Rebel Justice
What is justice? Who does it serve? Why should you care?
When we think about justice, we think about it as an abstract, something that happens to someone else, somewhere else. But justice and the law regulate every aspect of our interactions with each other, with organisations, and with the government.
We never think about it until it impacts our lives, or that of someone close.
Our guests are women with lived experience of the justice system whether as victims or women who have committed crimes; or people at the forefront of civic action who put their lives on the line to demand a better world..
We ask them to share their insight into how we might repair a broken and harmful system, with humanity and dignity.
We also speak with people who are in the heart of the justice system creating important change; climate activists, judges, barristers, human rights campaigners, mental health advocates, artists and healers.
Rebel Justice
89. Surviving Violence, Shaping Justice - Janine Ewen’s Story
Justice and law touch every aspect of our lives, yet we rarely think about them until they directly impact us or those we love. When they fail, the consequences can be devastating, especially for the most vulnerable among us.
Janine Ewen's story begins in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, where political conflict formed the backdrop to a more intimate violence. As a child witnessing her father's abuse of her mother, Janine learned early what it means when systems fail to protect those they should. Her vivid descriptions of putting beds against doors, her brother sleeping with his shoes on ready to escape, and police officers who advised her mother to "go back and calm the situation down" reveal the profound gaps in our approaches to domestic abuse.
After escaping to Scotland with her mother and brother, the family found temporary safety in a women's refuge. Yet even there, the shadow of abuse followed them, as her father repeatedly attempted to locate them despite court orders prohibiting contact. It wasn't until his death decades later that her mother finally felt truly safe – a stark reminder of how lasting the impact of domestic violence can be.
What makes Janine's journey remarkable is how she's transformed these experiences into a driving force for change. With over two decades of work in victim support, public health, and harm reduction, she brings both professional expertise and lived experience to her advocacy. Her passionate critique of family courts, which often enable abusers to maintain control through legal means, and her emphasis on early mental health support for children experiencing domestic violence offer concrete pathways toward more effective and humane approaches.
Through creative methodologies that give ownership back to survivors and a commitment to highlighting both system failures and possibilities for reform, Janine exemplifies the vital role that survivor voices must play in reshaping our justice system. Her message to others – "you're not alone" – carries the weight of someone who truly understands both the isolation of abuse and the power of community in healing.
Credits
Guest: Janine Ewen - Specialist in Public Health, Safety and Childhood Vulnerability
Producer: Charlotte Janes
Soundtrack: Particles (Revo Main Version) by [Coma-Media]
Read more of Janine's work here:
If you or someone you know is living with domestic abuse, help is available:
National Domestic Abuse Helpline (Refuge): 0808 2000 247
Women’s Aid National Freephone Helpline: 1800 341 900
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You're listening to Rebel Justice, the podcast from the View Magazine. When we think about justice, we think about it as an abstract, something that happens to someone else somewhere else. But justice and the law regulate every aspect of our interactions with each other, with organisations and with the government. We never think about it until it impacts our lives or those of someone close. Our guests are women with lived experience of the justice system, whether as victims or women who have committed crimes. People at the forefront of civic action who put their lives on the line to demand a better world. We ask them to share their insight into how we might repair a broken and harmful system with humanity and dignity. We also speak with people who are in the heart of the justice system, creating important change Judges, barristers, human rights campaigners, mental health advocates, artists and healers. In today's episode, you're going to hear an extraordinary story of survival, resilience and purpose.
Host:Our guest grew up in Northern Ireland during a time of political unrest, but alongside that wider conflict, she faced violence much closer to home. As a child, she lived with domestic abuse, experienced first-hand the failures in policing and safeguarding, and had to navigate a world where safety wasn't guaranteed. It's a story that's at times painful, but it's also one of hope, strength and the power to transform lived experience into lasting change. After moving to Scotland, she went on to build a career dedicated to protecting others, from working in public health and harm reduction to research and policy that puts the voices of children and survivors at the centre. Janine Ewen has over two decades of experience championing trauma-informed care and addressing the harms and disadvantages faced by children, young people and underserved communities, and disadvantages faced by children, young people and underserved communities, particularly in relation to organized crime and criminalization. Since 2016, she's been an active member at the Global Law Enforcement and Public Health Association and a regular contributor to the Policing Insight and the Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Center, writing on themes such as public health, organised crime and community wellbeing.
