Battered by the law
Published:Tuesday | April 12, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Spouses pay heavy price for police stress
Erica Virtue, Senior Gleaner Writer
Spouses and children are paying a heavy price as members of the security forces appear to be wilting under the pressure of policing Jamaica's crime-riddled and angry society.
Three women who called The Gleaner yesterday saying they were wives of policemen and had been subjected to abuse for years described themselves as another "Joan Llewellyn".
Joan Llewellyn is the widow of a policeman who desperately tried to free herself from a decade-old abusive marriage, which ended in the mass murder of her family members last Thursday.
Her husband, Corporal Wayne Llewellyn, committed suicide after killing his wife's parents, brother, and daughter in an early morning fury in Three Hills, St Mary.
The women say they are living in terror, fearing for their lives and those of their family against whom threats have repeatedly been made.
One tearful spouse said she was terrified of her husband, who has been battering her and her children.
"You don't understand what it feels like to wait for him to come home and not know if he is going to kill you tonight, or if he will do it tomorrow," she said.
Another, who is the wife of a ranked officer, with pain and hopelessness etched in her voice, said the abuses suffered by Mrs Llewellyn are the tip of the iceberg, as many wives are enduring high degrees of anger, some of which culminates in marital rape.
Lorraine Clunie, wife of retired Deputy Police Commissioner Owen Clunie and a Gottman Institute-trained counsellor, said she has been counselling abused spouses for more than five years.
"You would be shocked to know how many spouses are being abused by their husbands who are security personnel. You would be shocked also to know that some of the abusers are women. But the vast majority of the cases I have seen have men as the abusers," Clunie told The Gleaner.
afraid to get counselling
She said, in an effort to prevent more abuse to some clients, she does not entertain those seeking help at her office.
"Abusive spouses in the police force run the gamut of constables at the lower levels to ranked officers at the highest levels," Clunie said, referencing cases she was aware of.
She also said many spouses were in fear of accessing counselling services in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) because of confidentiality breaches and more abuse.
"I imagine that many more would come forward, but because of a lack of confidentiality, they endure the beatings. The cases that I have dealt with are individuals who have been hit more than twice. And even then, they try to make excuses for the abusers," she added.
She said stress and frustration were the major cause of spousal abuse, and the conditions under which many police personnel worked did not help either.
help available
Last week, commanding officer for Area Three, Assistant Commissioner of Police Derrick Cochrane, said help was available for cops with issues at several levels within the constabulary's structure.
The Reverend Gary Welsh, who heads the JCF chaplaincy unit, is currently away on business in The Cayman Islands, but Father Carlton Tulloch, chaplain for Area Three, said the hallmark of the unit's services was confidentiality.
"When we meet with spouses, it is usually with husband and wife. Even if we see one before the other, we record only minimal information like address and contact. And even when we do call them together, it's they who reveal what is happening," he said.
He said a commanding officer could not force them to reveal details of anyone who has sought their services.
He also said that the men and women in Area Three had been accessing the services offered.
Tulloch said Police Commissioner Owen Ellington asked chaplaincy units across the island to pray with the men and women, especially at this time, given the recent tragedy. Yesterday, he prayed for the Llewellyn and Brown families, as well as Corporal Llewellyn's colleagues, who, he said, were angry with him.
Last year, in a fit of rage, a member of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) murdered some members of his common-law wife's family in Kingston after she told him she was no longer interested in a relationship with him.
Increasingly, members of the JCF and JDF have been asked to police the tough streets of the country that are overrun with criminality and an abundance of illegal weapons.