone forced to change their behaviour because they are frightened of their partner or ex-partner's reaction is experiencing abuse."⁴

Refuge, an English charity whose helpline GOV.UK lists for England, also says on its coercive control page that controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship is a crime and that perpetrators can be prosecuted.²³⁵ It does not say which law, and this course didn't read the statutes in England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland or any US state, so it cannot tell you whether or how that applies where you live. This is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Who it happens to

Refuge: "Domestic abuse can happen to anyone, regardless of age, background, gender identity, sex, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity. However, statistics show most domestic abuse is carried out by men and experienced by women."¹⁵ Its helpline is for women, and it says so, then adds: "We recognise that men can experience domestic abuse too."⁴ The Hotline's page says that anyone can be a victim, or a perpetrator.¹ Both halves of Refuge's sentence can hold at once. The figures below give victims by sex, not perpetrators.

How common it is

In England and Wales, the crime survey estimated that 7.8% of adults aged 16 and over had experienced domestic abuse in the year ending March 2025, about 3.8 million people.²⁴ By sex, that was 9.1% of women and 6.5% of men, about 2.2 million women and 1.5 million men, so roughly one man in fifteen as well as one woman in eleven. Abuse by a partner or ex-partner (6.1% of adults) was more common than abuse by a family member (2.7%).³⁴

Those figures come from a part of the survey people fill in privately, and ONS explains why in its bulletin: the face-to-face part of the survey, which it uses for other violence, "underestimates domestic violence because victims may not disclose it to interviewers", so domestic abuse is "better captured via a self-completion section".²⁴ The private questions give what ONS calls its preferred estimate.

One caution if you took lesson 3. Its domestic abuse figures, 6.6% of women and 3.0% of men for the year ending March 2024, came from an older set of questions. ONS brought in new questions from that year on and says the new and old estimates cannot be compared.³⁴ So lesson 3's numbers and these are not the same measure, and the gap between them is not a rise.

The police see a different slice. In the year ending March 2024, in data from 18 police forces in England and Wales, 41% of suspects in violence against women were the women's intimate partners, against 22% for violence against men.²⁵ That is police-recorded crime from part of the country, and it is a share of suspects, not of people, so it does not line up with the survey's percentage of adults. What it adds is the same direction from a second, independent source: for women, a partner is a much larger share of the danger.

For killings, lesson 3's row from the Homicide Index is the one to remember: adult women killed in England and Wales were most often killed by a partner or ex-partner. For the US, lesson 2 set the CDC's lifetime figure (more than 1 in 3 women and more than 1 in 6 men, for a broad set of harms by a partner, stalking included) beside the national crime survey's 2.7 victimizations per 1,000 people aged 12 and over in 2024, and showed why the two measure different things.

Stalking

The National Stalking Helpline is run by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, and the trust's page on what stalking is starts plainly: "Stalking is a pattern of repeated, unwanted behaviour that causes you to feel distressed or scared. It can be perpetrated by men or women."²⁷ Two things in it matter most. It does not need a threat: "Stalking can happen with or without a fear of violence."²⁷ And it doesn't need anything dramatic: "Stalking can consist of any type of behaviour such as regularly sending flowers or gifts, making unwanted or malicious communication, damaging property and physical or sexual assault."²⁷

Who does it? The same page says that about 45% of the people who contact the helpline are being stalked by ex-partners and a further third knew their stalker in some other way.²⁷ Read the label on that: it is the helpline's callers, not everyone who is stalked, so it tells you who rings this helpline and cannot be turned into a national share. The page adds that knowing the stalker, now or in the past, doesn't make any of it the victim's fault.²⁷ Lesson 3 gave the survey's figures for England and Wales in the year ending March 2024: 4.0% of women and 2.3% of men had been stalked, and 16 to 19 year olds more than any other age group.

