YOUR article on August 28, "Issue of the week - domestic violence towards women" was well intentioned, useful and important, but unfortunately seriously flawed.

Why not simply condemn all domestic violence? Why was it so sexist?

At the start it said: "Men and women can be very cruel to each other," but went on: "When it comes to domestic violence men lead the way by a mile." And the overwhelming message of the whole page was that domestic violence is solely a matter of men attacking women and children, boys attacking girls.

It is beyond dispute that serious male on female violence is a widespread problem, but any attempt at thorough and un-biased research will uncover many instances of serious and sustained attacks on men, by women. (Physical, not psychological, though there are also plenty of the latter and they are seen as serious when practised on women by men.)

It may be that in total men are quantitatively and qualitatively worse. It may be that more children suffer because of male on female violence. We may suspect this, perhaps strongly. But we don't know, we cannot know.

Perhaps if every human being was totally monitored by CCTV, round the clock, we might be able to keep the awful score, but our being observed would then have altered our behaviour. And many aspects of the assessment would be highly subjective.

As it is, surveys are done, social services, medical and police records are studied, but many of those involved do not seek any assistance, or are very slow to, especially male victims, who may not even mention the problem to close friends.

So please issue a clear statement admitting that it is utterly impossible to know the true position. "Elucidate the truth" by distinguishing between facts and prejudice. Remedy the imbalance and unfairness of your article. This will help to correct a picture which is harmful to the many men who are victims, to many women who need help with medical, stress, drugs or drink problems, and most importantly, to the many children who are only protected by their fathers staying with an abusive wife for their sake and whose safety is further at risk because the bias you have reinforced supports the excessive favouring of women in custody decisions.

Name and address supplied.