FULL-time professionals are the least likely group to get help when they suffer domestic violence and stalking, says a woman who launching her own support business.

Julie Johns, of Bournemouth, has set up Safe Space Consultancy, to address an issue that blights working lives and costs businesses more than £1.9billion a year.

“Domestic abuse and stalking does follow people into the workplace,” she said.

But she said it was often hard to spot that a professional person was suffering abuse.

“Many employees see their workplace as a safe space. If there are issues going on in the relationship or at home, coming to work is a way of escaping, avoiding. At work, people feel they are respected for who they are and what they can do, whereas perhaps at home it’s a completely different story,” she said.

“My business is about helping business, equipping them to be able to support employees but to understand the issues as well.”

Julie spent 14 years with domestic abuse charities supporting adults and children.

“Full-time working professionals were the least likely to access support and were the hardest to reach group of people,” she said.

“As a full-time charity supporting victims of domestic abuse, we were open nine to five. I was a full-time working professional myself and the programmes that we were running to support people weren’t accessible for other full-time working professionals.”

One in four women and one in six men will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime, while one in five women and one in 10 men will experience stalking.

Julie said awareness at work could prevent further harm to individuals and organisations.

“I’m very passionate about getting information out there to as many people as possible,” she said.

“If somebody has suffered from domestic abuse or stalking, it’s going to impact on a small business that’s got very few staff just as much as it could impact on a larger business that might have a large number of employees that are suffering from the issue.”

Julie has received an award from the social entrepreneur support service UnLtd.

She is hosting a training event in association with Dorset Rape Crisis on Wednesday, March 29, 9am-12.30pm, at the Marsham Court Hotel, Bournemouth. Details are at safespaceconsultancy.org