Male domestic violence victims lack support, charity says

Only 20 refuge beds in England are set aside for victims

A third of domestic abuse victims are male (Rex Features)

Male domestic violence victims lack support despite being the focus of an increased number of reported attacks, a charity has said.

Police in England and Wales recorded 149,248 instances of domestic violence involving a male victim in 2017, which was over double the number reported in 2012, according to the BBC.

A third of domestic violence victims are male yet only 0.8 per cent of refuge beds are reserved for them, according to the ManKind Initiative, a charity that works with male victims.

The rise in reports has not been met with increased resources.

The charity said that although there were over 3,600 beds in safe houses for women, only 20 in the whole of England were set aside for men.

There are no refuge beds solely for men in London.

Although one in six men experience domestic abuse, only one in twenty report it, the charity said. Some are forced to travel huge distances, sometimes over 150 miles, to get help due to the scarcity of available resources.

The ManKind Initiative is now calling for dedicated support for male victims to be established across the UK.

Mark Brooks, a spokesman for the charity, said a "failure to ensure a basic level of support across the country will fail those men and, of course, fail their children where they are involved".