The Hotline counts stalking among its forms of abuse and defines it this way: "Stalking occurs when someone watches, follows, or harasses you repeatedly, making you feel afraid or unsafe, and may occur from someone you know, a past partner, or a stranger." Its examples include "Showing up at your home or workplace unannounced or uninvited", "Using social media or technology to track your activities" and "Waiting around at places you spend time."²²

SPARC notes on its page on stalking behaviours that "most stalkers engage in multiple tactics to scare their victims", and its page for victims that "Stalkers' behaviors can escalate from more indirect ways of making contact (like phone calls or texts) to more direct contact (like delivering gifts or showing up where you are)."²⁶ The same page suggests keeping a record of each contact and saving messages and posts as evidence.²⁶ That is practitioner opinion. And the warning at the top applies to it: if someone checks your phone or your things, a record kept there could be found.

SPARC is also plain that it cannot help you directly: its page for victims says, in capitals, that it does not provide direct services to victims of stalking. It asks people seeking help to reach out to their local service provider first, and says domestic abuse and sexual assault services are often the right people to contact about stalking even when it has nothing to do with a partner. For anyone who doesn't know how to reach a local service, or wants more help, it points to VictimConnect, the Hotline and RAINN.²⁶

Technology used to track and control

The Hotline defines technology-facilitated abuse as "the use of technology ... to bully, harass, stalk, intimidate, or control a partner."²² Refuge runs a separate site, Refuge Tech Safety, which describes it as someone using technology to harm or control you, and has step-by-step guides to securing phones, accounts and home devices.²⁸

Its page on AirTags carries the line that matters most before any of those steps: "depending on whether or not you are living with the person who is harming you, you may choose to take different steps. Control and coercion make some of these steps impossible or not safe."²⁸ The page does not say which steps, and this course will not guess. Whether a step is safe depends on your situation, and the site leaves that choice with you. This lesson links to the steps rather than copying them, because they change with each phone update; that's this course's reason, not the services'.

Digital Literacy lesson 8 showed what a private window does: that browser does not keep the session's history, cookies or form data on that device, and it reaches nothing beyond the device. That lesson called it the right tool for one worry, someone later reading the history on a shared machine. When the person who might look is the person frightening you, the Hotline's warning is wider: internet use can be monitored and cannot be erased completely. If you're worried your internet use is being monitored, the Hotline's advice is to call it instead; on this course's reading, from a phone the person can't get at.¹ Refuge's helpline site suggests leaving and coming back on a safe device if you think someone might be monitoring yours.⁴ The Men's Advice Line says calls to it do not appear on itemised bills.¹² That is a statement about the bill; it says nothing about what a phone itself shows.

Kerry's question

Kerry lives in England. Her partner checks her phone most evenings, has started turning up at her work at lunchtime without saying he is coming, and tells her which of her friends she can see. He has never hit her. She isn't sure it "counts", and she has not told anyone.

What the services describe. Set her three facts beside their pages, one at a time. Checking her phone and deciding who she sees are close to two of the Hotline's examples of emotional abuse: monitoring someone's activities, including demanding to know where they go and who they contact, and cutting them off from friends.²² Turning up at her work uninvited is close to one of the Hotline's examples of stalking, showing up at someone's workplace unannounced or uninvited. And Refuge's coercive control questions ask whether a partner monitors how you spend your time and controls who you see.²³

What the services do not do. None of those pages gives a score, and none says "this counts" or "this doesn't". Refuge's shorter test is a question only Kerry can answer: is she changing what she does because she is frightened of his reaction? This course won't answer it for her either.

The practical side. Her partner checks her phone, so the warning at the top is about her. Refuge's helpline site suggests a safe device if someone might be monitoring yours, and the Hotline suggests calling rather than browsing if browsing may be watched.¹⁴ Since he checks the phone itself, this course reads Refuge's advice as covering a call or a chat just as much as a web page: a phone or computer he cannot get at, at a time that's safe for her, whichever way she gets in touch. The helpline is open all day and all night. Refuge's live chat runs weekdays 10am to 10pm and weekends 10am to 6pm, and lets her talk to an adviser in writing, without speaking aloud. Refuge notes that when lines are busy, evenings, nights and weekends are often quieter.⁴

Every one of those is an option, not a step she ought to take. What she does next, including nothing for now, is hers.

