Blog. Life after domestic abuse: how Hospitality Action helps get damaged lives back on track

Back in 2015, Hospitality Action ran an awareness campaign that featured celebrity chefs made up and posed to look as if they were experiencing some the challenges our recipients face in real life.

Tom Kerridge, oxygen line to his nostrils, embodied critical illness. A haunted Jason Atherton represented addiction. And Angela Hartnett wore the cuts and bruises of domestic violence.

I remember when the campaign premiered at the Cateys, that July. There were gasps of shock around the Great Room at the Grosvenor House Hotel as the gruelling images flashed up on the big screen to the soundtrack of a thudding heartbeat.

At the end of the photo shoot for her advert, Angela was able to wash off her make-up and head back behind the stove. Samantha Thompson, a catering assistant from the Midlands, didn’t have that luxury.

Samantha knows all about domestic abuse. She lived with an abusive partner for long enough for distress to spiral into depression. In time, her partner moved out, but by then Samantha, normally a bubbly and vivacious personality, felt unable to return to work.

With no income, Samantha’s money quickly ran low. Worse, her ex-partner had taken with him many of the household items they had accumulated, leaving Samantha with a broken cooker, no bedding and no curtains in her bedroom.