Keith's Blog

Wales’s No 1 White Van Man

Last week I went to the “Violence in Relationships” conference for young people in south Wales. It was organised by South Wales Police and involved around 250 14 to 17 year olds.

It was a very good day. Peter Vaughan, the Chief Constable, opened proceedings by reminding all the young people that being the victim in a violent relationship is completely unacceptable. During the day there were powerful and moving presentations including an inter active play by Geese Theatre Company, three powerful real life stories from young people and one from Pat, an adult who kept her audience enthralled with an emotional account of her own experience as a victim in a violent relationship.

During the day Melvyn and Tam from Funky Dragon ran some questions past the young people. Participants used hand held voting key pads to register their votes. One of the questions asked the young people if they had ever had friends who had been in an abusive relationship. 

I was shocked to see that 66% in the morning and 70% in the afternoon said that they did know someone in that position. Most people would agree that prevention is so much better than intervention after the event and the purpose of the conference was to raise awareness and to give young people the confidence to speak out if they find themselves in an abusive relationship.

In my short speech I congratulated the Police for organising such an important day. I spoke about children’s rights but was alarmed to see only 20 hands go up when I asked the young people if they knew about their rights. All too often I hear the argument that young people know all about their rights and nothing about their responsibilities. That is clearly not so.

Luckily, Jamie, Lucy, Mark and Robela were outside in our white Commissioner display van so I encouraged everyone to visit it and pick up information on the UNCRC and details on how they can contact me if they ever need to. Later that afternoon it was clear that they had heeded my advice, the frizbees with our contact details were flying about all over the place.

The day was compered with humor and skill by Kevin Johns. When I finished my talk he referred to me as “Wales’s number 1 white van man”. The cheek of it!