The Agony of a Mother as she Watched her Daughter Destroyed by Domestic Violence

AUGUSTA is in her 60s, middle class and seemingly contented except for the torn in her flesh – the destruction of her daughter's self-worth by the monster she was married to. Here, she tells her story: "December 19, 2004, was a Friday. I know this because it is a date etched deeply and painfully in my memory. My husband and I came home from a party to find the answer-phone message that would change my life for ever. 'Mum, please call. I've been attacked.' It was my eldest daughter, then 29, speaking in a trembling whisper. "I frantically dialled her number and could scarcely take in what she told me: her husband had thrown her down the stairs in a drunken rage. She had phoned me after barricading herself in the bedroom with her two children. But where was I? Five hundred miles away, living at the other end of the country. And I hadn't even been at home to take her desperate call. Many is the time I have chastised myself for going out and for not living closer. Instead it fell to her mother-in-law to take away her son to sober up. "I didn't sleep that night. I had difficulty imagining my son-in-law doing such a thing. They had seemed so happy. One thing I was certain of: that would be the end of their relationship. Looking back, I could weep at my naivety. I still had everything to learn about abusive relationships and how they can rumble on for years while parents watch, helpless, from the sidelines. Incredibly, 12 years on, my daughter is still living with her husband. There have been countless episodes of abuse, physical and verbal. On one occasion the police were involved. Again and again she has vowed to leave only to be lured back, to my frustration and, above all, dread. I knew things like this happened, but not to people like us. We are a close-knit family; educated people who resolve things by talking. It was shocking to find that domestic violence goes on behind the most respectable of middle-class facades. Domestic violence isn't the taboo topic it was. But I felt compelled to write this because the plight of an abused woman's mother is rarely discussed. "MY DAUGHTER is a grown woman. Her life and that of her children has been ruined by violence, but only she can change that. And the more I nag her, the more I risk pushing her ever deeper into her attacker's clutches. Bola, as I will call her, is the oldest of my three children. She and her brother and sister are close in age and in affection. She was a happy child, pretty and always singing. She was 17 when I divorced her father and she coped as well as children can in such circumstances. When I remarried, she had no difficulty accepting my new husband. She was 20 and living at home when she met Julius, a colleague at work. Mild-mannered, quietly spoken, he caused a ripple of approval in the family. Alarm bells should have rung after the birth of their first child, my first grandchild, five years later. ""Overnight a kind of invisible fortress encircled Bola. Visits were by ppointment and the baby's regime was laid down by Julius. As a rookie granny, I wasn't sure of my ground. I backed off, deferred to Julius as the proud new father. I have often wondered if it would have made a difference if I had been a stronger presence, if I had been the kind of mother-in-law who was not to be crossed. When your child is being ill-treated you do a lot of soul-searching. "After that answer phone message, the next three days were surreal. Bola didn't want me to go to her house, so we talked on the phone. She assured me she had nothing worse than bruises and shock and begged me not to tell the family. I understood – sort of. Her pride was bruised as well as her body. She was adamant the incident was not reported to the police. I understood that, too; he was her husband and the father of her children. It was an aberration. It would never happen again. "On the third day came the inconceivable yet inevitable reconciliation. Bola assured me she and Julius had talked thi