Separation, and a study of killings

Lesson 3 found that separated people had the highest rate of violent victimisation in the US survey's table, though it was also the least precise number there, and that neither source it read explained why. It promised a study of killings by partners that comes at separation from another direction. This is it.

In 2003 Campbell and colleagues published a study of femicide, the killing of women, by partners, in the American Journal of Public Health. In 11 US cities they interviewed people who had known 220 women killed by a partner, the proxies, and compared their answers with interviews with 343 abused women who had not been killed.²⁹ All were aged 18 to 50, and the women who were killed had all been abused before by the man who killed them.²⁹ Notice who the comparison group is. It is not women in general. It is women who were also being abused, so the study asks what separates the most dangerous abusive relationships from other abusive ones.

The abstract lists the factors that stood up once the others were taken into account: the "perpetrator's access to a gun and previous threat with a weapon, perpetrator's stepchild in the home, and estrangement, especially from a controlling partner."²⁹ Notice whose characteristics these are. Almost every one describes the abuser or the relationship. Two things went the other way: "Never living together and prior domestic violence arrest were associated with lowered risks."²⁹ Earlier threats mattered too: an abuser's previous threats to kill went with odds about 2.6 times higher.²⁹

Stalking, forced sex and abuse during pregnancy were each linked to higher risk when looked at one at a time. Once the model included the abuser's earlier threats with a weapon and threats to kill, stalking and abuse during pregnancy no longer stood out separately. The authors say those behaviours tend to go with such threats, "factors that more closely predict intimate partner femicide risks".²⁹ Forced sex came close to standing out even then (an odds ratio of 1.87, just short of the usual test), and the authors say their way of handling "don't know" answers probably understated factors like it.²⁹ None of that means stalking or forced sex did not matter. It means the threats carried the signal in this study.

What the numbers mean, and don't

An odds ratio of 8.98 isn't a nine-in-something chance of being killed. It compares how common a factor was among the women who were killed with how common it was among the abused women who were not, measured as odds; First Aid and CPR lesson 4 showed that odds are not percentages. The study gives no absolute risk, and Logic and Argument lesson 9's warning applies: a relative figure without its base tells you how much larger, not how large.

The interval matters as much as the headline. The 95% confidence interval runs from 3.25 to 24.83: the data fit a multiplier as low as about three or as high as about twenty-five, and 8.98 is the single best estimate inside that range. And the figure shrank when the study took more into account. Once the abuser's earlier threats were added, the estimate for the combination fell to about 4, with an interval from 1.33 to 12.4; in the authors' words the effect, "although substantially reduced, remained strong".²⁹ The authors add a warning that runs the same way: the women in the most dangerous situations may have been less likely to take part as comparison women, which would be "inflating our estimates of increased risks".²⁹ The finding is strong that the combination goes with higher risk, and weak on how much higher.

The paper names its own limits. "Perhaps the most important limitation of the study is its necessary reliance on proxy respondents for data regarding hypothesized risk factors".²⁹ The women who were killed could not be asked, so people who knew them answered, while the comparison women answered for themselves. The study also left out women outside large cities, with one exception, and comparison women without a telephone, so it's an urban sample, from the US, published more than twenty years ago.²⁹

And it is an association. Campbell's team measured which factors went with killings. The paper does not say why separating from a controlling partner goes with danger, and this course will not guess. Because it compares cases after the event, it also can't say when in a separation the danger is greatest. The services say something close, from their own work rather than from this study. The Hotline's page on guns says that ending an abusive relationship can be an extremely dangerous time, especially if the partner has access to firearms.¹⁴ The Men's Advice Line tells friends and family that leaving is often a very dangerous time, when violence and abuse escalate, and that careful planning is needed.³⁰

Why "just leave" isn't advice

Three things are wrong with the phrase.

The first is Campbell's finding. Among the abused women in the study, separation after living together went with higher odds of being killed, most of all with a highly controlling abuser. Having ever left him or asked him to leave went with odds about three times higher (3.19) in one of the study's earlier models, and where the worst incident of abuse (for the women who were killed, the killing itself) was set off by her having left him, for a reason other than a new partner, the odds were about four times higher (4.04).²⁹ Advice that treats leaving as the safe, simple answer leaves all of that out.

