Victoria Derbyshire has admitted that she was ‘really surprised’ by her emotional display outside her childhood home on BBC’s Panorama last week, after revealing her father used to hit her and her mother.
Appearing on Loose Women today, the presenter, 51, said she thought she was too ‘straightforward’ and ‘pragmatic’ to be affected by the past because it ‘isn’t a part of her life anymore’.
But the ‘surge of memories’ of her violent father proved to be too much for Victoria, who broke down in tears after revisiting the house she grew up in, in Littleborough, Rochdale, for the first time in 35 years.
In last week’s BBC’s Panorama, the newsreader investigated the impact of lockdown for those living with an abusive partner, revealing the scale of domestic violence at the height of the crisis and meeting some of those who managed to escape.
Victoria Derbyshire (pictured on Loose Women today) has admitted that she was ‘really surprised’ by her emotional display outside her childhood home on BBC’s Panorama last week, after revealing her father used to hit her and her mother
The ‘surge of memories’ of her violent father proved to be too much for Victoria, who broke down in tears after revisiting the house she grew up in, in Littleborough, Rochdale, for the first time in 35 years (pictured)
Speaking on Loose Women this afternoon, Victoria confessed to being shocked by her emotional display.
‘I was really surprised because I’m quite straightforward and pragmatic,’ she said. ‘It was just getting there and seeing it after so long, I just had this suge of memories.
The presenter added: ‘My father was not like a father should be. He used to hit me, he used to hit my mum. He locked my mum in the bedroom and beat her up. I ran to the police station.’
When asked why she didn’t speak about her traumatic childhood sooner, Victoria said: ‘It’s not part of my life anymore… my parents got divorced when I was 16.
‘My mum tried to make up for his failure as a parent, but it has no impact on my life anymore. That’s why I was surprised when I went back and became emotional.’
In last week’s BBC’s Panorama, the newsreader investigated the impact of lockdown for those living with an abusive partner, revealing the scale of domestic violence at the height of the crisis and meeting some of those who managed to escape. Pictured, the presenter outside her childhood home
She continued: ‘When I was growing up we didn’t know the phrase domestic abuse and we’d never heard of a refuge.’
Speaking on BBC’s Panorama, Victoria revealed how she understands the terror of those ‘trapped’ and ‘forced’ to live with their abusers amid quarantine – because her own father was violent when she was growing up.
During an emotional segment in the show, Victoria was captured revisiting the childhood home she grew up in, in Littleborough, Rochdale, for the first time in 35 years.
‘Like I could really cry, I could really cry,’ she explained. ‘Pathetic. So this is the house where I grew up. It’s so weird, I haven’t been here for so long and I’ve got some really happy memories of being there, but there were some really difficult times because my father was violent.’
Victoria (pictured during the BBC’s programme) explained that in the 70s and 80s no one had heard of the phrase ‘domestic abuse’
‘You know, this was the 70s and 80s. No one had heard the phrase “domestic abuse”. No one knew what it meant, what it was or what it involved.
‘If he was in the house we were on eggshells all the time. I remember once he locked my mum in their bedroom and he was hitting her and there was loads of noise and I was scared.’
She continued: ‘So I ran from here down to the police station which is maybe a mile. I was 12 or 13. I was so scared I just ran to the police stations and said “my dad’s hitting my mum, please can you come.”‘
‘So when Boris Johnson told us all to stay at home one of my first thought was, “so what if you’re living in the house with a violent partner – because you would literally be trapped.”‘
It comes after figures revealed that domestic violence against women has rocketed during coronavirus lockdown, with two-thirds of victims in abusive relationships suffering worse during the pandemic.
Kidnap, arson, revenge porn and even poisonings have been carried out during lockdown by aggressive partners under the cover of the stay-at-home restrictions.