At least 4,000 cases of children attacking their own parents were reported to police during lockdown, alarming figures reveal.
Such violent episodes spiked by 25 per cent over the period from March to June when social contact outside households was limited to wrestle down the pandemic.
The surge in attacks included one mother who was pinned against the wall and throttled by her daughter, who also chased her with a plank of wood.
She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain, which compiled the data: ‘I can’t describe the desperation I feel. I felt angry, powerless… This is not a happy healthy child that behaves like this.’
Campaigners have called child-parent attacks the ‘hidden’ part of domestic abuse, which they say was amplified during the crisis as typical support structures were swept away.
Today’s sobering statistics have also reignited a debate about smacking, but calls for it to be used to hard-wire discipline have been firmly rejected by charities.
At least 4,000 cases of children attacking their own parents were reported to police during lockdown, alarming figures reveal (file photo)
Campaigners have called child-parent attacks the ‘hidden’ part of domestic abuse (Jane Griffiths pictured)
Around half of police forces in England and Wales responded to GMB’s Freedom of Information request, which disclosed 4,274 cases of attacks.
One mother, using the false name Kath, told the programme of the sheer fright at being beaten by her own daughter.
She said: ‘I can’t describe the desperation I feel. I felt angry, powerless, I felt desperately worried about her, wanting her to get the support she needs because this comes from a position of mental health issues. This is not a happy healthy child that behaves like this.
‘She started out with smacking, it escalated… She had me up against the wall with her hands around my throat, she chased me with a piece of wood to try to attack me with it.’
She added: ‘There have been times when I’ve felt genuinely in danger, from the thought that this could go wrong, I could fall down the stairs or she could hit me and I could hit my head wrong.
‘Often it’s come to me having to call the police just to de-escalate the situation and have her removed from the environment and to be honest at times like that I feel utter relief just to have some breathing space.’
The surge in attacks included one mother (pictured left) who was pinned against the wall and throttled by her daughter, who also chased her with a plank of wood
But charities have batted back calls for parents to use smacking to instill discipline.
In this morning’s show, GMB presenter Kate Garraway revealed lots of viewers had reacted by suggesting the punishment for parents.
Yet this was rubbished by Jane Griffiths, founder and director of CAPA First Response, a charity set up to help family members experiencing this violence.
She said: ‘Hitting a smacking a child is only going to invoke fear into a child. It’s not going to support a child to understand healthy or positive relationships and therefore improve their behaviour, and we hear that quite a lot ‘oh if you just put firmer boundaries in place’. This is not a parent issue, this is not about putting in sufficient boundaries.’
Speaking about child-parent abuse, she added: ‘It’s that hidden part of domestic abuse… there is not a lot police can do other than go down the criminalisation route, which is something we really advocate not to happen.’
As the plight of domestic abuse victims in lockdown emerged during the pandemic, the government in April poured £2million into support services
She added: ‘Young people that use child to parent abuse are doing so out of fear, lack of being in control and feeling unsafe.
‘When you add Covid into that mix and there’s a lack of routine and a lack of safety, that behaviour is going to be magnified and intensified.’
As the plight of domestic abuse victims in lockdown emerged during the pandemic, the government in April poured £2million into support services.
The rise in cases of children attacking their parents was highlighted by victim’s commissioner Dame Vera Baird in Parliament.
She told the Commons justice committee: ‘This is a new kind of abuse which is probably suggestive of children wanting to go out and not being allowed to.
‘We are talking about teenagers and that’s a worry. There’s a sense in which there is a spike likely to emerge of this kind of domestic abuse that is just coming through.’