The second is the services' framing. The Hotline's definition of a safety plan, below, covers safety "while experiencing abuse, preparing to leave an abusive situation, or after you leave"; it does not assume any one of those.³¹ Refuge's page for friends says not to tell a woman to leave or criticise her for staying, because she has to make that decision in her own time, and calls leaving an abusive partner a process.³² Among the reasons it gives why a woman may not leave is that she "may be fearful of what the abuser will do to her and the children if they leave or attempt to leave".³² That is the service's account from its work, practitioner opinion; the course read no research on why any particular person stays, and makes no claim about it.

The third is the one the lesson began with. "Just leave" is someone else deciding. Refuge's "We will never tell you what to do" is a service's rule, and the Hotline gives the reason in its own words: "you are the expert in your situation".⁴¹⁴

None of that is an argument for staying, either. It is an argument for planning, with help, on the person's own timing, which is what the services offer.

What a safety plan is

The Hotline's definition: "a personalized, practical plan to improve your safety while experiencing abuse, preparing to leave an abusive situation, or after you leave."³¹ And its reason for making one in advance: "it can be hard to think clearly or make logical decisions during moments of crisis."³¹ That's the Hotline's reason, and it is the only one the course has.

Both the Hotline and Refuge will make the plan with you. The Hotline's page invites you to contact it at any hour to have an advocate help you prepare a personal plan, and Refuge's adviser will, in its words on the page, help you make a plan if you would like.³¹⁴ There is a practical side to that, and it's this course's point rather than the services': a plan made on the phone with an adviser does not have to exist on paper or on a device where it could be found.

So this lesson does not describe a plan, and none of its exercises asks you to write one. The Hotline also has an interactive planner on its site. This course did not open it, but the page that links to it says the finished plan can be read online, printed, or sent as a link to your email that works for 24 hours.³¹ A printout or an email is something another person could find, so the warning at the top of this lesson applies to it too, and the Hotline will make a plan with you by phone instead. The same page links to the Hotline's guides for staying, preparing to leave, leaving and afterwards.

Safety planning is practitioner opinion in this course's labels: the services teach it from their work, and the course read no study that measured it.

Guns, and one line on a protective order

Campbell's list includes the abuser's access to a gun. The Hotline's page on guns says that getting a protective order, a kind of court order whose name and rules vary by state, can in many US states require an abusive partner to turn over their guns.¹⁴ This is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The separate question of a gun kept by the person being abused is one people disagree about, and this lesson leaves it to lesson 15, "Carrying something for protection", where the course takes up guns for protection.

Not a job for de-escalation

Lesson 8, "Talking it down", teaches ways to calm a tense encounter with a stranger or at work. None of it is advice for an abusive relationship. Offered as a plan for living with a partner who frightens you, it would put the work of controlling the abuse on the person being harmed. That's this course's judgement from the difference between the two situations, not a finding, and it is no comment on anything anyone does to get through a day with someone who frightens them.

The right line, for you or someone else

The right line depends on the caller as much as the nation, so here is who each says it is for.

• For women: Refuge's helpline is for women experiencing any kind of abuse, and for friends, family and colleagues supporting someone.⁴ GOV.UK's own list puts it under England.⁵
• For men: the Men's Advice Line is "for men including anyone who identifies as trans and non-binary, who are experiencing or have experienced domestic abuse, and for those supporting them". It adds: "No one has to prove that they are a victim to get a service."¹²
• For anyone: Live Fear Free in Wales serves "anyone experiencing domestic abuse or sexual violence", and people who know someone who needs help.⁷ Scotland's helpline says it is "here to support anyone experiencing domestic abuse or forced marriage, as well as their family members, friends, colleagues and professionals who support them."⁸ Northern Ireland's DSA Helpline serves anyone 18 or over.¹⁰ In England and Wales, Victim Support's Supportline is for anyone affected by crime.¹⁶
• Whether you've left or not: Refuge's helpline site says it does not matter whether you are still with the person or have left, "You may even have left many years ago."⁴

