Handcuffs to be used for Ironwork Centre’s latest powerful sculpture

The artwork is being created from recycled handcuffs, donated by police stations across the country.

Clive Knowles, chairman of the centre, which is based on the outskirts of Oswestry, said the aim of the piece would be to raise awareness of the issue of domestic abuse.

He said: “In our latest bid to encourage social change, we have designed a hard-hitting sculpture to open the conversation about the ever-growing domestic abuse crime that is prevalent throughout the UK.

“The sculpture will show a master puppeteer, pulling the silent strings of their puppet. Domestic abuse is often a hidden crime that takes place behind closed doors, which can result in it unfortunately going under the radar for too long.

“It will be created from recycled handcuffs, all donated to us from police constabularies around the nation. The handcuffs represent the feeling of being trapped, with no escape that many DA survivors have faced.

“Both the puppet figure and the puppeteer will be genderless, as abuse can, and does, happen to both men and women. Research shows that one in five adults experience domestic abuse during their lifetime, which equates to one in four women and one in six-seven men.

“Many people primarily consider domestic abuse to be physical, but it actually consists of sexual abuse, violent or threatening behaviour, controlling or coercive behaviour, economic abuse and psychological or emotional abuse.”

Mr Knowles said they had been inspired by the success of the Knife Angel – the spectacular sculpture created at the centre from knives donated to police forces.

He said: “This week we met with Detective Sergeant Amy Kitosi-Isanga, from West Mercia Police, who reached out to us with the kind offer of utilising old handcuffs into a ‘Fight Against Domestic Abuse’ sculpture.

“Police constabularies across the UK have recently upgraded all of their standard issue handcuffs, and West Mercia Police immediately thought of us to turn the scrap metal into a sculpture for social benefit.

“Inspired by the huge success of the Knife Angel, and the increased awareness of knife crime it spread around the nation, we plan for this sculpture to also travel around UK towns and cities, to highlight the crime of domestic abuse.

“We want to keep the public in the loop about the developments of our hard-hitting sculpture, and call on members of our society, if they feel comfortable doing so, to share their DA survivor stories with us.

“We are currently writing to the home office, as well as prison services, for maximum engagement in bringing awareness to this prevalent crime. We’re hoping to receive a generous amount of donations from police constabularies around the nation, in order to refine our conceptual project and allow us to create the larger than life sculpture that we’ve envisioned.”