He leaves her without a car, takes her phone, and they live an hour from town. She is isolated, depressed and terrified.
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The home is a war zone. A small child throws himself in front of his mother when the blows rain down to divert the attack but she is too broken to protect him.
He never stops texting ‘Where are you?’, ‘When will you be home?’, ‘You can’t go out with them’, and she conceded to the control.
She lashes out with her hands, with the kitchen chair and he cannot admit the victim in the house is a man; not to his family, not to anybody.
This is Inverell, and towns and cities just like it across the country, and it is a shameful mantle to wear.
Like a heavy chain, the burden of domestic violence and abuse is endemic and though Rosie Batty, the Australian of the Year brought the timeless crime to our headlines, our communities remain plagued with walking wounded.
The Inverell Times joins Australian Community Media this week in the End The Cycle campaign to cast the swaddling from domestic abuse and expose it for the ulcer it is in our town.
Can we as a community accept that this crime is indiscriminate?
Like cancer, it can invade the most affluent home, and the most destitute dwelling.
Whether we witnessed, experienced and normalised the violence growing up, whether we choose to lash out after a few too many, over stress from a job loss, pressure at work or the sadistic need to control a human being, it is not acceptable.
By not fighting for more money to fund more support services to aid people out of unemployment, addiction and personal pain, we as residents of the region sustain the cycle of violence.
As humans, we can no longer choose to stand by as bystanders.
The worst retribution we may fear if we reach out to aid a victim is nothing to the terror that goes on in the home and head of a person abused.
We must protect the next generation.
These children who live in a house of abuse, who come to school withdrawn or overactive, desperate little people craving security and love should not inherit another lifetime of fear and abuse.
By not working to build more places for those seeking haven from violence, we trap those victims and their children in terror.
By not acting, we allow this to happen.