WOMEN WHO BRUTALISE MEN

EX-ARMY CAPTAIN MATTHEW MUDGE MATTHEW Mudge is a 40-yearold rugby player from Cardiff who says he was abused for two years by his then wife. He now works as a technology consultant for a company that fits homes with state-oftheart automatic systems and hi-fi's. He says: IT was a degree of ferocious violence that I have never come across in dealing with men, even on army exercises. She was petite, eight-and- half stone, but incredibly strong.

I was 14 stone, training regularly in the Army. It's not something I considered would happen to me. When I realised it was an abusive relationship, it was too late.

When we met she said I was the best thing to have happened to her. But several months later, three weeks after she moved in, she started shouting and throwing soft punches. On one occasion, I bought her 10 driving lessons.

After the lessons, the instructor said she wasn't ready, so I bought her another 10, but explained that I couldn't afford any more.

At the end of those 10 she needed more, but I reminded her I couldn't afford it. "You always put yourself first!" she shouted, then spat at me. She would threaten me, too: "I'll get the police after you", or "I'll get you locked up". She used sleepdeprivation tactics: if she didn't get her own way she would keep me up all night. Often she'd criticise my family as well, trying to isolate them from me.

AFTER 18 months, we married and she became pregnant with our son despite claiming she was on the Pill. Then, two months after the birth, she started to make unfavourable comparisons between me and her first husband and saying she had had better lovers.

Then it became outright physical violence. The first time was when we got home from a party, and she accused me of looking at other men's wives, which wasn't true. She swore and spat, then punched me in the face and was kicking and biting, too. I tried to cover myself from the blows. She only stopped when she was exhausted.

I left her for an hour, then went to see her. "How did this happen?" I asked, and she got into a rage again, punching, kicking and biting. When she exhausted herself once more, I got away and went to Violence against women is a scourge of our society. But it is not just women who suffer. Men are also attacked by their partners, yet rarely seek help, fearing they will be ridiculed. It has been claimed that in London last year 20,000 men were abused. Here, two courageous men tell David Hurst their terrifying stories bed, shocked. I didn't mention it to her again because there was no reasoning with her.

There was no one to turn to. I felt helpless and trapped. I wanted our marriage to work. When we'd met it was great, and we were happy. It was when that initial shine went that she changed. Even if I'd wanted out, I had nowhere to go. It was my home - and if she left she'd have taken our son.

Unfortunately, on two occasions, I defended myself. She was punching me in the face, and both times I hit her in the arm to try to give her a dead arm, hoping this would stop her. It made her even worse.

She went to the police with some photos a friend had taken of her bruises.

As a result, I was convicted of assault and had to do community service. No one believed that I was defending myself. The prosecution said I acted beyond reasonable force and I had no evidence that she'd hit me. I Trapped: Matthew Mudge was powerless had been to the police after one occasion and they didn't really want to know.

My name and photo were splashed over the local press. But I was lucky because not one family member or friend turned their back on me.

She had me kicked out of my own home, which she still lives in, and divorced me. The flat is solely in my name because I bought it when I was single. But if children are involved, a bloke doesn't stand a chance of staying in the family home.

I can't do anything about it unless she remarries, cohabits with a man for three months, until our son leaves school or she vacates on her own free will. I'm lucky that I can still see my son. I hope that by the time he gets to the age I was when I married, a gender-equal system is in place.

FORMER deep-sea fisherman George Rolph, aged 50, above, lives in south-east London and has suffered from two abusive relationships. He says: I WAS unlucky after always having relationships that were good to become entangled with two abusive women in succession.

I experienced my girlfriend's abuse for the first time after four months while driving down the busy M4 in the fast lane. Without thinking, I threw a sweet wrapper out of the window. Suddenly, she punched me between the legs so hard that I lost control of the car and it went across all three lanes. My eyes were full of water, so I couldn't see. I was in intense pain. It was sheer luck that we didn't hit any other vehicle.

Until then she'd always been gentle. When I could speak again, I asked why she did it. She grinned at me and said: "You're ruining the environment." I never mentioned it to her again as discussing it would not have helped.

A few weeks later, she asked me to put up some shelves. Without telling me where she was going, she went out. While she was away I put up the shelves.

