The ruthless cruelty of drug dealers controlling and ruining lives is just one of the themes at the heart of the brilliant BBC drama, 'The Responder' which finished its run this week; but the mental health of the very unorthodox police officer, Chris Carson is another.

And the shocking domestic abuse inflicted by her boyfriend on another officer, Rachel Hargreaves came to the fore in the final episode when the young woman has the courage to confront him in front of others about the horrible things he was doing to her.

Nobody outside knew that he’d changed the locks on her own flat, locked her in a cupboard all day when he went to work and had hit her causing bruises on places not seen, places he’d deliberately chosen to inflict them.

If you think this is some abstract fiction for dramatic effect; the whole series is credited with having more than a ring of truth having been written by a former police officer.

The abuse of women in our own county was amply illustrated in this newspaper last week when Fermanagh Women’s Aid revealed that they supported 300 women in cases of domestic abuse in the county last year alone. And they were just the cases of women who had the courage to come forward.

The Impartial story revealed that across Northern Ireland, Women’s Aid supported 6,000 women last year and that statistically NI was jointly the most dangerous place in Europe to be a woman. It’s not just physical abuse, but putting a woman through the mental torture of coercive control is happening behind closed doors.

Drugs, mental health, the abuse of women. These are modern-day problems, issues of the age under our very noses and sadly far more common than we in our comfortable lives care to admit, and like any good drama the show confronts them aggressively.

The abuse of women is very much in the public eye at the moment, but even so I wonder if people grasp how endemic misogyny is in our society. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about it in the aftermath of the Ashling Murphy murder.

The next day, a woman I know, but hadn’t seen in a while, got in touch privately to tell me the story of how she has been treated by a controlling ex; who had then cynically turned the tables to make allegations against her, in a move which sadly and deliberately put their children in the middle of a needless and nasty dispute.

Shamefully, parental alienation is something of a dirty secret that we don’t scream out in disgust about enough. There’s something particularly low about turning children against their own mother for your own ends.

Last week I also heard of another story of abuse, and again the man who perpetrated it tried to turn the tables on his victim by dismissing her as a drunk. Aside, of course, from the real possibility that his abuse may have caused her to turn to alcohol, the fact that she may have an issue doesn’t make her a liar.

I’ve heard of a number of cases where the male perpetrators denigrate their victims as drunks, or mad, or druggies or a bad mother; or even a combination of these. It’s victim shaming in the extreme and sadly many people who should know better in the community, even relatives, fall for it. The more stories I hear, it would seem that often the courts and the 'system' generally struggles to understand fully the issues.

Furthermore, there are elements of wider society who don’t get this. Also following the Ashling Murphy story, one tweeter quoted figures to show that the chances of a woman being attacked in Ireland were a very low percentage, and he claimed “only” 0.5 per cent needed the protection of agencies. Which is still over 10,000 women; and totally ignores the many women who don’t seek help, and indeed the fact that very many more women simply don’t feel safe.

I do understand that “making all men the bad guys” doesn’t resolve the situation.

But I do make the point strongly that we are all responsible in some way for the attitudes of the society we create, and that young men should grow up with a healthier respect for girls and women, which in turn will hopefully squeeze out the acceptability of a level of mistreating women.

We do not know if the young Manchester United footballer, Mason Greenwood is guilty or innocent of allegations of rape and serious assault against a woman which are being investigated. But we do know that young and rich footballers are far from being the only men who feel a sense of entitlement when it comes to women.

There is now a greater focus on shameful attitudes to women.

In this context, it may seem surprising that the Ulster Unionist Doug Beattie appears to be surviving as leader of his party after a tweet about the wife of Edwin Poots and a brothel. And then a number of historical tweets came to light.

If I’d written about this a week ago, I’d possibly have been detailing Beattie’s political obituary, particularly after he prostrated himself apologetically in a series of radio interviews.

As he admitted his shame and agreed the tweets were “awful”, he sounded a broken man and weakness in a political leader is not a good look.

But there were factors at play; Beattie’s contrition garnered some sympathy and when he claimed the tweets did not really represent the person he is now, his reputation as a decent and likeable man who was attempting to bring progressive change in Unionism meant that people at large, outside some of his political opponents, were at least prepared to back off a little.

There’s enough in my own evangelical Calvinist background to think that forgiveness and redemption are not beyond anyone.

We can all look back with shame at previous times when we complied as society accepted values and standards that we have come to know were simply wrong, and we have rightly changed. Sadly not enough, and sadly there are still many of those attitudes around. But if we have learned lessons and moved on, it would be wrong not to accept that people have genuinely changed.

Doug Beattie has learned this the hard way; and indeed, we can expect in the robust cut and thrust of an election this year that he will be constantly reminded of his past, often by people who are being hypocritical.

Like us all, though, he should be also be judged on what he does from here on. And rather than simply saying those tweets aren’t me any more, perhaps he could make a real difference. Starting with the input and influence of women in his own party, and in using his voice to do the same in

wider society which as the earlier part of this column suggests has a long way to go in its treatment of women.

And, indeed, in many other vulnerable minorities.

It has to be said, firmly, that while Doug Beattie is in a position of leadership, the issue of improving respect for women and the way they are treated is one that every one of us should play a part.