The Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence (CADV) is call­ing for ur­gent im­prove­ments to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­sponse to do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, warn­ing that gaps in the jus­tice sys­tem and vic­tim sup­port ser­vices con­tin­ue to put women and chil­dren at risk.

The coali­tion’s call comes as a video in­volv­ing a woman iden­ti­fied as Les­ley-Ann and a man iden­ti­fied as Joel con­tin­ues to cir­cu­late wide­ly on so­cial me­dia.

Joel has since apol­o­gised for his be­hav­iour in an in­ter­view with Crime Watch host Ian Al­leyne.

Les­ley-Ann al­so ad­dressed the video pub­licly, say­ing there was con­sid­er­ably more to the sit­u­a­tion than what had been seen on­line.

She con­firmed she was the woman in the video and said she had pre­vi­ous­ly had an al­ter­ca­tion with Joel about a year and two months ago.

“Yes, it was me that had an al­ter­ca­tion with Joel about a year and two months ago,” she said, adding that in­juries she sus­tained dur­ing that in­ci­dent had not com­plete­ly healed.

“As you can see, my lip has not to­tal­ly mend­ed back as it should have.”

Les­ley-Ann said there was “so much more in the back­drop” of what had been seen and heard, but she did not in­tend to dis­close all the de­tails pub­licly.

She ap­pealed for greater un­der­stand­ing to­wards peo­ple who may need help.

Les­ley-Ann al­so said she wished the video had nev­er been re­leased and did not know who had ob­tained or shared it.

“I wish that video nev­er came out. I don’t know who got it and who shared it, but it is what it is,” she said.

In its state­ment yes­ter­day, CADV said re­cent cas­es of ex­treme vi­o­lence against women by in­ti­mate part­ners had high­light­ed the need for stronger le­gal pro­tec­tions, im­proved so­cial ser­vices and a na­tion­al pre­ven­tion frame­work.

It said vic­tims could be at great­est risk when seek­ing help from au­thor­i­ties or ap­ply­ing for pro­tec­tion or­ders and called for re­ports of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence to trig­ger im­me­di­ate risk as­sess­ments, swift ar­rests and charges where war­rant­ed, safe­ty plan­ning and se­cure ac­com­mo­da­tion where nec­es­sary.

CADV said while the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act was strong leg­is­la­tion, im­ple­men­ta­tion gaps con­tin­ued to un­der­mine its ef­fec­tive­ness.

It point­ed to de­lays in court pro­ceed­ings and the ab­sence of a com­plet­ed na­tion­al pro­to­col for risk as­sess­ments.

The coali­tion al­so called for ad­e­quate­ly fund­ed shel­ters, spe­cialised po­lice train­ing and in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes for per­pe­tra­tors.

For­mer West In­dies cap­tain and Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers coach Dwayne Bra­vo has al­so urged men to take greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for con­fronting vi­o­lence against women.

“To the men, we need to do bet­ter. We need to do bet­ter,” Bra­vo said in a so­cial me­dia mes­sage.

Bra­vo said men who wit­nessed abu­sive be­hav­iour among their friends but re­mained silent al­so had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to act.

“Even if you your­self don’t take part in you per­son­al­ly do­ing those things, but your in­ner cir­cle or your friends, the peo­ple that are close to you do it, and you stay silent, you’re al­so a prob­lem,” he said.