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Penny Beale (Jnr) in taxi.

Penny Beale (Jnr) in taxi.

Hastings Fringe Charity Fundraiser for The Penny Beale Memorial Fund

The Hastings Fringe Festival is holding a charity fundraising evening of performance for The Penny Beale Memorial Fund on Sunday 24 September at The Beacon in Hastings. Performances start at 7pm and include comedy, poetry, performance art, music and songs, reports Miranda Gavin.

 

Penny Beale (Jnr)

Penny Beale (Jnr)

The Hastings-based charity was set up in 2005 by Penny Beale in memory of her daughter, who shared her name. “Penny was killed in a savage attack by her partner after months of emotional and physical abuse—sixteen years ago, aged thirty-one,” Penny tells HOT. “Her murderer is now out of prison having served a life sentence of eleven years. If I can turn the horrors Penny endured into a positive to help others avoid similar horrendous suffering, I’ll do so for as long as I am able. If it had been me murdered, I know she’d be doing far more than I am to redress the balance. She was that sort of person—a hot knife through butter. Compassion was one of her greatest attributes, and she had many.”

Penny’s story is not unique, it follows a pattern that is repeated daily worldwide. “The Penny Beale Memorial Fund aims to raise awareness of issues surrounding domestic abuse, particularly the nature of coercive control, which is now a criminal offence often escalating into violence (29 December 2015),” Penny continues. “We publish material to support this, and offer courses promoting these matters to schools, involving both boys and girls, and other organisations.

A recent report by the Office of National Statistics (for the year ending March 2016) aims to improve domestic abuse statistics, as well as analyse the way domestic abuse is dealt with at a local level in England and Wales.
The report shows that:
•    There were an estimated 2.0 million adults aged 16 to 59 who said they were a victim of domestic abuse in the last year
•    Women were more likely to report having experienced domestic abuse than men.
•    Domestic abuse-related crimes recorded by the police accounted for approximately 1 in 10 of all crimes.
•    The majority of domestic abuse (78%) consisted of violence against the person offences.
•    There were a total of 432 domestic homicides recorded by the police in England and Wales, between April 2012 and March 2015. This represents 30% of all homicides where the victim was aged 16 and over during this time period. 27% of victims were male (117) and 73% of victims were female (315).

“I’m hopeless at fundraising, finding it impossible to ask for money, so am extremely grateful to The Hastings Fringe for putting on this event, and supporters for coming along,” Penny continues. The charity fundraiser will be compered by Carol Prior with performances throughout the evening by Chris Fraser, Carmina Masoliver, Miranda Gavin, Las Pasionares, JC McFee, Lisa Harmer-Pope, Mellow Baku, and Alice Denny.

Hastings Fringe Charity Fundraiser for The Penny Beale Memorial Fund
Sunday 24 September 7pm-10.15pm. Pay What You Can.

The Beacon
67-68 St Mary’s Terrace, Old Town, Hastings. TN34 3LS

Hastings Fringe website for all the performances running until the end of September.

Visit The Penny Beale Memorial Fund, charity no. 1110528, for more information on the charity and for a list of useful contacts for those who are experiencing, or have experienced, domestic abuse. Penny is willing to give talks and show the DVD to any interested organisation if expenses are covered (travel and accommodation).

NOTE: The ONS report brings together national and local domestic abuse data from The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW); Home Office incident and police recorded crime data; Home Office Homicide Index data; and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) data which includes referrals, prosecutions and convictions.

Home-Start East Sussex will be running an 11-week programme in Hastings starting later this month. It is a free programme for any woman who has experience of living with domestic abuse, now or in the past. To find out more about the programme and future programmes, please contact: info@hses.org.uk or phone 01273 612025.

Follow this link for more on the Freedom Programme in East Sussex.

If you’re enjoying HOT and would like us to continue providing fair and balanced reporting on local matters please consider making a donation. Click here to open our PayPal donation link. Thank you for your continued support!

Posted 15:25 Wednesday, Sep 20, 2017 In: Performance

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