Q & A: Lily Greenan

Published on Wednesday 27 August 2008 21:52

The manager of Scottish Women's Aid comments on the creation of a national police database of domestic abusers, so that repeat offenders can be tracked down and victims given special protection.

How do you feel the story was covered in the press?

There's been a lot of coverage, and it was interesting in that it focused on the database, perhaps because it was a slightly more interesting, and contentious in terms of protecting personal information.

What were the other areas of the story that you felt were important?

The recommendations about risk assessment and risk management to protect victims.

There are some pilot projects working in Scotland at the moment which are triggered when the police are called to a domestic incident and which identify women who are at very high risk of further serious injury.

We're interested at how that will be rolled out, because the intention is that there should be a move towards a more standardised approach to assessing risk.

Did you receive any feedback as a result of it?

We've had a lot of inquiries on the back of the story.

Does this sort of story have a lot of public impact?

The reality is that in this country, I would say that there are very few people who do not know somebody who is living with or has lived with violence of some sort.

Everybody knows somebody, so it's important that people get good information about what support is available. It's important that the general public know what services are out there.

How does this type of story help in terms of addressing the issue of domestic abuse?

I think it just helps to keep it in the public view. On the whole, agency responses have improved enormously, but there is still a mythology out there about domestic abuse, which says, "Oh, she asked for it", or asks "Why do they stay?", to which we say: "Why would a man abuse his partner in the first place?"