THE experiences of domestic abuse victims will be used to train police to better deal with the issue.

Durham Police is working with Durham University to improve its response to domestic abuse, particularly incidents where an offender is behaving in a coercive or controlling way.

Funding from Durham Police and Crime Commissioner Ron Hogg and Innovative UK will pay for police officers to receive drama-based training developed from the real experiences of victims.

Helen Murphy, from the force’s safeguarding team, said: “As a force we receive over 15,000 calls every year to report domestic abuse so it’s crucial our officers have as much training and support as possible to enable them to provide a quality response and service to victims.

“This project is quite unique (sic) in that it gives real life victims of domestic abuse the opportunity to share their experience to help shape the service we offer as a police service to future victims.”

Nicole Westmarland, professor of criminology at Durham University, said: “We are really excited about working in such an innovative way to improve police responses.”