For Emily – not her real name – the imprisonment of her then-husband for crimes against her led to a reduction in support from children’s services.
She told Woman’s Hour that it felt like their view was that the “problem” had gone.
Her children struggled to understand what had happened – with one repeatedly telling her “you need to find me a new dad”.
Emily said this week: “I felt that that was my fault.
“They noticed that we were different. They were grieving a loss, but he was still there.”
Her youngest child, in reception class at the time, spoke about her dad’s prison sentence in a school assembly.
It prompted a phone call from the school explaining that she would not be allowed to share in assembly again so as not to “worry other children”, Emily explained.
“This wasn’t our crime,” she told Woman’s Hour.
“Why are we being punished and why are we being pushed out of society because of something that happened to us?”
