A constituent wrote to me, to five other AMs and to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee with quite serious concerns about the Talk to Me national conference. I’ve had messages this morning from constituents, messages this afternoon, a phone call at around 8:00 this morning to discuss the report. Constituents do feel let down by the report. They do not feel that a vulnerable group of men were fully engaged with as they should have been. I’m here speaking on behalf of those people today, and many hidden victims.

Every time I’ve been to a support group meeting—such as Both Parents Matter, for example—I have met people who either have been suicidal or are in fact suicidal, and I recommend that the committee maybe go to such support group meetings and meet with people there.

Hidden domestic abuse of men is a factor in the epidemic of male suicide. As we heard, in 2017, 278 men took their own lives—five a week, almost one a day. As mentioned, it is a staggering statistic, and something must be done when we hear that suicide is the biggest cause of death in men between 20 and 49 years of age.

There is a hidden form of domestic abuse that is permitted in society, and it is that of parental alienation. Many men who come into my office are suffering from emotional abuse and coercive control. Children are used as weapons, and everybody loses. In south Wales, the police refuse to accept such abuse as abuse, and that’s a scandal. What saddens me also—and I say this as a man—is that I see an increasing percentage of mothers facing the same abuse. Justice Wall, in 2003, said that

'parental alienation is a well-recognised phenomenon.'

Well, it should be in the report. I’m going to read a quote from a man in a lot of pain, a father. And he said: ‘Quite simply, severing a relationship between a parent and child is, short of taking somebody’s life, the worst thing one human being can do to another’.

The culture of false allegations, sometimes to get legal aid in the family court arena, is also a killer. I'll read another quote, off another real person: ‘I had my children taken away from me, then 42 allegations were made against me. Suicide seemed the best option. Twice I tried to hang myself, and once I stood on a railway track and the Samaritans talked me off the track’.

Men are criticised for not engaging and not talking about how they feel, but when you are in the family court system, you cannot talk about any suicidal feelings, any emotional turmoil, because that will be used against you to prevent you from seeing your children. And I look forward to the day when criminal justice is dealt with by Wales in a completely different way, especially in the family arena.

In this city, in our capital city of Wales, there is no non-judgmental support for men. Men are always treated as perpetrators, and they are screened. I want to quote a friend of Alex Skeel, a very brave man who took part in a BBC documentary. He was abused by Jordan Worth, the first female to be jailed for coercive control, and he said:

'It doesn't matter what gender they are. A victim is still a victim. An abuser is still an abuser. A victim still hurts whether they are male or female. An abuser is just as nasty whether they are male or female.'

I get messages from people saying that there is nowhere for them to go—and I will wind up now—