'I beat up my wife, then begged for forgiveness'

Father-of-three Marcus Broadbent rues the day that an argument with his wife spilled over into violence. Now a convicted criminal, he says the incident has blighted his family life and his future

My credentials are impeccable: I had a public school and university education. I was an active and respected member of a decidedly middle-class parish in London. I have three gifted sons: Mark, aged nine, Freddie, six, and Milo, three. I have opinions on life, love, literature, global warming, vintage claret, sex and the liturgy. My friends are landowners, soldiers, barristers, publishers, priests, painters, art dealers and actresses.

	'I have wrecked my marriage, lost a woman I once loved, lost my children, and lost my standing in the community'

What sets me dramatically apart from my peers is that I recently beat up my wife. I discovered she had started divorce proceedings. In our marriage, unspoken reproaches had long ago given way to vicious late-night arguments and the occasional flying plate. Discontented, she intended to leave me, taking our sons with her. Our eldest had won a scholarship to a leading boarding school; she did not want him to live away from home.

One evening, after a glass of wine on top of the anti-depressants I'd been taking to head off a breakdown, I punched her, perforated her eardrum and intimidated her ferociously for about three hours. When she locked herself in the bathroom, I broke down the door and continued to shout at her and beat her, hoping to terrorise her into dropping the divorce proceedings and agreeing to let Mark take up his scholarship. Finally, exhausted, in the early hours, I knelt in front of her, pleaded with her to call a halt to the divorce, begged her forgiveness (she gave it) and implored her to sign up to the scholarship (she agreed). Unbelievably, the children slept through all of this.

The next morning we got up, gave the children breakfast and planned the day. My wife said that she was going to shop in the West End - Freddie wanted a Chelsea football strip customised with his own name. The boys and I would relax and play, have lunch when she returned and then go for an afternoon walk. As we said goodbye, I apologised awkwardly for the previous night.

Later, having called her but to no avail, the boys and I made a marinade for the pork chops, which we ate over a lively conversation about table manners. Then we watched a Superman DVD, huddled on the sofa.

At about 2pm, the intercom rang. I answered it, assuming my wife had forgotten her keys.

"This is the police. Let us in. Now, please."

Four police officers ran up the stairs. Two male constables each took an arm and manoeuvred me firmly into the next room. The boys looked on bemused, but not noticeably alarmed. I saw a WPC introduce herself to them. They told her they were watching Superman. "Oh yes!" she said, "Superman, he'll sort out everything, won't he?"

"He's pretend, not real," said Milo, "not real like the birds in the trees."

The tableau - my three boys talking solemnly to the WPC with Superman on in the background - is fixed in my mind for ever.

"I'm going to handcuff you, Marcus."

"There's really no need, constable…"

"For your boys' sake, Marcus, we'll put your jacket over the cuffs so they won't see them."

"You're very kind…"

"Your wife has made serious allegations against you, Marcus."

And he read me my rights. On the way out, I saw that the boys now looked very worried.

"See you later, chaps!" I said. Then, in the spirit of Superman, I added: "I'm off to help these guys solve a crime!"

As it turns out, I have not seen the boys for more than 12 hours in the last six months. I was charged with making threats to kill my wife (which I denied) and causing actual bodily harm (which I admitted). The matter was heard in the Crown Court. I was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence for ABH. Then my nightmare began.

What I did to my wife may either enrage or bewilder people - all the more so when I say that I was once very much in love with her and she with me. I remember the night I proposed and she accepted; I remember us driving along the coast on holiday, singing the Teletubbies song. I remember our reverence when we brought our oldest son home after his birth. I remember our youngest son being born at home. I also remember the sense of sacrilege I felt when, handcuffed, I stepped over that spot on the Persian carpet to reach my mobile phone and medication before being carted off to the police station.

The community was divided between those in my wife's camp and those in mine. The primary school peer group sided with my wife - among them many who thought my fate an appropriate comeuppance. Older people in the parish - fellow music-lovers, and so on - came down on my side. What hurts most are the close friends (so I had thought them) who completely cut me and now actively support my wife in her efforts to alienate me from the boys.

