We’ve got to open the doors, and our minds, on domestic violence

Where domestic violence is happening there is a huge risk of irreparable damage to children, writes Fergus Finlay

"MY MUM loves him but he doesn’t love her because he makes her cry. He loves me and I love him.”

That’s the voice of an eight-year-old girl. She’s the daughter of a man who has abused his wife for years. His daughter has begun to lose respect for her mother. She knows — or she thinks she knows — that the abuse wouldn’t happen if her mother didn’t somehow cause it. If it was her dad’s fault, after all, wouldn’t her mum have left? And wouldn’t she protect them all better from the shouting and the hitting and the anger?