Lewisham’s domestic abuse incidents are unlikely to spike with sports events such as the World Cup, according to specialists.

This comes despite research linking domestic abuse and the football in the UK, with reports incidents of domestic abuse increase when England are playing.

Historically, Lewisham has one of the highest rates of reported domestic violence and abuse incidents in London.

In 2016 Lewisham recorded 6,389 incidents of domestic abuse,  the third highest in London for the time.

In 2007 to 2008 the borough reported the highest number of offences for the previous five years, and the highest of any London borough at that time.

Women are at increased risk of domestic abuse during pregnancy and the first year after giving birth, even if there has not been any abuse before.

The Safer Lewisham Partnership, the borough’s statutory crime and disorder partnership, heard there should not be a spike in Lewisham to coincide with football World Cup games, despite national reports.

Crime reduction service manager Gary Connors said there hasn’t been a relationship between domestic violence and football in the past, and said domestic violence was more related to alcohol consumption.

“We haven’t necessarily seen it per se, certainly in Lewisham,” he said.

“It is alcohol that drives it, it’s not football so to speak.”

He said the council had looked for relationships between police violence figures and figures from Athena, the council’s gender violence service, and could not find a clear correlation.

“Last July we did a real deep dive into this and we looked into our police figures and we looked into our Athena figures and it was interesting,” he said.

“The drivers that you would identify as particularly thematic areas, which are events like the football World Cup, but we didn’t necessarily see that.”

If you are experiencing domestic violence, contact the Athena Service on 0800 112 4052.