Last year, domestic violence took the lives of 173 people across the United Kingdom.

Only this week we have learnt that the number of women killed by a partner or an ex-partner has risen by almost a third in just one year, while countless others have suffered and continue to suffer in silence.

We have come a long way since the days when violence in the family home was dismissed as “just a domestic”, but as a society we have not gone far enough.

Domestic abuse is a devastating crime which affects all of us – men and women, the children who witness it and remain at risk, and the concerned families, friends and neighbours.

It is particularly horrific because it leaves vulnerable people, including children, living in fear in the place where they should feel most safe and secure – their own homes.

The brave intervention in Parliament by the Member of Parliament for Canterbury, Rosie Duffield, was one of the most significant contributions on domestic abuse in recent years. As she so eloquently put it, domestic violence has many faces, and the faces of those who survive it are varied, too.

As a father of three daughters, I cannot imagine women and young children living in the fear articulated by Rosie. But sadly, we know that many do live like that – and we have a duty to protect them.