Following over a decade of domestic abuse, a campaigner has launched a petition to implement a ‘Tag and App’ system to protect survivors from perpetrators. 

Deborah Jones, founder and CEO of Women’s Resolute Support Services believes that the police, social workers and family court are repeatedly failing survivors by not taking concerns seriously enough. 

Ms Jones said: “The police are encouraging women to come forward but are then not protecting them and leaving them in more danger.

“You wouldn’t send a soldier with PTSD back into a battlefield but sending a victim into a system that doesn’t understand their suffering is happening daily.”

As a result, she has set up a petition to introduce a ‘Tag and App’ system across the UK.

The victim would get a device that would alert them if the boundaries were breached, and the police would also be notified and dispatched to the location. 

Although ‘initially costly’, the tracker will ‘ultimately save police resources’ and help to gather evidence to further sentence perpetrators for breaches.

Ms Jones said: “If the perpetrator comes close enough to throw water on you, then they are close enough to murder you, whereas they wouldn’t get that opportunity with the Tag and App system.

“It would keep vulnerable people safe until the police can intervene.”

Lord James Timpson, the Prisons Minister, told MPs during a hearing amongst the Commons’ Justice Select Committee, that he plans on conducting research to introduce the scheme across the UK. 

Timpson has scheduled two weeks to oversee the use of the tags in Spain where the system is already in place. 

He said he is ‘really excited’ about them.

Ms Jones also started a podcast series which aims to raise awareness of the ‘soul-destroying’ criminal justice system.

The ‘Reality Exposed’ podcast features hard-hitting and real-life stories of survivors from all around the world, to call for reform of the legal system. 

Survivors’ experiences are integral to Ms Jones, as volunteers at Resolute all have lived experience of domestic abuse. 

“If we all came together to get voices heard, it would make a real change. 

Ms Jones said: “We want to educate people as much as possible. Only after you’ve lived through domestic violence and been through the system, is when you know just how bad it is.” 

The podcast covers issues like failure to implement and enforce Non-Molestation Orders, Domestic Violence Protection Orders, Stalking Protection Orders and Restraining Orders – leaving vulnerable people unprotected.

Ms Jones said: “If the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 was properly enforced then it would be a massive milestone.

“It’s okay putting laws and orders in place but if they’re not being enforced, then what is the point?

“Protection orders are a waste of time, money and paper because they’re constantly breached.”

Ms Jones and her two young children endured eight years of abuse from her former husband, and experienced a further four years of ‘threat and intimidation’ post-separation.

Ms Jones explained that her court order was breached many times, but she often struggled to prove it.

Her perpetrator would drive past her property ‘in numerous different vehicles’ to try to ‘intimidate’ her. 

“To some people that wouldn’t be a big deal, but for a victim, it puts the fear of God in you.

“Me and my perpetrator also shared the same local supermarket, so I was constantly on edge when shopping with my children, knowing that we could run into the person who had abused us.”

The podcast also shines a light on the ‘flaws’ of the Crown Prosecution Service and Family Courts, since Ms Jones believes that ‘many perpetrators are not being sufficiently punished’.

She added: “Domestic violence is all about punishing women and children and it’s not their fault, it’s so unfair.

“The more we keep talking, educating people and raising these issues with services and organisations which are failing victims, the better chance we have as a society to make real change.”

Her podcast further discusses how some abuse, such as coercive control or stalking, can be difficult to prove, with very low conviction rates due to the difficulty of gathering evidence. 

Ms Jones said: “Coercive control is the most unrecognised form of domestic abuse, which involves perpetrators gaslighting, blaming and controlling many aspects of the victim’s life such as the clothing they can wear, people they can be friends with, or even the food they can eat.

“Almost all of the women we support at Resolute say they would rather endure physical harm than experience coercive control.

“Experiencing domestic violence is not a victim’s shame to carry and there’s lots of victim blaming going on. It’s not good enough. 

Ms Jones explained that if you have anybody you can disclose to, a trusted family member or friend, then do so. If not, then that is what Resolute is for.

Resolute Women’s Support Services is run by a group of women with lived experience; they have a building in Barnsley town centre which ‘opens its doors to all women’. 

They want it to be publicly known as a safe space where women can go when they don’t know who to talk to or where to turn. 

Ms Jones said: “Keeping the victim at the heart of everything we do, we want to wrap our arms around women and advocate for them through the system.” 

For more information, visit their website here, and to sign their petition, click here.