Tea with the Changemakers

David Challen - Domestic Abuse Campaigner

Social Change UK Season 1 Episode 12

This week on the podcast, Kelly's chatting with David Challen, a domestic abuse campaigner and keynote speaker who successfully campaigned to free his mother from prison after she killed his father - it was a landmark appeal and recognised the years of coercive control she had suffered. 

When David’s mother, Sally, was arrested in 2010, coercive control was not recognised by the criminal justice system; it only became an offence in 2015, and its criminalisation provided the spark for David and his brother to seek out the truth about what had happened to their family. 

David and his brother campaigned for two years and eventually were successful in their bid to free their mother from prison; her murder conviction was quashed and Sally was released on grounds of diminished responsibility. Should you wish to find out more about David's story, then we would recommend visiting his website, www.davidchallen.com. 

However, as Sally's case and David’s lived-experience around it are already well documented, that is not the focus of this week’s podcast - instead, Kelly will be talking to David about his campaign work since the events of his mother’s successful appeal, and the path that he has taken to shine a light on domestic abuse, coercive control, violence against women and, most importantly, how we can combat them all. 

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