It was said, I think by Auden, that every Christian plays Caiaphas or Judas sooner or later. That is true enough - and difficult to bear when one's friends assume either role. My wife's camp helped decide that no more than two hours of contact a fortnight would be appropriate.

Where am I now? I have moved to the countryside. I am genially tolerated by my former friends. I attend a weekly meeting for men who have abused their wives - a friendly but uncompromising event at which I and my fellow wife-beaters investigate respect, remorse, repentance and anger management.

As part of a community service order, I help out in a charity shop, sorting menswear and bric-à-brac. I am told by a mutual friend that my wife seems free and happy, the ordeal she suffered at my hands compensated for, it is said, by the control she now finally has over our children.

As for the boys, I am allowed to see them every fortnight, at a designated "contact centre" - a church hall or some other building that is manned by volunteers. This situation is considered "appropriate". It is felt that if I were unsupervised, even in the houses of friends such as my parish priest (who offered his vicarage as a meeting place), I might harm the boys. Despite obtaining an interim order for contact - an order that permits unlimited access, should my wife agree to it - I cannot see them outside the centre because her advisers counsel against it.

The contact centre is miserable. Despite the efforts of the kind volunteers, the place is filled with unhappy people, playing with unfamiliar toys. The boys and I strain to get the best of every last minute out of the meagre two-hour visit, but it's hard going. Milo wants to talk about his favourite television programme and cries when Freddie tries to tell me about football.

My oldest son is withdrawn, and sits despondently, waiting for me to talk to him in between entertaining his younger brothers. Since I am no longer around to be his accompanist and mentor, I believe his music has suffered. His scholarship was eventually withdrawn by the school. We sing over the telephone during the weekly call I am allowed to make to the boys. The centre is far from where they live. There is no sense of togetherness or continuity. The anguish is much as I imagine a prison visit must be.

Why did I write this article? I hope that others might be wiser as a result of reading my story. I hope that what I have written may change the deeply flawed thinking on domestic violence that forcibly separates a father like me from children like mine.

If you find yourself in my position, understand that in family law, you cannot take for granted a far-sighted sense of the duty of care: the other side's solicitors will likely be as adversarial as if your life were a commercial property dispute.

When your middle-class friends offer their homes as safe houses at which to meet your children, be prepared to be stonewalled by Social Services and other agencies. Proceedings in the family court are protected by secrecy to ensure, so it is said, that children suffer no harm: this will severely limit your attempts to get help in rebuilding relationships with your children.

Never suggest that though wife-beating is deplorable, there are other forms of cruelty that we routinely practise on one another for years that are no less evil and corrosive of the family. When you apologise for what you did, do not merely say, as I did, that you feel "remorse", because it is more believable when expressed in the vernacular ("I can't believe I did this…"). Don't write a heartfelt letter of apology to your wife; Social Services sees it as harassment. Remember that you alone are responsible for what you did. Never suggest that you and your wife might be jointly responsible for all that happened.

In a family court, the burden of proof is not based on an allegation being proved "beyond reasonable doubt", as in any other court, but upon "the balance of probability". If a mother harbours a particularly implacable hatred for the father and arrives at court with a sufficiently eloquent and determined barrister, it is an easy enough matter for her to make, and see upheld, all her allegations.

There can at best be significant (if unintentional) levels of judicial bias in favour of the mother. Meanwhile, though the needs of the children are said to be the paramount concern of the court, often no serious and immediate effort is made to establish the father's true role in the children's lives and whether they are truly at risk from him.

I knew none of this beforehand. But I have wrecked my marriage, lost a woman I once loved, lost my children, and lost my standing in the community. Penniless, marginalised and homeless, I watch my boys grow distant and realise that, short of a miracle, I will never be able to nurture their gifts or be a father to them in the most complete sense. I was told by someone in the Social Services that this is a fit punishment for what I have done to my wife.

I leave the last word to one of the policemen on duty at the station where I was held after my arrest. His view - he was a CID officer and a family man - was stern, unequivocal, informed and humane. I must remember, he said, that unpleasant though criminal proceedings might be, they would be nothing compared to the hell of the family and divorce courts. There, he said, would I pay fully the price for my actions.