by Nogah Ofer, Solicitor, Centre for Women’s Justice

Claire[1] described being strangled by her ex-partner:

“He came into my daughter’s bedroom, grabbed me by the hair and started dragging me to our bedroom. He forced me onto the bed and straddled me pinning my arms under his legs to the bed. My first thought was he was going to rape me then he put both his hands round my throat and told me he was going to kill me and that I was going die that night. He told me It was all my fault and I’d made him do it. I couldn’t breathe and I was terrified, I believed I was going to die. My daughters were squealing like pigs being slaughtered it’s the only way I can describe it.”

The assault on Claire was treated by the criminal justice system as a ‘common assault’, the most minor type of assault, equivalent to a slap. The perpetrator was given probation and a suspended sentence.

Today a long-awaited new law comes into force creating a stand-alone offence of ‘non-fatal strangulation and suffocation’ (NFS), a more serious offence, equivalent to Actual Bodily Harm, with a maximum sentence of five years.

Campaigners fought hard for this law, in an attempt to get criminal justice agencies to treat this form of abuse with the seriousness it deserves. Centre for Women’s Justice began lobbying Parliament to include a new offence within the Domestic Abuse Act two years ago, based on our work with frontline domestic abuse services. A campaigning group including AAFDA, SUTDA, the Domestic Abuse and Victims’ Commissioners, pushed hard for a change in the law.

Not being able to breathe is a ‘primal fear’, and many survivors describe how they honestly believed they were going to die. NFS has been compared to water-boarding, internationally recognised as a form of torture. It is a tool of fear, of controlling and coercive behaviour.[2] NFS is so widespread as part of domestic abuse that it is almost normalised. Over 40% of survivors who reported physical abuse described experiencing NFS.

Is the new law going to make a difference to women’s lives or will it sit relatively unused on the statute books, like some of the other measures intended to tackle domestic abuse?

The next step is to educate the police, prosecutors, medics, domestic abuse workers, social workers and the general public about the dangers of NFS and the need to tackle it head-on. The new law should be a springboard to bring this horrendous form of abuse into the light.

Many survivors say that abusers know that NFS is a form of abuse they can ‘get away with’. It is a unique form of assault in that the level of violence used is not reflected in the visible injuries afterwards. Research in the US has found that 50% of cases have no external injuries to the neck, and that even some fatal cases of strangulation have no visible marks, although there are internal injuries.[3]

However, properly trained investigators and prosecutors can find creative ways to bring perpetrators to justice, if they know how to go about it. We need professionals of all kinds who work tackling violence against women and girls to understand this crime.

Get to know the physical signs and symptoms associated with NFS – for example:[4]

Pinprick dots in the eyes, around the ears and scalp
Blurred vision, flashing lights, tunnel vision, dizziness during NFS
Coughing, vomiting, difficulty and pain swallowing, hoarse voice after NFS
Headaches, memory disturbances, tinnitus, bleeding in ears
Incontinence of urine and bowels – most people will not report this unless asked
Loss of consciousness means there has been a lack of oxygen to the brain and can result in minor brain damage, miscarriage and even stroke. Some people do not remember that they lost consciousness.

The Government must fund forensic medical examinations for all NFS cases. Currently these are only available where there has been a sexual assault, if a survivor attends a Sexual Assault Referral Centre. Prosecutors should use forensic medical experts to educate judges and juries on the medical research, so that perpetrators are not able to argue that survivors are not telling the truth because they didn’t have severe bruising to the neck. This has been used effectively in New Zealand.

As a society we need to talk about NFS, so that survivors feel able talk about it, and perpetrators are deprived of this deadly weapon in their armoury. Research in the US has found that the risk of homicide increases seven-fold where NFS is part of abuse.[5] Tackling NFS is essential to reducing femicide and torture behind closed doors.

The following diagrams were created by the Training Institute of Strangulation Prevention, San Diego, USA. We need a similar Institute in the UK, to act as a centre of expertise, for training, research and lobbying on strangulation prevention.