Host:Her published work includes practical insights for professionals as well as critical reflections drawn from lived experience. Most recently, she's developed a health needs assessment framework designed to ensure that community-focused, needs-led approaches aren't overtaken by police agendas, supporting better service provision, tackling exploitation and safeguarding vulnerable populations. Her voice is both professional and deeply personal. Janine advocates for generative and transformative approaches for children and young people who have faced adversity and violence. Her work has been published by the Research in Practice Network, exploring the impact of childhood violence through creative methods, and by the Contextual Safeguarding Network for her innovative approaches to community safety. This is a conversation about survival, but also about what comes next, about how someone can take their most difficult experiences and turn them into a driving force for change, and it's a reminder that the systems we build are only as strong as the voices we choose to hear. Can you tell us a little bit about what your childhood was like growing up in Northern Ireland?
Janine Ewen:I would describe it as intense and somewhat unsettling, and I think that really is down to the unfortunate realities that that's what Northern Ireland was like at the time. And I even remember being in a crowd in Belfast and this was at a time when John Major was actually visiting and he actually shook my hand. We were standing in a crowd and he came over to meet people and he unexpectedly shook my hand and I would have been five years old at the time and his visits was because of the T-Bain cross massacre that took place. That ended up I think seven people were killed in that in 1992. And obviously six years later that would have been the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
Janine Ewen:So you can appreciate the link between high levels of stress, mental health challenges and adverse outcomes linked to the troubles in Northern Ireland and adverse outcomes linked to the troubles in Northern Ireland. You know, too many young lives were caught in the crossfire and Northern Ireland obviously still deals with a lot of troubles today, especially paramilitary activity. So I didn't live in what would be considered a particularly great period of time and I didn't live in a community that was. I wouldn't you don't want to stigmatise a community, but it wasn't known to be a particularly great area. It wasn't all bad, but I think the main issue that I picked up on when I was quite little was that there was separations amongst people, for sure, if you were Catholic or Protestant, so you only spoke to certain families. I had friends in the area, sure, but not as many as I would have liked. Thankfully, our next-door neighbour was really close to us and we got on well with their children and we were allowed to play with them, and they ended up becoming lifelong friends as well. So it was just like having another mother next door, a typical caring Irish grandmother essentially and it was like that with my primary school as well. It was very strict there.
Janine Ewen:So Northern Ireland is you know where I'm from originally and I'll always have a deep connection to it been back over many times. Not the community that I left, I've not been back there but I've certainly been back across to give talks at the Queen's University, belfast, and I've also done some work over there. So I plan to continue to go back. But I'm always immensely impressed with how resilient the communities are and you know they really do deserve our respect for everything that they've been through. But yeah, anyone in growing up in that era probably would have felt really on edge, and that because of what was occurring at the time. Yeah, that's how I would sort of summarise my childhood in Northern Ireland.
Host:Thank you. So obviously you mentioned, given the time period, the kind of social and political unrest. How did you feel in your home?
Janine Ewen:Well, that was definitely a different story. I think growing up not every single minute was bad, but most of our family life was extremely difficult. It was the sense of wondering when there would be another outburst and also seeing the struggle that my mum experienced with that. You were afraid to say the wrong thing or behave in a certain way, otherwise you would get angry. So it was that point that I made about just feeling quite unsettled. It wasn't a safe, loving home. Living there. It was more survival than anything else. So I grew up having to be on guard and often to expect the worst.
Janine Ewen:There was a number of times that we had to prepare to run out of the house or put the bed up against the door when he was having a violent outburst and mum would run up the stairs and grab me and my brother and, yeah, put the bed against the door and just pray that things would calm down. There was also many times that my mum and me, my brother, would run out to the telephone box as well and, yeah, lots of tears were had. My mom did her best to keep us safe and she went without in so many ways to make sure that me and my brother were okay, especially with meals, because she often didn't feed herself. So she she often went without to make sure that both me and my brother were well fed. Any money that was given to my mom to help us was just immediately taken off of her and my grandparents tried to send clothes and money and things and trying to maintain contact with my mom but he just took everything and he also sold her belongings. So it was really quite, it's quite sad, like we had very little. Me and my brother were not like very wanty kids, like we weren't really like that, but it doesn't excuse him doing that anyways, because essentially my mom lost a lot of sentimental items, just pieces of family jewelry, nothing like special or anything, but it would have been pieces that would have been given to her by her own grandmother and she would have lost all of that. And it just makes me think actually I don't actually have anything really from my childhood. We have a few photographs and things, but I don't have any sort of childhood toys or anything from that time period. But it's like I said to you before, we we really didn't have that much.
