Anna Walsh

Homes for people with support needs are closing up and down the country. Next Friday, on #StartsAtHomeDay, we're showcasing the importance of supported housing and calling on the government for urgent funding to #SaveOurSupportedHousing. 👉Join us: startsathome.org.uk/get-involved/

Some failings in the criminal justice system still shock me . Courtney was let down time and again as her ex-partner harassed, abused and threatened to kill her. She and her family reported him many times only for him to be released and kill her.  💔bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

@laurasline86 @sainsburys Yep same

Is anyone else having issues with the @sainsburys app? Get a “problem loading products” warning and can’t change slot, checkout etc. I’ve deleted and reloaded the app.

So proud of the Femicide Census’s new report 2,000 Women, released today.

Survivors of Telford abuse crimes & the mums of two women murdered by boyfriends say of the Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips that ‘no one in public life has done more to support victims and survivors and to advocate for their interests’ theguardian.com/politics/2025/…

After she received online abuse and death threats, survivors have written in support of Jess Phillips. “What connects us all beyond our shared trauma is the support and kindness we have received from Jess over many years" theguardian.com/politics/2025/…

Absolutely true.

Word of the Day is one I keep posting at the end of the year, hoping its time will come. ‘Respair’, from the 16th century, is fresh hope, and a recovery from despair. Here’s to a few drops of respair in 2025.

If you’re dreading Christmas because you know what’s coming from the man in your home… store this number SAFELY somewhere. Use it when you can. Get out safely. Next year CAN be different. The kids will thank you for getting them out - if you have any. Your friends and family will come back eventually - the good ones anyway. It’s hard once you leave, for a while, but nothing is as bad as staying. You deserve a chance to be happy and he isn’t going to give you that. Not at Christmas and not ever. He won’t change, it won’t improve, you might die there. Save this number. Call it soon.

Hearing, as we did after the murder of Sarah Everard, that the reaction to the multiple rapes of Giselle Pelicot will lead to a sea change in responses to men’s violence against women. Except there was no sea change after the murder of Sarah Everard. And I am reminded that in the UK, a donkey sanctuary receives more in donations than 4 of the largest charities supporting women victim-survivors of men’s violence.

.@TIME got it wrong. Gisèle Pelicot is Person of the Year 2024.

For me there’s only one contender for Person of the Year. Gisele Pelicot. The woman who has recalibrated how we think about rape by refusing to feel shame. “It’s time we change the way we look at rape”, she said outside the court today. And…more than anyone I can think of… she’s done that. “Shame must change sides”, she said, and perhaps – perhaps – that is a little more true today than it’s ever been. But there’s something else that I want to talk about. Something that’s much more difficult to confront than the inspiration and dignity of Gisele Pelicot. 51 men. 51 men who are not all men… but who are also quite a lot of men. 51 of them in fact. And if you read about them… their backgrounds… their jobs… their families or lack of family… they’re all quite different. A firefighter…a nurse… an unemployed alcoholic. Some were abused as children. Some had comfortable upbringings with kids of their own. Six had domestic violence convictions. 45 didn’t. One was 27. Another was 74. There’s no pattern here. Nothing we can point to. Other than the fact there is no profile of a rapist. Which is perhaps the most frightening thing of all.

One suspect denies raping Pelicot saying - after explicit video of him exposed - it was his “body not his brain. “. He just got 12 years. For both body And brain.

No-one should be surprised that the men who queued up to rape Giselle Pelicot represent ‘everyman’. We know already that the men who abuse women, the men who commit sexual violence and abuse, the men who perpetrate domestic violence and abuse, the men who exploit women in prostitution are ordinary men. They walk among us every day.

All of them were found guilty. All of them.

I don't trust the British State to give me dignity in life, let alone in death.

Just imagine if all those MPs squeezed into the House of Commons to force the government to fix social care...

Absolutely agree. If only hospice funding & end of life care was supported as it should be. Also potential vulnerabilities of women who are victims of domestic abuse, being coerced.

#AssistedDyingBill result in @HouseofCommons is bleak for all who feared this, including the vulnerable, disability groups and those working in palliative care. The state should not be sanctioning death. Instead, better palliative & hospice care so we can die with care & dignity.

This from my colleague @lucymanning is well worth a read... shocking at first glance, but then, depressingly familiar... bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…