KEY POINTS:
It was the raw emotion and cries of three young children watching their mother being beaten that reduced police dispatcher Jacqueline Keith to tears seven years ago.
It was that same raw emotion that set her on a mission to do something for the children who did not
ask for or deserve to become victims of domestic violence.
Mrs Keith's mission began when she took a 111 emergency call from a Rotorua house just before Christmas seven years ago.
"It was a very violent domestic. All I could hear was screaming, no one was talking to me," she said.
"These little kids, and there must have been two or three of them, were pleading 'Daddy, please don't. Don't hurt Mummy. Daddy, please don't'.
"You could hear the whacks, thumps and crash-bangs."
And the incident was accompanied by the most ear-piercing screams.
Mrs Keith, 39, a dispatcher in the police Northern Communications Centre in Auckland for nine years, said the call left her in tears but determined to do something for such children.
She began collecting gifts from her police and civilian colleagues at the communications centre for the small victims of domestic violence.
Yesterday, she handed this year's offerings to Christina Pusztay, manager of the Supportline Women's Refuge in Mt Albert.
Mrs Keith still feels the emotion of the call that inspired her.
Her daughter, Jessica - "now 13 going on 29" - was about the same age as the children screaming down the phone line.
"I burst into tears but then I had to dispatch jobs and I thought, 'I have just got to deal with this. Don't be so stupid. Deal with it. This is what happens'."
The rough, heart-wrenching calls Mrs Keith faces daily, such as the one from Rotorua, have never made her feel like giving up the job. "I make a difference."
She said her husband, Andrew, was a policeman and they could discuss the rough side of both jobs at the end of the day, having worked out their own mechanisms for dealing with it and supporting each other.
"Sometimes when he has had a really bad day - and he had a guy kill himself when he was speaking to him - he'll come home and I know as soon as I see his face to leave him alone and let him come out to talk to me when he's ready," Mrs Keith said.
"He is pretty much the same with me. We have learned to read each other."
Mrs Keith said she still shed a tear each year when she handed over the gifts she had collected.
"These beautiful little kids didn't ask for this [the violence]."
When she saw children getting presents, they usually smiled but often did not trust anyone.
"You cuddle them and they are tense little children."
Mrs Keith said it took little to make a child happy but it also took little to hurt them.
Every year, Jessica buys a present for a child at the refuge from her pocket money.
Mrs Keith said people involved in domestic violence needed to take a step back, look at themselves and back off the alcohol and drugs.
"Alcohol is such a huge fact, let alone drugs and P," she said.
"But these little children trust adults so much. They trust people."
She also had advice for women who stayed in a violent relationship.
"There is always someone out there [to help]. Get out. You are not going to do yourself any good. What about the children? Think about those little mites who need a good start in life."
Sergeant Chris Money said Christmas was always a time of emotional and financial pressure for many families. "As the holiday season approaches, additional stresses are placed on relationships such as financial, alcohol and drug abuse.
"These increase the potential for domestic violence. Police urge anyone who is a victim, observes or knows anyone who is a victim, to contact us immediately."
- NZPA