Janine Ewen:Um, the sad reality about it is that everyone on our street could hear what was going on as well, because my father took my mom out onto the streets to be violent to her, and sometimes that would happen in the middle of the night. Um, that's how much he didn't really care about his actions. He didn't care if the world knew that what he was doing, and he certainly did not care about the impact that this would have on me and my brother, who, based like we both, saw everything that was going on the best times that I probably had right in our back garden, you know, when we're playing with the neighbor's children, and it felt like that we had that extended family with them. I also liked it whenever we could go out of the house, especially any trips to Belfast. But I think now, looking back, I realised there was probably a reason for that about wanting to be outside a lot more, not wanting to go back into the house. So, yeah, that was always a thing Like my mum had great difficulty getting me to go back into the house. But, yeah, I think there was a particular reason for that. But it also I think it puts into perspective you know why young people do gravitate towards the street. When we think about young people and going into the outside world and what it'd hang with friends on the street or whatever because they've got situations going on at home. You know young people take a lot of their pain outside, you know, and yeah, just puts a lot into perspective.
Janine Ewen:But I think like there was also problems with like going to nursery and primary as well. That was really hard on me, probably the toughest, because I never wanted mum to leave me because I wanted to be by her side. There was, like major attachment issues. I had major attachment issues to my mum and I feel bad about it now because I can appreciate how challenging my behaviour had been at the time. But because I didn't want her to be on her own with him, I would just kick up massively with both like being in nursery and also primary school. So I met with both like being in nursery and also primary school. So there had been occasions where the class teacher would be like you really do need to stay here because you know Janine's too upset right now. So my mom would sit in the corner or we would play with some of the toys and stuff and then she would, when I wasn't looking at her or wasn't paying attention, she would quickly run out of the classroom and the teachers would be holding me back, essentially because I would obviously try and chase after her. But it did take quite a bit of time for me to get settled and yeah, it was. It was unpleasant. It's sad to know how unsettled my class must have been as well, especially because they wouldn't have had any understanding of why I was getting so upset at the time and the teachers were not aware of the domestic abuse that was going on either, because obviously my mum wouldn't have wanted to say, which I can understand. But it makes it difficult because obviously the teachers would just be thinking oh, you know, janine's just acting up unnecessarily, when in fact there was a reason for it.
Janine Ewen:I just wanted to be very close to my mum during those periods of time and she ended up.
Janine Ewen:Whenever there was school trips or anything, I would always nominate my mum to come on the school trips and you know we laugh about it.
Janine Ewen:Now you try and make some you know humor from pretty bad situations and she would say, oh, I can't believe I went on all those school trips with you and you nominated me all the time. But again, that was another tactic of mine of keeping her close to me and just us doing stuff together and she ended up coming to every single school trip and I think that's what I really love about her the most is that she'd always do everything possible to make sure that we were going to be okay and we were happy. So attending all of these school trips, you know, because I wanted her there. You know she did that and you know I'm grateful to her for that. So I think, like family life as a child probably unsafe and pretty traumatic and you know there was a lot of violence and there was a lot of being in constant fear of what was going to happen next yeah, thank you for sharing that.
Host:I think it's heartbreaking to think about you saying, even at the age of nursery, having the awareness and knowing you have to protect your mum. Yeah like that's something that no child should have to even consider, never mind act upon. Yeah, you did mention how your father would take her out into the street, so obviously people must have been aware, and your mother not wanting to talk about it with the teachers or nursery staff. Did anyone stand in or offer help with a professional service?
Janine Ewen:No one came out. But some of the encounters with the police did come as a result of hearing screams and stuff. So sometimes my neighbor would be involved in that, but sometimes there would be calls but nobody came out. I think the problem is is that everybody knew that my father was. He was a troublemaker and he was well known for it and he was known for his violence.
Janine Ewen:He came from a military background so I think that's there was a lot of fear and also because there I think the link between dividedness amongst the community. You know that there was families that wouldn't speak to us. So I suppose that created a lot of isolation in lots of ways of who would be willing to like help us in that situation like that. But nobody came out because I think people were just so afraid of him because it was well known what he was. He was obviously doing. My neighbor wasn't afraid to say anything to him. She was very protective over us. But yeah, ultimately there wasn't much done about it and that's quite horrific really when you think about it, the fact that he would take his violence out onto the street and drag my mum out and really not care if anybody ever heard what was going on.