If you can't speak

In England and Wales, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which oversees complaints about the police there, runs a campaign about the Silent Solution. It began after the IOPC investigated police contact with a woman who was murdered by her partner: she "had wrongly thought that police had her number and if she made a silent 999 call, they would know to come."² They do not. On a 999 call from a mobile, "A recorded message will instruct callers who can't talk to press 55 to be put through to police. Staying silent and not pressing 55 will lead to the call being terminated."² The page adds that pressing 55 lets the operator know it's a genuine emergency, and the guide says "Pressing 55 does not allow police to track your location."² Lesson 1 described what happens on a silent call from a landline, where the 55 step is not used. As lesson 1 noted, the guide does not say whether the same holds in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

For callers who are deaf, hard of hearing or have a speech impairment, the IOPC page points to the Relay UK service, run by BT, and says you need to register your mobile number before using it.² For support rather than emergencies in the UK, Refuge's live chat, Live Fear Free's text line and Scotland's helpline's text and WhatsApp number all work without speaking.⁴⁷⁸ Scotland's helpline also takes calls through Relay UK and from British Sign Language users through Contact Scotland BSL, and Refuge has a BSL video service on weekdays from 10am to 6pm.⁸⁴

In the US there is no single equivalent. You can text 911 where that's available, though 911.gov says "it is always best to call 911 if you can, and text if you can't".³ For support rather than emergencies, the Hotline takes texts (START to 88788) and live chat.¹

Rhys and the lines he didn't think were for him

A second case, with a wrinkle. Rhys lives in Wales. He and his former partner, a woman, split up in the spring. Since then she has messaged him most days, sometimes dozens of times, and twice he has come home to find her waiting outside his building. He hasn't told anyone. He had assumed the helplines were for women.

Start with what it is. On the Suzy Lamplugh Trust's definition, a pattern of repeated, unwanted contact that distresses him is stalking, with or without any threat, and the trust says stalking "can be perpetrated by men or women."²⁷ On the Hotline's list, "Waiting around at places you spend time" is one of its examples.²²

Then the lines, and their hours. Three lines serve him, and each says so on its own page.

• The Men's Advice Line, for men experiencing abuse from a partner or ex-partner, weekdays 10am to 5pm. He does not have to prove anything to use it.¹²
• The National Stalking Helpline, for England and Wales, weekdays only, with evening hours on Mondays and Wednesdays.⁶ Its page says the adviser will ask whether he has been to the police, and that he can then decide what steps he wants to take.⁶
• Live Fear Free, the Welsh Government's line, 24 hours a day, for anyone experiencing domestic abuse, with calls welcome in Welsh. Its page notes that there are refuges, safe houses, for women and for men in Wales.⁷

So if it is eleven on a Saturday night when he decides to ring, Live Fear Free is the one that answers. On a Monday afternoon all three are open; the stalking line stays open until 8pm that evening, and Live Fear Free all night.

What he does with it. Why he told no one is not something this lesson can answer: nothing the course read studies why men hesitate to call. The Men's Advice Line's page for friends and family gives its own account, from its work: "Often people don't believe men when they first disclose abuse."³⁰ What the lesson can give him is lesson 3's figure, that 2.3% of men in England and Wales were stalked in a year, and the Silent Solution if he ever needs it. What he does with any of it is his.

Helping someone

Most of the lines in this lesson take calls from people worried about someone else: Refuge's, the Men's Advice Line, Live Fear Free, Scotland's helpline and the National Stalking Helpline all say so on their pages.⁴¹²⁷⁸⁶ You do not have to be the person being harmed to ring.

