'Sometimes you can literally hear an assault taking place'

Inside the UK's 24/7 national domestic abuse helpline

- MAYA OPPENHEIM

Something as innocuous as buying the wrong piece of cheese can cause a perpetrator to explode in anger, prompting their domestic abuse victim to make a desperate call for help.

For Maria, listening on the other end of the phone, this is not an unusual conversation. Helping to run the UK’s national domestic abuse helpline, she comes across all kinds of women, petrified in their homes.

Some talk in terrified whispers, some are crying and hyperventilating, while others are mid-conversation when their assailant attacks. In the most uncomfortable instances, the phone simply goes dead.

“They may well be scared,” Maria says. “They may well be confused, uncertain, desperate for help. They might be furious at being let down by services. They may be really focused on getting out of the situation.”

The Refuge helpline, which is open 24/7, offers a live chat function which means people can talk in code or via text if that is the only safe option. The Independent is working with Refuge to raise £300,000 to build a safe house for survivors of domestic abuse.

Such is the horror of what Maria hears, that when she gets home from work she changes out of her clothes before taking her dog for a walk. This is not prompted by a desire to wear something more comfortable, but rather a conscious effort to try to draw a boundary between work and home life.

“Vicarious trauma is very real”, she tells The Independent, “which is why I put so many things in place so that I have managed to survive in the charity sector for so many years.”

Maria – who did not want her surname used - has worked in the domestic abuse sector for around 30 years and has been a manager on the UK’s national domestic abuse helpline for three years.