A few evenings ago I was with a group of business managers who wanted to talk about how domestic violence affects their work. I spoke with any number of individuals and every single one of them said something along the lines of “It’s such a shame that you have to frame the subject around profits and losses. Shareholders don’t care about human suffering, and the moral aspect of people you know being assaulted has become redundant. In this room it’s only you and I who think about anything beyond money.”

People said they felt isolated, paralysed, disgusted with their employers and themselves. I was able to say, “You’re not as alone as you think. I’ve had this conversation with lots of other people in your situation,” and was pleased to see their surprise, but then a veil of caution came down and the conversation took a turn towards inaction.

Being responsible for other people’s wellbeing is a big deal. Many professionals enjoy the human contact and problem solving that HR and line management can bring, particularly when good polices and attitudes exist to support and contain that helping instinct. But austerity has brought with it cynicism, hopelessness, fear and a disturbing insularity. Increasingly we – particularly people in their late teens and twenties - are looking for someone to blame, whether that’s recent immigrants, asylum seekers or people who are unemployed, basically anyone that we perceive is costing us money.  Even if it’s not our money at all.

A person who is assaulted by a stranger gets a huge amount of support compared to someone who has to take time off work because their partner has attacked them. We blame them for staying. We blame them for putting up with it. We blame them for leaving and depriving the kids of their father. We blame them for making us take up the slack when they can’t work. We blame them for not coming out with us after work. We blame them for being hospitalised. We ask how they contributed to their own death.

Feeling powerless and hopeless at work is debilitating: sometimes you can do something about it and sometimes that’s only going to cause you grief. But if you feel strongly about something ethical at your workplace the likelihood is that you’re not alone, and if you feel it’s dubious to seek connection with peers who might feel the same there is likely to be an organisation that will support you.

Here’s CAADV, the Corporate Alliance Against Domestic Violence, with membership that includes BP, KPMG, the Corporation of London and Diageo amongst many others. They recognise the monetary loss to business of domestic violence. What really motivates them is the human cost.

It looks as if Nigella Lawson is moving out of the house she shared with Charles Saatchi. Twitter is almost entirely supportive of this but I want to sound a note of caution.

On average, women in a violent relationship leave it 7 times before the final break is made. There are many reasons for this including becoming literally destitute; children begging her to return or badly missing their school and friends; social pressure to look after a man with a mental or physical health diagnosis; finding a refuge too difficult to cope with; the seduction and entreaties of the perpetrator; her own feeling of emptiness and misery; threats made against the life of her children.

If Nigella is moving out for good, then good for her. Bear in mind that she has the personal resources of financial stability, a powerful family and a sympathetic media to make that move less gruesome. And if she moves back in with Saatchi then that’s fine too. We expect women to be ‘brave’ and ‘strong’ and ‘proactive’, to end a relationship within a moment of the first slap but it’s so much more complex than that. The slap is often the first physical expression of violence. Months, even years, of financial and psychological violence can lead up to it. I’ve lost count of the women who’ve said, ‘I wish he would hit me then there’d be proof he was violent.’

Part of the isolation that women who experience domestic violence are subject to is when their friends and family get frustrated with them for staying with the person who hurts them. There’s no doubt that it’s exasperating and exhausting when a woman chooses to remain in a situation that is so clearly brutal but giving her ultimatums – “If you stay with him I can’t be your friend any more,” – is a reflection of the abuse she’s been subjected to – “If you go out with your friends I’ll punish you.”

Women leave when it’s safe to leave and when they’re ready to leave. Not when someone else wants them to leave. That’s the point: They’re ready to think for themselves again rather than just do what someone else wants them to.

The pictures of Nigella Lawson crying as her husband held her by the throat, twice with one hand and twice with both hands, have gone around the world. Because both of them are public figures domestic violence is at last near the top of the news agenda, even if it’s tilting more towards Celebrity ‘News’ rather than Criminal News.

The lunchtime BBC report seemed to play the incident down. Saatchi says that they were having a ‘playful tiff’, that Nigella wasn’t crying because she was physically hurt but because she hates arguments. The news reported that she went home with Saatchi, and a witness – one of many who did nothing and said nothing at the time – said “She had a real look of fear on her face. And yet she kissed him.”

This is intimate partner violence, also known as domestic violence. ‘Domestic Violence’ is the term used by most people who work in the field but we’re aware that the term ‘domestic’ can be problematic. It implies something to do with houses and housewives and private life that is no one else’s business, as we can see demonstrated when a man starts choking a woman in public and no one does a thing about it.

Imagine what would happen if a stranger walked up to Nigella Lawson and put his hands around her throat. All hell would break loose. The police would be called. Members of the public would leap to restrain him. Nigella would be taken to a safe place and comforted. But because a husband does the same to his wife it’s a private matter. Strange. And entirely illustrative of the problem.

So why would Nigella meekly kiss this man then get into a cab and go home with him?

All the research shows that when a woman who is in an established abusive relationship tries to leave the violence increases. Her abuser is outraged that she has the temerity to want to make a decision about her life. He threatens her with loosing the children and her home, threats that are very real – in most cases it is the abused women who has to leave her home rather than the abuser who is made to leave. If she leaves she will have to loose everything and begin again. She needs to disappear because abusers hunt people down ruthlessly. They do not stop.

She is put under greater surveillance; her mobile will be taken away or he will make a point of reading texts sent to her and monitoring who she’s calling. Her emails and internet use are monitored. He tells her friends that she’s going through a funny phase, going a bit strange, that he’s having quite a hard time caring for her but it’s ok, he doesn’t need any help because he loves her so.

