Police are urging male victims of domestic violence in Bradford to put their macho feelings to one side and report crimes against them.

Officers admit there is an under-reporting of such offences, but insist abused men will have their complaints investigated in exactly the same way as female victims.

According to the ManKind Initiative, the UK’s leading charity supporting male victims of abuse, one in three victims of partner abuse is male; 40 per cent of stalking victims are men; and one man is murdered by a partner or ex-partner every 12 days.

But twice as many men as women do not tell anyone about the domestic abuse they are suffering.

Detective Inspector Pete Craig, of Airedale and North Bradford Police, said there were 1,207 recorded domestic violence crimes in the Division in 2010.

Of those, 89 (7.4 per cent) were incidents of males on males, which could be partners, brothers, or father and son; 66 (5.5 per cent) involved females offending against males; while the vast majority, 82.8 per cent, 999 offences, involved female victims and male perpetrators.

West Yorkshire Police are running a poster campaign to raise the issue of domestic violence and warn offenders they face legal sanctions.

For more on this story see Monday's T&A