Host:Yeah, completely. You mentioned police coming quite often from calls of screaming. How did you feel about when they came or their response? Were they able to help at all?
Janine Ewen:I mean this is really difficult. There was definitely a lot of safeguarding failures and poor responses, but I think probably a couple of occasions it was okay. I mean I think I would have been about four or five when I first had my encounter with the police directly in terms of domestic abuse and then seeing a lot of policing was a frequent occurrence for obvious reasons, and the PSNI were called many times, mainly because of my father when he had more violent episodes and there was times that he did get picked up by the police. He had a massive drink problem which didn't help the situation. So there were a number of times that the police would actually end up picking him up and bringing him back home, or he would end up going into the police car and he'd be taken away and into custody for the night. So before, not just directly domestic abuse, but because of his behavior in general, he would be somebody that would be frequently picked up by the police. So, yeah, there would be numerous times that he'd be taken to the station for questioning and within a matter of hours that he'd be back home. So I wouldn't say that they did any welfare asking of us. You know, in general, like what is the home environment going on? Is this just him being a terrible drunk and being a nuisance outside or is there any situations going on at home? So there wasn't really too much of that at the beginning, but there had been times that they did come out when they did get the call that there was a concern for us and it was generally just my father answering the door and him trying to give the impression that everything was okay. My mom was very much in the background. Obviously she was afraid she wouldn't have said anything at that point in time, but they very much took that at face value, which really was a mistake, and didn't really do much following up after that.
Janine Ewen:But I think probably the worst out of all of them probably would have been the times that we were running out of the house to go next door to our neighbour's house. And there was one time in particular that the PSNI arrived and they advised my mum to go back into the house to calm the situation down. And I still remember the reactions to this day and it was just this look on their face that this was like a nuisance call to them, basically this look on their face that this was like a nuisance call to them, basically. So it was really disappointing and they had said to my mom look, it's late at night. Any chance that you could go back next door and try and calm the situation down with him? We were all like looking at each other and I think my mom felt pressured into that as a solution. You know, she was vulnerable at the time and she must. I think she probably got the impression that the police were just not really taking it as seriously as they should be, because I don't think that's an appropriate response at all to say to somebody oh you know it's late at night, so why do we not just sort this out and you go back next door and try and calm him down? So we all went to the neighbor's door. We were standing there, the police were behind us and then my mom started walking down the garden path and going back into the house and me and my brother just started screaming, which was pretty traumatic, and we were crying because we could see that she was afraid to go back into the house. So me and my brother start. Well, we attempted to run after her, but the police ended up holding us back and restraining us.
Janine Ewen:So that's not something that you forget easily, and certainly a lot of my own professional work. A lot of my work is dealing with controversial policing practices against vulnerable people and I've also done a lot of work in. Lot of my work is dealing with controversial policing practices against vulnerable people and I've also done a lot of work in sort of domestic abuse. I did go back to Northern Ireland and you know I did explain to the PSNI what had happened and did some work in in Scotland as well, where I'm based currently. But yeah, I mean it.
Janine Ewen:Just it's quite the thing that it wouldn't have been good anyways, because we wouldn't have wanted her to go back into the house. But you can imagine two young people. You know that their moms experience violence and the solution to that is to expect her to go back into the house by herself to calm the situation down. It wasn't as if that she had anybody with her. The police did not walk back with her into the house. So it was awful, it was really bad. It was one of those incidents that I think you just would never forget and I never did. It didn't turn me into an angry person because I wanted to try and put pain into purpose, I suppose. But I think obviously that was always going to be a starting point for me or to really be concerned about people's experiences with the criminal justice system and policing, you know, because really like that was a major mistake to do that. It was very traumatic for me and my brother, and you know being physically pulled back by the police as well. You know, being young kids at the time, it really was diabolical. That was quite possibly one of the worst incidents.
Janine Ewen:But the only good thing that the police did was that when my mum had made a plan about our escape, we basically had help from a neighbour to leave. My father was out at this point in time and we actually went to the neighbour's house for the night and I think my mum and the neighbour spoke to the police and said look, you know we're leaving, we can't do this anymore. It just got into a point that my mum really just couldn't tolerate it anymore because it had been going on for 10 years and it just he wasn't going to change and my brother was saying to my mum we need to leave, can't stay here anymore. And I wasn't particularly well at the time. I had really bad asthma as a child and I had frequent visits in hospital and my father was a smoker and you know he would blow cigarette smoke in my face. He was just a really nasty man like that. So I think it just got to a point that you know my mum was like we have to leave.
