Fife male victims of domestic abuse in are suffering in silence.
Over the last year, a local organisation working to prevent domestic abuse supported 253 women but only three men.
But the statistic did not reflect the number of victims, Fife Council’s safer communities committee heard.
Councillor Stuart MacPhail said: “I spent 15 years working at A&E at Kirkcaldy, where they seem to see the worst examples of physical abuse, where people end up in hospital.
“One of the things that surprised me when they did the breakdown, was about 20% of people who came in because of physical abuse were male, but almost all without exception would not allow anybody to contact the police.”
The committee was updated on the work of MARAC (Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conferencing), which supports domestic abuse victims at high risk of suffering serious harm or even murder at the hands of their partners.
MARAC chairwoman Detective Superintendent Sheila Stewart said men were reluctant to engage with support services.
She said: “The advocacies that work with male victims say there are real difficulties in getting them to even return their phonecalls.
“It’s something that the advocacies and I will be working on.”
The cases handled by MARAC last year involved 500 children.
DS Stewart added: “Unfortunately, domestic abuse throughout the whole of Scotland is on the rise. That’s something we have to deal with.”
Ian Bease, lead officer for community safety at NHS Fife, said there was a wider problem of assault victims, of both sexes, not wanting to speak up.
Referring to data from a decade ago, he said: “At that time almost two thirds of all assault patients seen by NHS did not report the matter to the police.”
MARAC receives 25 referrals each fortnight but only has the capacity to handle around 11 of them.
MARAC coordinator Maggie Hume said: “For the remaining 14 referrals, we look at whether or not the victim who has been referred is already engaging with other services at that point.
“We’re looking at which victims have the least amount of support around them.”
Fife Domestic and Sexual Abuse Partnership coordinator Sheila Noble said steps were taken to ensure those not supported by MARAC were in touch with other agencies.
She added: “Capacity is an issue for MARAC and that is something we are looking to address.”