Witness Protection: the high price of safety from domestic violence

Life lived in the witness protection programme starts with the stark fact  your life is in immediate danger.

Most often associated with informants or criminals, it’s also used for women and children fleeing domestic violence, who must give up every aspect of their old life – including family in some cases.

Even with help from the programme it can have a devastating psychological impact.  This is the story of one woman and her daughter who say more attention must be given to the use of witness protection in domestic abuse…to ask – are the victims paying too high a price for the system’s inability to stop the perpetrators?