Janine Ewen:So we got the police a whole heap of them to come over to our house. My father was back in the house at the time and he was told basically to sit in the chair. There was probably about several police officers there I'd say probably about seven or eight that were crowded around him in the living room and we didn't have much, but we went to collect a few items that we had left you know the most important things and we ended up leaving and then the following night that was when we went on a boat and got on the ferry came over to Scotland and then afterwards we were put into a woman's refuge for two years. So yeah, the only good thing about the policing then was the fact that there was a good number of them there that made a point of saying you're not moving anywhere, you stay there. And you know that was definitely what I experienced to be helpful, but that probably was the only only time that the police helped, and there was so many times over like a 10-year period, that they were called out.
Host:As much as it's kind for you to say that they were good at that final point. There's 10 years of just failure after failure for one old woman and two vulnerable children. So you made it to Scotland. How did things start to change?
Janine Ewen:we had good experiences. I'm living in a people will have different experiences with that. Some people have good experiences and other people they don't have easy situations and unfortunately, when you're living with people that you don't know, it's a close living environment with other families. But we were really lucky we had essentially it was an old hospital that had been converted into little apartments, so I think there were probably about eight of them, and this was in a rural part as well, in a tiny community, and it worked well. There are obviously different experiences and there's new research coming out now about domestic abuse in rural areas and you know the good sides of that and the bad sides, but it worked well for us.
Janine Ewen:The community knew about the refuge and they were really respectful about it, the little convenience store that we would go into. If they saw a new face, I think they would always sort of guess the reason for that, especially if it's a woman with children. So I remember the first time going into the store and you know the couple that owned the place were just really sweet with me and my brother and they had a smile on their face and they would be like, oh, do you live around the corner? And we'd be like, yeah, and they gave us sweeties as well. You know, just trying to like very much, create a very like welcoming and comfortable environment for us, which I really appreciated. So we didn't have much, but we were just so grateful for what we had. You know it was, you know, basic living, but that's what you need at the time, you know. And it's not really about the material stuff, it's about being in a safe home and being in the refuge was just so, believe it or not, relaxing for me and it prevented that feeling of isolation, because being with other women and children it was, you know, a reminder that this happens to so many people and it's not good that anybody's there, but it is good that women and children are there to try and be safe and maybe perhaps start healing and recovery.
Janine Ewen:So I could see that my mum benefited massively from being in that space because she was obviously speaking to other women and I enjoyed seeing her being able to feel a bit more relaxed, because so much of my childhood I saw my mum in quite a lot of distress. So when I saw her chatting with the other women, it meant a lot to me and I really enjoyed it because I met other children there and I'd made friends there, you know, and we had a nice play area outside, really, really nice. Somebody donated a couple of bikes and we would go out and play and just that huge sense of safety for us. I can't tell you just how much of an amazing feeling that was to just be at home, not have to worry about leaving. Or, you know, sometimes my brother would sleep with his socks and shoes on, just if things got really bad. You know, he would help to take care of me and take me out the house and he didn't have to do that anymore. He was a couple of years older than me. So, yeah, greg, my brother, he, he really helped my mum to look after me, but the fact that we didn't have to do that anymore.
Janine Ewen:But there was maybe a couple of issues with the refuge when women who had been in contact with their partners a couple of times that we were ended up being in lockdown because they had disclosed where we were. So that was the only drawback about that. I suppose being in a rural area, that was one of the things. But there was also another situation that maybe perhaps wasn't good. It was more to do with confidentiality because essentially our information was leaked about our whereabouts. So my father had been in contact with a men's support organisation in Northern Ireland and what they had done is that they contacted Women's Aid here where I am in Scotland currently. He suspected we might be in a specific place because my mum had particular connections to this area. So these representatives professed to Women's Aid that my father was very sorry for his actions. I mean, how many hundreds of times did he say that to my mother over 10 years? They had said, oh, he's put some money in a letter for you all and they basically asked if they could send a letter over and Women's Aid had said, yes, so big problem there, because that gave the green lights where we actually were. And, yeah, we did find out that he did come to Scotland when he wasn't allowed to be anywhere near us.
