JENNI MURRAY: It Ends With US betrays actual home violence victims

I took myself to the cinema on Sunday night to see a film I thought would be really important. It’s called It Ends With Us and is based on a novel of the same title written by Colleen Hoover.

The novel was inspired by the author’s experiences of observing her father’s violence and her mother’s suffering. It was well reviewed, sold millions of copies and was perceived as a story which would raise awareness of domestic violence.

I thought it would be helpful for there to be a film which would be seen by women and perhaps men which would explain how common such abuse is in the home and show rather than tell what damage it does.

I’m afraid I was bitterly disappointed.

Blake Lively plays the beautiful, smiling Lily Bloom who’s arrived in Boston to set up a flower shop. We learn quickly at her father’s funeral that her mother has suffered from his violence. Lily can’t bring herself to deliver a eulogy. Soon after the funeral she meets the charming, handsome brain surgeon, Ryle Kincaid, and falls hopelessly in love.

Glossy romance fills almost the whole of the film with a mere hint that he might have nudged her face on one occasion and pushed her down the stairs – both by accident. It’s when he attempts to rape her, knocking her unconscious, after he discovers she’s seen an old lover that he begins to fit the picture of the abuser.

She finds she’s pregnant. He’s there for the birth of their daughter then calmly walks away when she tells him she wants a divorce.

The film does not portray domestic violence as it really is at all. It’s true that abusers are often handsome, rich and charming and that such violence can happen in even the most ordered and wealthy homes, but the idea that such a man would accept rejection without complaint is ridiculous. We know it’s often at that point that the violence escalates and women brave enough to try to escape often die. The words ‘It Ends with Us’ spoken to a baby daughter are, sadly, fiction.

I knew nothing of domestic violence until the late 1980s and early 1990s when it became arguably the most important subject we covered on Woman’s Hour.

I’d heard of Erin Pizzey, who founded a charity called Refuge in 1971. She offered a safe house to women and children in Chiswick, west London, but left the charity in the 1980s and now campaigns for men’s rights.

It was in 1989 that I learned how the legal system in this country had different rules for the way violent men and women were treated. Sara Thornton had endured repeated beatings from her husband, had sought help from the police but none came.

She stabbed him and killed him, was convicted of murder and given a life sentence. The judge said she could have simply ‘walked out or gone upstairs’.

Soon after Thornton lost her appeal, Joseph McGrail killed his common law wife as she lay drunk by kicking her repeatedly in the stomach. He was given a two-year suspended sentence for manslaughter and walked free. The judge expressed ‘every sympathy’ for him, adding, ‘This lady would have tried the patience of a saint’. I and many other women were outraged by this discrepancy in treatment.

The law reform campaign Justice for Women was founded in 1990 and I became an ardent supporter of its work.

It has taken more than 30 years for campaigns by lawyers, some MPs and journalists like me to have the issue taken seriously. Laws have been changed, judges have been trained and Refuge and Women’s Aid have done their best to help women find safe places for themselves and their children. And it’s taken until now for the police to truly accept that a call from a terrified woman is not ‘just a domestic’.

Last month the National Police Chiefs’ Council analysis revealed that as many as two million women a year are estimated to be victims of male violence. They’ve called it an epidemic so serious it amounts to a ‘national emergency’. Louisa Rolfe, the national lead for domestic abuse and an assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan police, said the real figure was likely to be four million as many offences are not reported.

Now, though, there’s a chance violence against women and girls will be taken seriously enough for it to be placed high on the political agenda.

The Prime Minister is said to be haunted by the story of Jane Clough, a 26-year-old nurse who was stabbed 71 times by her former partner in 2010. He had been charged with raping her and had been freed on bail. Starmer became friends with Jane’s parents when he was director of public prosecutions and the issue of violence against women and girls is now a priority for him.

Police are to be asked to monitor the country’s 1,000 most dangerous abusers; control rooms responding to 999 calls will be given a domestic abuse advisor; and there’s to be a ‘mission delivery board’ focused on halving violence against women and girls within a decade.

Jess Phillips heads the board as the first ever minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls. Starmer could not have made a better appointment. I know her well and I don’t remember ever meeting a more determined and straightforward politician. She worked at Women’s Aid for a long time before entering parliament.

She is dedicated to this cause: for the last nine years, on International Women’s Day, she has read out in parliament a list of all the women murdered in the previous year.

I have confidence in both Phillips and Starmer on this issue. I invited Starmer on to Woman’s Hour to talk about violence against women. He cares about it. But he must ensure the police are taking it seriously and that there are no Wayne Couzens left in the force.

As prisoners are released early to make space there must be no rapists or stalkers among them and the courts must be open for dealing with these cases in good time. Too many rape victims and women who’ve been beaten give up because it takes too long to get to court. Lots to do Jess and Keir. Just get on with it.

At least Brad tried with Shiloh

Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt has officially dropped her father Brad Pitt’s name and become Shiloh Nouvel Jolie. It seems she prefers to keep her mother’s name.

Brad set up a skate park in his home for Shiloh, and an art studio to reflect their common interest in art. It seems none of it has brought them closer.

No reason was given for dropping the name, but the Pitt-Jolie divorce initiated in 2016 and still not finalised due to ongoing custody and financial issues, can’t have helped matters.

Motorists aren’t cash machines

I’ve been fined twice recently, both for driving down streets I used to use a lot and which are now one way with no adequate signs.

I fear driving around my home city. Every so often I realise my speed has crept over 20mph to 22. Several of my friends are due to go on speeding courses – caught going 24mph. It’s awful that fund-strapped councils appear to be using drivers as cash machines.

• Well done BBC for insisting on no protest flags at the recent Last Night of the Proms. It’s a proudly British event and I was never more delighted than when I succeeded in getting two tickets for my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. It’s my Dad’s favourite night of the year and he was thrilled to go into the Royal Albert Hall with his little union flag.

• People used to laugh at me for my Delia version of shepherd’s pie or Victoria sponge. ‘Can’t you even boil an egg?’ they’d say. Delia is a self-proclaimed culinary equivalent of a Volvo but her basic dishes are reliable and delicious.

No interval? Then I’m a no-show! 

My nights out, not as many as they used to be, are to the theatre. I dress up. I order a drink for the interval. So, what’s this new fashion of letting plays run with no interval? It’s increasingly common and not always for a short play. The theatres will go bankrupt without the profit on drinks and ice cream and sometimes the plays are so long!

I will not be seeing David Tennant’s Macbeth at the Harold Pinter Theatre at nearly two hours. No interval and no chance to slip out if I’m bored.