POLICE are called to incidents of domestic abuse 165 times a month in Blackburn with Darwen, a conference to tackle the problem was told yesterday.

The figure, which is higher than the Lancashire average, is down to a high-profile awareness campaign and stress brought on by the recession, according to the leader of a women’s refuge centre.

Vivien Blackledge, of Women's Aid in Blackburn, said: “In the last 12 months there has been an escalation in the people coming to us reporting domestic abuse.

“We’ve had 349 requests in the last year for residential space, but we’ve only got 14 bed spaces.

“It is a hugely under-funded facility and means that women who need emergency facilities cannot have them.”

Coun Simon Huggill, who chairs a Blackburn with Darwen Council scheme aimed at helping victim’s of domestic violence, said: “I think the figures are misleading in this case.

“It’s not that Blackburn with Darwen has more domestic abuse, but that we have been successful in lifting the lid on it.

“It’s very difficult to get people to admit they have this problem, but we are succeeding.”

The conference, called Life Sentence, was held at Ewood Park and was aimed at highlighting the problem of domestic abuse in the area with organisations such as the police, councils and health organisations.

Blackburn MP Jack Straw told delegates he was keen for the Government to build on progress made in the way incidents of domestic abuse were handled in the last 50 years.

He said: “On the estate where I grew up there were some obvious examples of domestic violence.

“As a kid you would be very frightened to here some drunken man and a women screetching.

“You knew there’d be no possibility of the police turning up because nobody had a telephone in their house, and if you managed to get through on the public phone down the road, all they would say was “it’s a domestic”.

“It wasn’t the golden age of the 50s as people might think.

“It was only when something very serious happened that anyone took any notice.

“Now we have moved on, but a lot of progress still needs to be made.”