The awareness-raising Make Yourself Heard campaign is being backed by domestic abuse charities Women’s Aid and Welsh Women’s Aid following the death of 36-year-old Kerry Power, who was murdered by her violent ex-partner and stalker.

Power called police after David Wilder let himself into her home in Plymouth in 2013. Her family say she had been told that making a silent 999 call would be enough to alert police to the fact she was in danger. However, because Power did not press 55, her call was not transferred to Devon and Cornwall police. Wilder strangled her shortly after, and was jailed for life in 2014.

While the Silent Solution system has been in place since 2002, Power’s murder highlighted the fact that not enough people were aware of it. In 2016, deputy chief constable Alan Todd, the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for national contact management, acknowledged that “the system is only effective if people understand how it works”.

Lucy Hadley, from Women’s Aid, said: “We need to look at all ways we can raise awareness and make the system work better for the people it’s designed for, which are people in extreme distress and fear, and might not necessarily remember everything… on a poster or advertising campaign.”

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Images: iStock / Rex Features

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