Janine Ewen:The court case against my father didn't amount to a custodial sentence, which I think you can imagine is horrendous, because that's 10 years of violence and abuse not recognized for what should have been. But he wasn't allowed to be in. I think it was within a 60 mile radius of us of where we were, but of course that didn't stop him from trying his luck. We found out that it was three times that he came over. So it's a major reality check when men don't give up and how, unfortunately, when people talk about the fact that it's not always easy for a woman to leave and it can still be a situation of like you're not always going to be in a safe position even when you do leave I think that's that's clear there and perpetrators not giving up. So the last time that we found out that he had come over was in my 20s, so really puts into perspective the length of time that he didn't give up.
Janine Ewen:So my mum didn't really ever get any sense of peace in her life until we found out that he had died several years ago. And when we found out he died, I remember she burst into tears and I knew that she would be emotional, but she just said every night. I knew that she would be emotional, but she just said every night I'd worried about him finding us and turning up at the door. And that really cut me because I think I can't imagine what it's like to just always be in fear that he's still out there. He's been trying to get in contact, he's been trying to look for us. It would be hard to switch off from, but I think it showed the length of time that my mum had really been in fear.
Janine Ewen:So, yeah, what you were saying about what it was like after Northern Ireland, I suppose in lots of ways it was good because of the sense of safety. But again the safety became compromised and also I think my mum never really got that sense of being completely safe because of, obviously, what had happened and only feeling safe when he'd actually died. So I felt really bad that she had. She never spoke about that. She always tried her best to, you know, give the impression that you know we're starting a new life and it's all going to be OK. But I think that was more for me and my brother's sake more than anything else. I think that she had been in quite a lot of worry for some time.
Janine Ewen:So women's aid learned a harsh lesson from that. I do know it was a mistake. I mean, back then everyone at that period of time was still learning how to deal with domestic abuse and you know men are very manipulative when it comes to being violent and abusive. And these are just all learning points, I suppose, and learning points how best to protect and safeguard as much as possible. So I never held a grudge about that. They probably thought at the time, yeah, she deserves to read this letter because he should be apologetic. But at the same time they just did not realize that it was just a tactic to try and find out where we were. So there's lots to learn from situations like this and I think at the time with social work, women's aid support workers, police, when I discussed some of these situations they did find it to be really helpful, but obviously they were pretty mortified by it about everything that can essentially go wrong.
Host:How did you find your way into working in criminal justice issues yourself? Obviously, I guess a huge part of that is you have the lived experience. But what kind of begun that process for you?
Janine Ewen:I became very curious to know how many other people are experiencing these situations, and obviously millions upon millions of people are. But I think that was it for me. It was just. It wasn't essentially just to go out there and say this is what happened to me, because I always make sure that I make people aware that I'm not representative of everybody's experience. I can only highlight things that have happened to us in order that it can improve practice as much as possible, but I think I just the experience. I was like my goodness, who else out there is having these bad experiences?
Janine Ewen:So I've got two decades of work in terms of like victim support, public health, reducing harm for young, reducing harm for people who would be considered more vulnerable, that don't access services and don't report instances of violence and exploitation because of the criminal justice system, because they have experienced violence.
Janine Ewen:I've definitely worked with people that have experienced violence by the police as well. So that was it. It was the curiosity and I definitely think that living in a woman's refuge and living amongst different people and learning about different people and their experiences, you know, I enjoyed listening to people and I think that's the thing about me is that I am very good with people in the sense that I think people know with me that I'm authentic, they trust me and I'm not afraid to address bad practices, and I think that's it as well. I've had many situations where I've had difficult conversations about failures, so I would always consider myself a bit of an activist, but also an advocate as well for people that have lost a lot of faith in the criminal justice system, which I do understand. So, yeah, I think the knowing what we had gone through, wondering who else is out there who's having those similar experiences, and also being in a women's refuge probably was always going to be a motivation for going into these sorts of areas of work
Host:your role in advocacy, justice work and activism has played in your personal healing.
Janine Ewen:I think it really has helped me so much and even doing this podcast with you it does help.
