Record numbers of men are reporting domestic abuse by their partners to police - as the proportion of women victims turning to police has fallen, official figures have revealed.

The proportion of male victims who told police about their domestic abuse increased from 10.4% in 2014-15 to 14.7% this year as charities said more men were shaking off the stigma of talking about their suffering.

However, the figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed it coincided with a sharp drop in the proportion of women victims reporting their abuse to police, down from 25.8% to 18.4% over the same period.

Campaigners suggested one reason could be increasing delays in over-stretched police forces being able to send officers promptly to domestic abuse incidents, giving the perpetrators more time to bully their victims into not making a complaint.

Just over one in 25 men (4.2%) of men said they had suffered domestic abuse - which includes violence, a similar level to the previous year. The proportion of women who experienced domestic abuse rose slightly from 7.5% to 7.9%.

However, the number of recorded domestic abuse offences of both sexes saw a big rise to almost 600,000, an increase of 23% in a year, although the ONS believed “improved recording” methods could have played a part.