Participants wanted for Research Interviews on Domestic Abuse

Have you experienced violence or abuse from a partner or family member?  Did the case go ahead without your support or without you giving evidence?

We are researchers based at the Open University looking at ‘evidence-led prosecutions’.  An evidence-led prosecution is where the police investigate a report of domestic abuse and where the case was referred to the CPS without your support (you may have withdrawn your statement, or declined to make one), or without you needing to give a statement (because the police had other evidence).

The purpose of the study is to understand the impact of evidence-led prosecutions on victim/survivors.  At the moment, there is very little research with victim/survivors who have been involved in these prosecutions and by participating in this study you can help to understand the advantages and disadvantages from your perspective. 

We want to hear from women and men in England and Wales who are over 18 and whose case was taken forward without their support or evidence, ideally in the last 2 years, regardless of whether the perpetrator was convicted.  If you aren’t sure if your situation is eligible for the research, please feel free to email the researchers and we will come back to you.  We are interested in how you experienced the criminal justice process as opposed to the circumstances of the abuse or the outcome at court.

We are inviting around 30 survivors to take part in a confidential, one-to-one interview with a member of the research team. Both researchers are experts in researching domestic abuse and sexual violence with considerable experience of speaking to survivors with confidentiality and sensitivity.

Your involvement is completely voluntary, and confidential and you have the right to withdraw at any time. The date and time of interviews will be arranged to suit you. Interviews will take place via phone, in person or via secure audio/video conferencing technology (Microsoft Teams or Skype) which you will be sent a link to join.  You will be given a £15 ‘thank you’ voucher in recognition of your time on completion of interview. You will be asked to provide a safe email address to send the voucher to you.

To find out more about taking part, please email the research team on: cprl-elp-study@open.ac.uk.  Please leave safe contact details (email and/or telephone number) to reach you on. If there are any days or times it would be unsafe to contact you, please give these in your email. The team will only speak with you, if someone else answers, we will say that we are cold-calling from the Open University marketing department and make an excuse to end the call.

Dr Anna Hopkins, Dr Shoshana Gander-Zaucker, and Dr Shona Morrison, The Open University