Every 6 weeks or so the news will report a man killing his partner and often his children and usually himself. Sometimes he’ll kill the children and himself because to have your children murdered is the ultimate, never ending, perfect abuse. The neighbours will all be very shocked and say things like, “He was such a good father! They all looked so happy together, a normal happy family!” This is family annihilation, a phenomenon that seems to either be increasing or being better recognised, and it most often occurs when an abused woman tries to leave. And this is a really good reason why lots of abused women do not leave. Because they know that their lives and the lives of their children are at serious and genuine risk.

Because Nigella Lawson is a public person it’s unlikely that Saatchi will attempt any of this, it will be too easily exposed. I know nothing at all about the private life of Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi but I might ask a few questions of a couple in a similar situation:

Why wouldn’t she immediately pull away in shock and horror?

Why wouldn’t she stand up and leave?

Why didn’t she call for help? Or contact the police?

But the real questions, the most important questions I’d ask are not about why a person being choked does anything. It’s really not about her – she’s being choked, her options are somewhat limited. The questions I’d ask are about the person doing the choking:

Why does a man think it’s reasonable to choke his wife, in public, four times?

And if he does this in public, what goes on in private?

I was listening to a radio talk show this morning that discussed the man who yesterday stabbed his two small children to death and then killed himself. The question was ‘Why do some men do this and why is there an increase in this kind of behaviour?” People called in to say that the man was obviously suffering from a mental illness, or that it was obvious that men love their children so much that they ‘black out and do something they regret,’ or that, because men are now much more involved in the care of their children, when access to those children is under threat they 'panic and act out of character.'

The next hour was spent talking about April Jones, the little girl who’s been abducted, and how to protect children.

I was struck by the lack of complexity, almost the lack of irony involved in both these discussions: When a child is abducted we all scream for the perpetrator to be lynched. When a father stabs his two children to death – imagine that for a moment, imagine the fathers actions –we call that “A tragedy.”

We know that ‘stranger danger’ is a myth, that most abuse occurs within the home and is perpetrated by people the child knows, very often the child’s own parents, another family member or friends of the family. Ben aged 7 and Freya aged 6 were killed by their father, and yet when this happens it’s is never called child abuse. The media seldom call by its technical name, which is Family Annihilation, a phenomenon that’s rapidly on the increase.

If you Google ‘Father kills children then himself” you will find page upon page of reports of family annihilation which are always linked to domestic violence.

At this point, many people will rush to say that women kill their kids too. This is true but the father kills 95% of children murdered by a parent. The reasons for killing are very different too: most mothers who kill do so because they’re afraid of what the father will do to the children or are genuinely psychotic. Fathers kill as the ultimate punishment to any mother when the mother makes a break from her abusive husband. (This is, by the way, one good reason why women don’t leave abusive relationships – if they and the kids are going to be killed, it’s most likely to happen when they leave.)

We treat women who kill children as “abominable, despicable, vile and horrible” as one judge called a woman who killed her children rather than hand them over to their convicted paedophile father. When a father kills we search hard for reasons to excuse him.

The massive majority of fathers who are separated from their children by relationship breakdown do not go on to kill their children or themselves. They’re also sad, angry, upset, miss their children and the family home, are shocked, anxious, depressed and sometimes even panicky about suddenly being alone in the world. But they don’t kill their kids. This is overwhelmingly an issue of angry men who treat people as things they own. They’re allowed to do that because as a society we make excuses for them.

Domestic violence isn’t a woman’s issue; it’s an issue that affects everyone who cares about children’s wellbeing. If all of those people now feeling very sad that two young children have been stabbed to death by their ‘tragic dad’ cared as much about domestic violence, perhaps Ben and Freya might still be alive.

Men! Let us in on the secret! When you reach 15 does someone give you a book that tells you how to abuse women?

I conduct domestic violence counselling assessments in East and West London amongst very disparate groups. The women I see are from all socioeconomic and educational backgrounds and a great many racial and cultural groups but the story they tell is strikingly similar.

He wanted to know where I was and who I was seeing all the time. It became too difficult to see friends so I stopped going out. He would argue endlessly until I agreed with him. It got worse when I was pregnant and when I had the baby he couldn’t stand me looking after her but when she cried he became outraged and demanded I shut her up. He wrecked our home, terrorised the kids,  endlessly stole from me, arrived home unexpectedly because he thought I was having an affair and, when I managed to get a restraining order he ignored it, sits outside the house for hours on end and tries to break in. Sometimes he breaks in and beats me up again. If he gets arrested he's let out and then comes to get me. If he's put in prison I have to move because he has said he will kill me when he gets out.

Today the Director of Public Prosecutions will announce increased numbers of domestic violence convictions.

This good news demonstrates that prosecutors have been listening to and acting on DPP advice. Women’s organisations have been yelling all this from the rooftops for centuries but when the DPP takes it seriously things creak into action.

The bad news is 45% of women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime, that she will endure 33 assaults on average before she reports them, that 54% of rapes are perpetrated by a current or ex-partner and one third of female murder victims are killed by their current or ex-partner. That’s two women a week.

The quality of convictions isn't discussed. 'Conviction' just means that a person is found guilty. A conviction might mean community service or an 8 week sentence. 50% of men convicted of DV are going to continue being violent towards women, very often the woman who gave evidence against them which is why so many women withdraw their evidence. When you hear of a man who kills his children and then himself you can guarantee that DV was part of the dynamic - death is a very real, very possible outcome for women and children in domestic violence situations. An 18 week conviction isn't going to change that.

Rather than consider these figures – and there are many more – a great many people will address violence against women by saying that men also experience domestic violence. They do. Here are the stats: 26% of men experience DV. 10% of that 26% experience more than 4 episode of DV while 90% of the 45% of women experience more than 4 episodes.

Happily, most men do not assault women and are repelled by domestic violence. That’s not something women should be grateful for. We should expect it of all men.