'What was the point in leaving?' abuse survivor asks

A domestic abuse survivor said she had been left wondering "what was the point in leaving?" after she was told she could return to the area she had fled to escape her abusive ex-partner.

Sophie, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, had been living in a refuge with her baby when she approached South Gloucestershire Council for homelessness support. The council refused and closed her case.

She said it left her feeling she had run out of options: "I remember saying to someone 'well I might as well just move back with him'."

The council later apologised after the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) found it had "fundamentally misapplied" homelessness law.

Councils have a legal duty to help domestic abuse survivors, regardless of whether they have a previous local connection to the area.

The authority has "unreservedly" apologised and introduced extra training for staff.

The local government ombudsman said the case should be "a wake-up call for every council in the country".

Sophie first approached South Gloucestershire Council in 2023.

She had lived in the area as a child, and felt it would be a safe place to bring up her daughter - close enough to her wider family, but not so close that her ex would be able to locate her.

He had already travelled to try to find Sophie, but still the council considered referring her to the place her relatives lived.

"My ex was still making threats around this point, so it wasn't a safe environment to go back to for me or my daughter," she told the BBC.

After being repeatedly challenged by her support worker, the council went on to refer Sophie back to the area she had left to escape the abuse. It argued she would be safe if housed "three miles" from addresses deemed unsafe.

Sophie said the prospect of going back to the same area had been "scary, really unbelievable".

"I remember saying to someone 'well I might as well just move back with him'," she said.

"My daughter wasn't seeing her dad due to the risks of the abuse, so why should another authority put us back in that position when we're trying to protect ourselves?"

When a domestic abuse survivor makes a homeless application, they have a right to apply anywhere and cannot be referred back to an area that is deemed unsafe.

But if they have a local connection anywhere else that is assessed as safe, they can be referred to that area with or without consent.

Sophie said she felt like the council did not believe her.

"You feel like as a victim you're not heard or listened to," she added. "The emotions are still there. It still affects me."

The LGO found the council had incorrectly applied the law at a time when Sophie and her daughter "urgently" needed help.

The authority was ordered to pay Sophie £1,000 in compensation as well as apologise.

Cameron Black, the LGO's Head of Policy, said the authority had ignored "significant evidence" that Sophie was not safe in the place she had come from.

"This wasn't just one officer making a decision, it was a decision made with managerial and senior oversight," he said.

"You've got a professional domestic abuse support worker repeatedly telling the council that they're interpreting the law wrong... and it didn't give them any pause for reflection."

Council co-leader Ian Boulton said he "cannot possibly imagine that this would happen again".

He said: "As a result of this report we have put in the training and made sure that staff are fully aware of their responsibilities.

"We're working with external organisations as well to make sure the support is there."

But Black said the case is "sadly not an outlier", with the ombudsman seeing "repeated examples of domestic abuse victims being placed in unsuitable accommodation close to an abuser" across the country.

Domestic abuse charity Refuge said Sophie's experience reflected wider problems faced by survivors seeking housing support.

Its head of policy and public affairs, Ellie Butt, said survivors continued to encounter "gatekeeping" from some local authorities.

"It is within homeless applications that survivors face the greatest barriers regarding local connections," said Butt.

The charity said it was seeing a "significant increase" in local authorities referring survivors' homeless applications to the area of their refuge accommodation if they had lived there for longer than six months.

"Local authorities often believe that survivors will have accrued a safe local connection to the area in that time," said Butt.

"But they fail to recognise that survivors often do not choose the location of the refuge, having fled to the only available space."

In some cases, the charity said, the reasons for the referral were not even explained to the survivor.

"We urge the government to review local implementation of local connection policies so that more survivors are able to access safe, appropriate housing," Butt added.

Sophie and her daughter are now settled elsewhere, but she hopes speaking about her experience will prevent it from happening to others.

"I want them to understand that this was a person's life, and I don't want it to happen to anyone else," she said.

"I want South Gloucestershire Council, and other councils, to take note that there are people behind these cases.

"Do better for women, children, families in this situation."

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