The services' guidance for helpers is consistent, and it is the same rule they keep with callers. Refuge's page for friends starts with a warning: "Your first instinct may be to protect her, but intervening directly can be dangerous for you and her."³² It says to speak in private and make it clear you will not judge, to take her seriously and believe her, to tell her it's not her fault, and not to ask why she has not left. It suggests being direct, and starting by telling her you are worried about her and why, and it says not to tell her to leave or criticise her for staying.³² The Men's Advice Line's page for friends and family gives the same advice for men, and adds a list of don'ts: don't tell the person what to do or give ultimatums, don't get angry when nothing changes, and don't confront the abuser or the victim, since "Doing so could cause isolation, harm and contact to end."³⁰ The Hotline puts the principle in a line: you cannot rescue someone, and decisions about their life are theirs to make. It also asks helpers to keep supporting the person if they go back to the relationship, and not to post anything online that could show who they are or where they spend their time.³³

Refuge adds some practical offers a friend can make, if she wants them: agreeing a code word she can use to tell you she needs help, and keeping a spare set of keys or important documents for her.³² It also says that in an emergency, if you fear for your friend's safety, call 999.³² All of this is the services' practitioner opinion.

Three sentences for a sister

Try this one yourself. Your sister rings one evening. After a while she says her husband has taken her bank card "to help her budget", reads her messages, and went quiet for two days when she saw a friend without asking him. Then she says, "I'm probably overreacting."

The first sentence, built from Refuge's advice to believe her and be direct: "I don't think you're overreacting, and I'm glad you told me."

What people get wrong

"Just leave." Campbell's study found that separation after living together, especially from a highly controlling abuser, went with higher odds of being killed, and the services frame leaving as a process to plan, on the person's own timing.²⁹³²

"If it were really abuse, she'd have left." Whether someone has left says nothing about whether what's happening to them is abuse. The services define abuse by the pattern of control, not by the response to it, and Refuge names fear of what the abuser will do if she leaves as one reason a woman may not.³²

"It's only abuse if he hits her." Refuge calls that "a common myth", and both services' lists include forms with no physical violence at all.¹⁵²²

"Domestic abuse is rare." The England and Wales survey put it at 7.8% of adults in the year ending March 2025, 9.1% of women and 6.5% of men, and ONS measures it with private questions because people may not tell an interviewer.²⁴³⁴

"Men aren't victims," and "the helplines are only for women." Refuge recognises that men experience abuse, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust says stalking can be perpetrated by men or women, and the Men's Advice Line, Live Fear Free, Scotland's helpline, the DSA Helpline and the US Hotline all serve men.^4271278101

"If I dial 999 and can't speak, they'll know to come." From a mobile, only if you press 55 when the recorded message asks; staying silent ends the call, and pressing 55 does not give police your location.²

"A private window keeps me safe." It stops one browser keeping a record on one device (Digital Literacy lesson 8). The Hotline's warning is that internet use can be monitored and cannot be erased completely.¹

Practice

Connections

Back. Lesson 2's labels kept the two 7.8% figures apart and the US numbers separate. Lesson 3's Homicide Index row and separated rate are what Campbell's study comes at from another side. Lesson 6's first date ended where a date can become someone known, which is where this lesson starts. First Aid and CPR lesson 2 taught the emergency call; this lesson adds only the silent call.

Forward. Lesson 8, "Talking it down", is written for a threatening stranger or a tense moment at work, not for an abusive relationship. Lesson 15, "Carrying something for protection", takes up the question of guns for protection. Lesson 16, "Afterwards", covers reporting, support whether or not you report, and compensation. Relationships and Family, later on the Core, is where relationships themselves are taught.

Go deeper

• Refuge, "What is domestic abuse?" and its page on coercive control. Read here in full. Abuse without physical violence, with questions to test against.
• National Domestic Violence Hotline, "What is a Safety Plan?". Read here in full; the planner it links to was not opened. The way in to the Hotline's guides.
• Suzy Lamplugh Trust, "What is stalking?". Read here in full. What counts as stalking, and who does it.
• Campbell and colleagues, "Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships", American Journal of Public Health, 2003, free on PubMed Central. Read here in full, limits and all.

