BEHIND Closed Doors is a particularly appropriate name for the campaign, launched last night by the Bailiff, Michael Birt, designed to highlight one of today’s ‘hidden’ crimes, domestic violence.

All too often those who are victims of violence in the home suffer in silence and are reluctant to report the abuse they experience to the police.

In the UK government research has indicated that over a third of domestic violence offences are never reported. No similar study has been conducted in Jersey, but the police make public the number of cases that they deal with. We therefore know that, in the first six months of this year, there were almost 500 incidents. This is a frightening figure – made even more frightening by the probability that it is only roughly indicative of the scale of the problem.

Meanwhile, comparative statistics for recent years are difficult to interpret. There appears to be an upward trend in the number of cases known to the police, but this could indicate increasing willingness of people to come forward to report offences rather than higher numbers of incidents.

This is entirely possible, because the idea that reporting is always the proper course of action has for some years past been one that the police and other concerned bodies have been eager to promote.

Figures, however, will never tell the full story about domestic violence. As harrowing personal testimonies can reveal so graphically, this category of crime often involves long-term suffering. Often, it also has a terrible influence on children, some of whom have no choice but to witness parents not merely quarrelling but regularly coming to blows.

The accent of the present campaign is on persuading those who are the objects of violence behind closed doors to go to the police to protect themselves and to ensure that guilty parties are brought to book. In addition, the campaign is stressing that agencies other than the police are ready and able to help victims.

Prominent among such agencies is the Jersey Women’s Refuge, though it is an organisation that is at present critically short of funds. It was recently made clear that its excellent work is being threatened by a shortfall in funding of £150,000.

If Behind Closed Doors manages to attract more funds for the refuge as well as succeeding in its primary aims, so much the better.