Christmas evening and she's sitting in the kitchen. Mascara running down her face, one eye swollen and puffy from where he has hit her.

Two police officers are trying to take a statement, but she isn't interested. She's not interested in talking to us either.

Several small children are running around our feet while another woman I take to be her sister is wiping down the kitchen counter.

I don't think that the children are hers, she seems too young.

He's been arrested and removed, she doesn't want to press charges.

It's that same old story.

I don't know what's going through her head, but it's not what would be going through mine if I'd been punched in the face.

She has no explanation, she sits there saying nothing, wanting nothing, doing nothing.

We leave, we are powerless to do anything.

To see what one person can do to the other, and for that other to let them get away with it grinds away at our souls.

It's like a bad cliché, like a Christmas in Walford or a night in Emmerdale.

We do our paperwork and go to our next call.

The last domestic violence case I went to was also a cliché, she told us she would be leaving him. Four hours later he was picking her up from the hospital full of hugs and apologies. Sometimes, just sometimes, I want to show these bullies what it's like to be a victim of violence.