Janine Ewen:I think that the healing factor is it's horrible that so many people are having these experiences, but I think being able to to write I've done well now in terms of my education. But I had major problems with my learning at the beginning and I didn't have a particularly great period of school. And it still upsets me because I think the there's a sense of grief when you think what would I have been like if I hadn't gone through that experience, because I think, even though I enjoy all my work I think we all know that probably having the happy family life is probably what everybody really wants but I didn't have a particularly great time with my education. I had delayed learning, I suppose because of the trauma and because of being moved around a few times as well, and I found it really difficult to catch up with schoolwork and things like that. So I'd really struggled with my education. So the learning, the writing, improving my communication, you know, massive healing factor for me and I love writing, I love reading and I love being able to write about issues to do the criminal justice system. I've got a couple of pieces that are going to be coming out shortly, one with the British Society of Criminology and that's a criminal justice piece that I wrote. So there is a healing element to it and I think I just like community and I like connecting with other people as well, because you need that, you need community. There's so many of my friends that have come from similar backgrounds to me that have gone on and done amazing things. You know there's lots of my friends that have got their PhDs and talking and teaching students and, you know, creating safer spaces. I've got a friend who's doing a lot of work on addressing trauma-informed, because there's a lot of people that have gone to trauma-informed support and not had that a good experienceinformed, because there's a lot of people that have gone to trauma-informed support and not had that a good experience. I mean there's a lot more people nowadays that are saying, well, I'm actually very sick of trauma-informed. What's what's beyond that? And you know, I think that's the sad reality is that some people are re-traumatized, even when there are people and organizations and stuff that say we're trauma-informed, when actually there's a lot of bad and unethical practices that are going on.
Janine Ewen:I've enjoyed a lot of the things that I've done. But I think at the beginning I don't think necessarily I always got credit for some of the stuff that I did do and I participated in several studies on childhood domestic abuse and policing and family violence and so forth, and I didn't get any credit for it. Not that I was participating in it for credit, it was really to just build knowledge and it was useful for me because I've done research before and I think it was really good to have that experience of going through sort of interviewing and creative methods to understand the power that lies behind them. But I think the point is is that, yeah, just a lot of the work that I'm involved with as well as I don't like extraction and I don't like exploitation and I think sometimes with lived experience, that's been a bit of a problem because I think then people didn't really know how to support people with lived experience.
Janine Ewen:You know, a bit of a problem because I think then people didn't really know how to support people with lived experience. You know, a lot of the time it was a case people would go and give a talk and might be given a box of chocolates or something which you know it's not meaningful involvement. I've enjoyed a lot of the work that I do and I've got a community of people that I really respect. There's people that I'm in touch with just now and we're talking about writing book chapters on child first, policing and all sorts of things to do with safeguarding, so it's made a huge difference to me, but at the same time, I really would have liked to have not gone through this experience, and I think I can relate to what people do say out there. Like you know, my trauma didn't make me resilient. I went through tremendous hardship with it and I think that I can understand that as well thank you for showing up.
Host:Your work is incredibly important and I think everyone's so grateful for the work that you do now. If you could redesign how the justice system responds to domestic abuse, especially when children are involved, what do you think that might look like?
Janine Ewen:Well, thinking about some of the failings with the court system, domestic abuse and public perception of domestic abuse, I think the biggest failing that I see right now is that we just do not have this pristine frontline response to domestic abuse and there's no point in trying to cover it up to domestic abuse and there's no point in trying to cover it up. And I think sometimes, when organisations become too close with the police, there's always this kind of I'm not saying cover up, but they want to give this sort of perception that you know police are taking violence against women seriously. Yes, that might be the case, but at the same time, we need to know the realities. We need to know about these experiences of when failings are happening and when the police do not understand what's going on, and we can see that in recent high profile cases that there's just a lack of understanding still, and it's obvious that we have to keep a close eye on that. We might have legislation and we might have policy commitments, but it won't mean anything unless we're delivering on the ground. So this doesn't mean all responses are failing, but certainly there are failures and we need to make sure we highlight those because really it's a matter of life or death and I think we both know I'm not exaggerating when I say that. You know it might sound terrifying, but that is where we stand with violence against women.
Janine Ewen:I think the biggest thing for me right now is the court system just scares me, especially the situation of the family courts and the men abusing the system to control over their partners and potentially obviously inflict harm on children and young people. You know, women go through the criminal justice system because they want to protect their children and when they raise concerns they're made to feel like they're being unnecessarily difficult and not thinking about what's best for their child. But they are. Cases are heard in private, decisions vary widely between judges and survivors of abuse are often re-traumatised in the process of trying to protect themselves and their kids. You know, look at my own situation. We were failed in that he didn't receive a custodial sentence, but even when it was instructed that he come nowhere near us, he still did. The family court system can enable the extension of that and it ignores the severity of serious safeguarding concerns, not to mention ignoring the welfare needs of children. So that's really like a huge thing for me.