When she returned, I proudly showed her my work. She went ballistic, shouting: "Why did you put those effin' shelves up, you bastard?" I was totally confused. "You knew I was going to get this!" she shouted, holding up a threequarterinch-thick piece of wood.

Suddenly she brought it down on its edge on my head, splitting it wide open, blood everywhere. I fell to the floor and she slammed a door into my face, so that my nose and lips poured with blood, too. She went downstairs. I sat there thinking: "What the hell was that?" I went downstairs, my shirt soaked with blood. She just said: "What do you want for dinner?"

The next major incident was three months later when she came at me with a knife. I held her at bay by warning that if she stabbed at me I'd hit her. I was defending my life. But I would never hit a woman for any other reason.

I reported her to the police for pulling a knife on me. The police asked: "What did you do to make her behave that way?" It's always the man's fault. I felt destroyed. When I asked her about the incident, she refused to answer.

WE were together for 18 months, during which time we had a baby son. Then she left one day, saying she was "going to Slough". Instead, she took our five-month-old baby to live abroad. I discovered from a friend where she'd gone. She won't even allow me to send birthday cards to him.

Eighteen months later, I met another girl. She was gentle, with a smile that would melt steel. For four months I was happy. Gradually, though, the woman beneath emerged. Over the next three-and-a-half years every part of me came in for public and private ridicule: my faith, taste in art, music, TV, films, books, my work, my jokes, my sexual performance, my looks, habits, the way I wore my hair, my clothes, my efforts to be a father, my friends, my choice of gifts, my colour sense, my hobbies and interests.

By the end, I was empty. It was mental torture. I'd rather be beaten to a pulp every day than go through that again. She'd drive me to the edge, then she'd become this loving woman again, or she'd throw me out of her house. She did that 36 times in three years.

Each time, I'd return to my own house 500 yards from where she still lived. Humiliated, I'd pack my stuff into bin-liners and go.

However, I kept moving back in. When someone is hostile and starves you of affection as abusers do, the natural reaction is to walk away. But when you love your abuser, logic goes out of the window and you think with your heart, not your head.

Abusers go for people who tend to love deeply, because they know their victims will put up with it for longer and keep coming back, and because they also know their loving nature will prevent them from fighting back.

AN abuser will figure out how much you can take and play you like a fish on a hook. They will push you over the edge of your endurance in whatever way they wish and then, just as you are about to break, slacken off and tell you they love you, or manipulate you with guilt, or both. In this way they offer hope, and hope is a powerful weapon against those who love deeply.

I felt smaller every time I left, but I was in love with her, and there's no logic to love. That's the reason I didn't leave both relationships: I was in love and didn't understand what was going on. I kept thinking that they'd change back into the charming females I'd first met.

We finished when I couldn't stand any more of being thrown out. That week she had spat in my face. I no longer wanted to be held in such contempt. Even after I left she still screamed at me in public, until one day, after three months away from her, I overcame the fear of upsetting her and told her that if she did it again I would call the police and file charges for harassment.

Why male victims will not complain to police NATIONAL organiser of men's charity ManKind, Stephen Fitzgerald, says the problem of male victims is widespread. "According to British crime surveys over the past six years, 27 per cent of domestic violence victims are men. Men are less likely to report abuse.

In fact, women are five times more likely than men to report themselves as domestic-violence victims. Even those men who do pluck up the courage to report it to police don't receive the help they should. Where male victims with children are involved, there is an appalling lack of "There are several reasons for domestic violence, but basically it's someone with mental problems abusing their partner. Drink and drugs make things worse.

"We need a governmentfunded campaign highlighting how many men suffer, backed by counselling training to deal with male victims. There needs to be a radical overhaul of police and social services procedures to ensure men and their children have the help they need.

"For example, there are more than 3,000 beds for female victims of domestic violence and 20 for gay men, with 22.9 million of Government money promised for refuge provision until 2006. None of this money is available to men and their children. There is not one bed for a male victim of an abusive straight relationship. Domestic violence against men or women is unacceptable, but men have virtually no help available."

Helplines for men: ManKind, 0870 7944124, www.mankind.org.uk; man2man, 020 8698

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