A FOUNDING member of a women’s refuge which has supported the victims of domestic abuse for more than 40 years has described her recognition in the Queen’s New Year Honours list as a “shared honour.”

June Freeman, 83, formed the Colchester and Tendring Women’s Refuge in 1977, at a time when an inherent indifference towards domestic violence prevailed.

But the founding members persevered and attitudes have changed, even if the problem persists.

She said: “What we felt was really important when we started was having the ideology of finding out what the women themselves really needed.

“They had often been bullied not just physically, but mentally, for a long time.

“We felt we shouldn’t be going in with the mindset of telling them what they needed.

“We listened to them.

“Back then, so many had the experience of going to the police only to be told ‘it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other’ and just to go back home and carry on.

“Certainly domestic violence remains deeply engrained and it is certainly not eradicated.

“It was also important that we never made it a party political issue.”

June, who lives in Nayland, is set to be bestowed with an MBE for her work.

She was recognised partly for involvement in a recent exhibition, titled You Can’t Beat a Woman, charting the history of woman’s refuge in the UK.

The project, which was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, looked at the stories of around a dozen refuges in East Anglia and East London.

June said: “I was concious the charity world was changing, the refuge movement was developing and becoming a real social force.

“It seemed to me it was time to put something together examining the history of the refuge movement in East Anglia.”

Now styled as Next Chapter, the Colchester and Tendring refuge employs 66 members of staff and supports hundreds of people every year.

Its current CEO, Beverley Jones, said: “Jane is an incredibly humble, formidable woman.

“She’s phenomenal, as you would need to be if you think about what she did in the 1970s, at a time when domestic abuse was not recognised as an issue as it is today.

“She founded the refuge at a time when it was seen as a man’s right to control women at home.”