NEWPORT domestic violence victim Rachel Williams is supporting a campaign to give men who pose a high risk to their partners one-on-one support to change.

Drive, which is backed by the Safelives and Respect charities, will be piloted in the South Wales, Sussex and Essex police force areas but could be rolled out in Gwent if successful.

Ms Williams nearly died in August 2011 after her estranged husband Darren Williams tracked her down to a Newport hairdressers, shot her and later killed himself.

She appeared on the BBC in their Salford TV and radio studios supporting the campaign in the morning. By the afternoon she had returned to Newport to meet St Joseph’s Boxing Club’s Tony Borg, Newport West AM candidate Jayne Bryant and the Welsh Government’s public service minister Leighton Andrews.

Ms Williams said earlier: “We've got a massive problem with domestic violence, it's an epidemic, and if we don't try to do something to change mind sets of the problem, which is the perpetrator, then we're never going to win.”

She had asked Mr Borg, a long-term friend, to get involved to show men support the campaign.

“It always seems to be women-driven but it needs to be men supporting it so when I asked him [to get involved] and he said yes,” she said.

Mr Borg added that men who feel susceptible to taking matters into their own hands at home should visit a boxing gym to drain their anger.

While Ms Bryant added: “We must make sure that we continue to raise awareness and work together to eliminate it.”

Mr Andrews, who was supporting Ms Bryant’s campaign in the city in preparation of May’s Assembly elections, said: “The Drive scheme is a very important pilot and if successful will roll out elsewhere. It’s very difficult in the past to engage perpetrators of domestic abuse. Clearly, we want to help people change their behaviour.”

Last year the Welsh Government passed the landmark Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act, the first UK legislation passed to directly tackle those problems.