THE cost of living crisis has caused an explosion in domestic abuse, according to the charity Hestia.

Hestia’s director of fundraising and communications, Jo Tilley-Riley, told GB News that she agreed that the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis has caused a “perfect storm”.

She said: “In the pandemic we saw the escalation of domestic abuse for many victims and a huge increase in demand for the refuge spaces that Hestia offers.

“And in fact, we opened two emergency refuges just to try and meet that demand during that time.

“There’s lots of evidence that economic recessions, those pressures, they put more pressure on those households where domestic abuse already exists.”

She added: “You do see escalations in domestic abuse becoming more violent, more frequent, and that’s what we’re beginning to see

“We saw a 30% increase in the number of women phoning Hestia and trying to get a space in one of our refuges since January and it’s only the early days of the cost of living crisis, so we’re really concerned about that trend.”

Speaking during an interview on Breakfast with Stephen Dixon and Anne Diamond, Ms Tilley-Riley said victims of abuse often flee their home with no possessions.

“When a woman and often her children arrive at one of our refuges, often they literally arrive with the clothes on their back, they’ve left everything behind,” she said.

“They have nothing and they might stay in a refuge for six months or so but then they move on and they will move into their own flats or their own house.

“And because they have nothing, they have to buy everything when they move into that house, furniture, pots and pans – everything.

“Research that we’ve done with Loughborough University has shown that’s now going to be £5,000 more expensive for a woman and two children living out of refuge.”

She said women fleeing abuse had to rely on charities because there is little support for women living in refuges.

“There isn’t an established scheme for women living out of refuges. So typically, we would either support women’s make applications to local grants, or we actually raise funds from donors and so we have a pot of money that we’re able to support women to buy white goods and buy those basics as they move into their next accommodation, but there isn’t a kind of a system for that to happen anyway.

“We’re going to have to increasingly rely on donations and the generosity of the public to enable us to support women’s move on because you can’t have a mom and two children who’ve experienced all of that trauma move into a house where they haven’t got a bed or they haven’t got the basics.”