WHAT goes on beyond someone else’s front door does sometimes become other people’s business.

Those occasions when it does usually involve a problem. It may be just a blip, a hiccup in a family’s everyday life that means calling in someone to lend a hand, to offer advice or help to put something right.

But there are other times when things go so wrong that it is really hard to share the problem with others let alone ask for help. And top of the list in those circumstances is domestic violence.

A wide range of organisations whose role it is to help victims of such violence were asked to do a snapshot survey in order to give some indication of the size of the problem. The figures provided by 33 agencies showed that on one single day in August more than 100 people sought help or advice in Kirklees about domestic violence.

And looking at a much wider period, police confirmed that between April of last year and March of this, they dealt with 5,796 incidents involving domestic violence.

None of it is good news because those involved in this area of work are convinced that in reality, these figures should almost certainly be worse. They say that domestic violence is in fact under-reported so what seem disturbing figures to most of us, are in fact merely the tip of the iceberg.

Let’s hope that the publicity helps make domestic violence more visible and a problem that is tackled by the whole community.