Sources

1. National Domestic Violence Hotline, home page and "Understand Relationship Abuse". Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026. Numbers, text line, youth, Deaf and StrongHearts lines, the monitoring warning, the automated chat, and the advice to call if you're worried about monitoring.
2. Independent Office for Police Conduct, Silent Solution page and its guide. Read: both in full; the page re-read 25 September 2026. The guide doesn't say whether it covers Scotland and Northern Ireland.
3. 911.gov, Frequently Asked Questions, last updated 8 March 2023. Read: the texting answer, in a browser, 25 September 2026.
4. Refuge, National Domestic Abuse Helpline page, and the helpline's own site, nationaldahelpline.org.uk, including its "How we can support you" and "Chat to us online" pages. Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026. Also the helpline site's "What is abuse?" page, read in full at the gate closures. Neither site names the nations it serves.
5. GOV.UK, "Domestic abuse: how to get help", updated 29 April 2025. Read: the table of helplines, through the GOV.UK content API. Used only for the nation it gives Refuge's helpline; its Live Fear Free number differs from the Welsh Government's own, and the Welsh Government's is printed here.
6. Suzy Lamplugh Trust, "How can the helpline help?", updated 7 September 2026, and "What happens when I contact the helpline?". Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026. Covers England and Wales.
7. Welsh Government, Live Fear Free, Contact Live Fear Free and "Domestic abuse". Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
8. Scotland's Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline, sdafmh.org.uk. Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
9. Action Against Stalking, home and contact pages. Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
10. Domestic and Sexual Abuse Helpline (Northern Ireland), dsahelpline.org. Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
11. Victim Support NI, home page and contact page. Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
12. Men's Advice Line (Respect), home, About us and contact pages. Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
13. VictimConnect Resource Center, victimconnect.org. Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
14. National Domestic Violence Hotline, "Safety Planning Around Guns and Firearms". Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026. Cited only for the lines named in this lesson.
15. Refuge, "What is domestic abuse?". Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
16. Victim Support, Get help and About us. Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026. Covers England and Wales; the point that you needn't have reported the crime is from About us.
17. Victim Support Scotland, victimsupport.scot. Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
18. Rape Crisis England & Wales, 24/7 Support Line. Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
19. Rape Crisis Scotland, helpline. Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
20. Rape Crisis Northern Ireland, rapecrisisni.org.uk. Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026. The page gives two sets of hours, so none is printed here.
21. RAINN, rainn.org. Read: in full, in a browser, re-read 25 September 2026.
22. National Domestic Violence Hotline, "Types of Abuse". Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
23. Refuge, "Coercive Control". Read: in full, 25 September 2026. The page names no jurisdiction or statute.
24. Office for National Statistics, Crime in England and Wales: year ending March 2026, bulletin, 23 July 2026. Read: in full. The domestic abuse figure it gives is for the year ending March 2025; its "underestimates" sentence is about the survey's face-to-face questions.
25. Office for National Statistics, The nature of violent crime in England and Wales: year ending March 2024, 26 September 2024. Read: in full. Police-recorded data from 18 forces for the suspect figures.
26. Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center (SPARC), "Stalking Behaviors" and "What to do if you are being stalked". Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026.
27. Suzy Lamplugh Trust, "What is stalking?". Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026. The 45% is the helpline's callers, not a population figure.
28. Refuge Tech Safety, home page and AirTag page. Read: the AirTag page, re-read 25 September 2026 at its new address, and the home page.
29. Campbell and colleagues, "Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships: results from a multisite case control study", American Journal of Public Health 93(7), 2003, pp. 1089 to 1097. Read: full text (PMC). The 8.98 is from the paper's fourth model; the later figures in this lesson are from its fifth to seventh.
30. Men's Advice Line (Respect), "Friends and family". Read: in full, 25 September 2026.
31. National Domestic Violence Hotline, "What is a Safety Plan?". Read: in full, re-read 25 September 2026. The interactive planner it links to wasn't opened.
32. Refuge, "Support someone I know who is being abused". Read: in full, 25 September 2026.
33. National Domestic Violence Hotline, "Ways to Support". Read: in full, 25 September 2026.
34. Office for National Statistics, Domestic abuse in England and Wales overview: November 2025. Read: in full, 25 September 2026. Figures for the year ending March 2025, on the survey's new questions, which it says can't be compared with earlier estimates.