'Legal aid saved me from my ex-husband'

Sarah suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse before legal aid helped her get away

After her ex-husband became abusive, Sarah and her children escaped with the help of legal aid – advice or representation for people who may not be able to afford it privately.

But a charity in Norfolk has warned that some people are finding themselves locked out of justice altogether, with one part of the county labelled as the biggest "legal aid desert" in England.

The Ministry of Justice said the government had inherited a legal aid system "under immense strain" and it was working to put it back on "long-term sustainable footing".

Sarah, not her real name, suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her ex-husband.

After they were married, the man she thought she was madly in love changed rapidly.

"Once you have that lightbulb moment when someone points that out to you, you can't unsee it," she said.

"After that, I was looking at my marriage with completely different eyes and I realised that I [was] actually in a very dangerous situation."

When the abuse started to affect her children, left for hours in a cold home because she was not allowed to turn her heating on, Sarah decided it was time to leave.

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"I had a realisation that if I continued to stay, I would be normalising a toxic marriage to young children," she said.

"My children would either grow and be like this person or grow and seek to marry someone like this person because that's what they knew and that's what they experienced in the home."

As she was relying on universal credit while raising the children, Sarah had to turn to legal aid in order to escape.

It enabled her to go to family court so she could take her children with her.

Asked what she would have done had legal aid not been available, Sarah said: "I dread to think... I don't actually know what I would have done without the help that I received."

The Law Society of England and Wales president Richard Atkinson has called on the government to further invest in the civil legal aid system to "begin eliminating legal aid deserts", saying it is a "crucial public service".

A report analysing the demand for and availability of legal aid has termed those areas of the country that are in the bottom 10% as "legal aid deserts".

The Legal Aid Desert report has ranked North Norfolk as bottom in England, with just 0.55 legal aid providers per 10,000 people, compared to a national average of 1.31.

Norfolk Community Law Service, which is celebrating 40 years of support this year, is aiming to plug the gap.

David Powles is chief executive of Norfolk Community Law Service

Chief executive David Powles said the average debt of the people the service helped had risen from £4,000 to £22,000 in the past five years.

"Legal aid is absolutely vital to be able to ensure that we don't end up with a situation where it's another example of haves and have-nots, and only those with money can afford to get representation for whatever their legal problem is," he said.

"There is an increasing number of people who are being locked out of access to justice."

Mr Powles said North Norfolk had fewer law firms to offer legal aid and the practices that remained said they could not afford to provide it.

He added that these factors were as a result cuts implemented by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said the government had announced up to £92m a year for criminal solicitors and civil fee increases worth £20m once implemented.

They added: "Legal advice for housing, debt, discrimination and education is available through the Civil Legal Advice telephone service wherever you are, and we are working with the legal profession to put the sector back on a long-term sustainable footing."