The Archers: Domestic Dramas North & South

THIS week, the Telegraph's media correspondent Patrick Foster reported: 

'Rape charities have called for the arrest of Rob Titchener, the bullying husband in the long-running Archers domestic abuse plot, after his wife revealed that he had raped her "over and over again".
'Polly Neate, the chief executive of Women's Aid, said it would be "an insult to abuse survivors everywhere" if Rob, who was stabbed by his wife, Helen, as she tried to leave him, was not arrested after Tuesday's explosive episode.'

Giving evidence earlier this week, Rob's wife Helen, who stands accused of his attempted murder told the court:  'He was determined to have a baby. I told him I wasn't ready but he wouldn't listen. The first time he plied me with wine he held me down by my wrists. I told myself, he was my husband, it should be fine, but it wasn't fine, was it.'

As the trial proceeds this week the emotionally charged program has been an unfolding drama of a high level of  abuse by a middle-class husband Rob Titchener against his rather unworldly wife, Helen, in Ambridge somewhere in the Midlands. 

But giving evidence for the first time, Helen said: "He was determined to have a baby. I told him I wasn't ready but he wouldn't listen. The first time he plied me with wine he held me down by my wrists. I told myself, he was my husband, it should be fine, but it wasn't fine, was it."

Meanwhile, today the Express reported that 'After Helen revealed that her abusive husband repeatedly raped her, pleading that she stabbed him in self-defence, her lawyer Anna made a shock breakthrough.  During tonight’s instalment of the BBC Radio 4 soap, the frustrated lawyer - who has pleaded with Jess for so long to make a stance - finally delivered the good news. 

Catching Helen’s family outside the courtroom following the third day of the torturous trial, Anna beamed: “Good I’ve caught you - now, don’t get too excited by this, but Rob’s ex-wife Jessica has come forward.”  As Tom and Pat celebrated, Anne interrupted: “I can’t really say what she’s going to say, but it’s significant; She’s given a statement”.'

In the light of all this nail-biting media drama which is keeping the nation on tenterhooks one wonders what Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, is thinking as he awaits the outcome of a police investigation into allegations that he too transgressed while married to Sonia Rossington.   www.dailymail.co.uk/.../My-years-abuse-sex-text-MP-Disgraced-Danczu...