Janine Ewen:You know, if both me and my brother have been told by the courts that we had to go back to Northern Ireland to live with my father. I just I don't know how I would have coped with that. We might not even have been here today. The family lawyer essentially interviewed both me and my brother and we gave a testimony about what my mum had been going through because he wanted to hear it from us ourselves and obviously for the court case. We knew that he was never going to change and me and my brother could never forgive what he had done.
Janine Ewen:And it upsets me to think about how many children or young people are sent back to live with their abusive fathers and we know that can result in death as well like we see this all the time in cases in the media where children and young people have been failed because their mothers haven't been listened to. And also you just wonder what social work and all these other multidisciplinary teams are actually talking about when it comes to children's safety. I just hope really, in some ways, what I'm saying just now can just be this massive wake-up call with thousands of others who are saying the same thing, especially when it comes to family courts like radical action and reform are needed now. There's no way that we can wait any longer.
Janine Ewen:In terms of child domestic abuse, I still think the issue for me right now is that there just still seems to be a huge battle with early support in place. We have to really make sure that we've got mental health and all these types of support as early as possible to make sure that children and young people really do have a better chance. I wouldn't want any of them to have to navigate problems early like I did. We see all the time that there's so much struggle and it's devastating. Really, it's just not good enough. We need to think about as well when a child comes from a violent home. The consequences are far-reaching and when we look at youth violence as well, it's not really about young people carrying knives. A lot of the time it's being in fear and experiencing pain having come from a background of a violent home.
Janine Ewen:So there's lots of people just now like Dr Jade Lavelle. She's a friend of mine and she's doing work on childhood domestic abuse and serious youth violence and her PhD project. She was doing creative methods with ex-gang members and so much of them had such a painful story to tell and a lot of these guys when you hear their stories. They've never been given any support and they've just been expected to kind of carry on with the situation, man up kind of thing and kind of deal with it. But it breaks my heart. And Jade was really able to use music elicitation as a way of having something that kind of gave ownership back to them so that they were able to express their feelings and how they felt about their childhood through music so really powerful.
Janine Ewen:I personally have benefited from creative methods. I have written a couple of pieces about my experiences with being a participant in studies and really like advocate for creative methods because it's so powerful, the amount of information and it's a very like soothing experience as well. So these sorts of methodologies and thinking about young people, their development, these are all really important things. When it comes to childhood domestic abuse, I think from my point of view, I just I don't want anybody out there ever roaming around life and not feeling as though they were not properly cared about. You know life's already extremely tough and you know that yourself. So if you're being put in a marginalised state on top of all these multiple inequalities that exist in society and you're holding on to so much pain from the violence that you've experienced being in a violent home. It's a really unbearable experience for a young person.
Host:Absolutely. And then, based on what you've just said, do you have a message, maybe, that you'd want to share with other survivors?
Janine Ewen:I think the key message is that you know you're never alone and I know that sounds maybe not the best message, but it's easy to fall back when you're dealing with so much and you're a survivor or you're still surviving. There can be periods of when you just feel isolated and you still feel quite alone in your pain and, ultimately, like you're not alone, and I think the the more that we stick together and we keep continuing to, to raise concerns, talk about failures, we're just gonna have to, you know, keep going with that and and doing the best that we can. So, yeah, I think the key message is that you're not alone. There is a community of people out there, including myself. I'm always available to speak to and I do want to continue doing more work in this area, so always happy to hear from people. I'm very contactable. So, yeah, just, you're not alone and that's the best. Well, well, probably the key message for me.
Host:I want to thank Janine for her openness, her honesty and the generosity it takes to share a story like this. It's not easy to revisit painful memories, but by doing so, she's helping to shine a light on the gaps in our system and showing what's possible when those with lived experience lead the way. If you'd like to read more of her work, we've linked her articles in the show notes, including her reflections on the impact of childhood violence, her research into how young people see safety and harm, and her advice for those working in policing and vulnerability. I hope you take the time to explore them. They're a powerful extension of the conversation that you've just heard, and if you or someone you know is living with domestic abuse, please remember help is out there and you do not have to go through it alone. We've included details of support services in the show notes.
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