During their relationship, Lisa’s ex-partner was controlling. He kept her at home where he was emotionally and physically abusive towards her, including once attacking her with a machete.

These days, he runs protests outside houses of multiple occupancy that he claims are housing asylum seekers. He coordinates groups of men to patrol the streets of his town, claiming to protect women but often using these patrols to profile and target men of colour.

“There’s nothing good about that man. He’s a bully in every way,” she says.

Lisa is one of seven women who have told the Guardian they are survivors of domestic abuse carried out by key figures in the anti-immigration street patrol movement. All have chosen to come forward to make the public aware of the patterns of violence behind this new form of activism.

At least 14 street patrol groups have been set up in towns and cities across the UK, receiving tens of thousands of pounds in public donations, as well as political support. The deputy leader of Reform UK, Richard Tice, has previously called for more patrols to take place.

Wearing hi-vis jackets and, in some cases, stab-proof vests and carrying handcuffs, these groups of men aim to be a visible presence conducting patrols through their towns and cities. Some have used their patrols to target men of colour, stopping and questioning individuals and demanding to see identity documents.

Despite using rhetoric of protecting women, the Guardian has been shown evidence that indicates the severity of the abuse carried out by men in these groups. Some of the women we have spoken to have been granted restraining or non-molestation orders. One was forced to move towns with the support of the police for her own safety.

“He likes power, and I feel like this is giving him some sort of power. It’s all about power and control in everything he does,” says Lisa, who met and began a relationship with a far-right activist when she was 16.

He is one of the main figures behind the branch of the Raising the Colours movement in his town. The far-right, anti-migrant campaign has hung flags from lamp-posts across the UK under the guise of “patriotism”.

Early in their relationship, Lisa’s partner became abusive and controlling, sometimes preventing her from leaving the house. This behaviour escalated after she became pregnant and had her first child. He would threaten her and her family if she attempted to end the relationship. “I still have nightmares to this day,” Lisa says.

The night that Lisa left him, he tried to attack her with a machete and gave her a black eye and several broken toes. Police attended the scene and arrested him but this was not the end of his abuse, Lisa says. “When I did get away, he was threatening me constantly. I had met somebody else eventually, and I was getting phone calls saying he’s going to kick the baby out of me when he sees me in the street.”

Despite the severity of this abuse, it never resulted in a conviction.

Claire was in a relationship with an anti-immigration activist for several years, during which she made various calls to the police due to his abusive and violent behaviour, which would often be carried out while her children were present.

He was verbally abusive to Claire while she was pregnant, as well as behaving aggressively towards hospital staff after the birth of their first child. This abuse continued after Claire’s pregnancy, including one occasion when he pulled Claire’s hair and gripped her by the throat.

He uses his elevated platform in the town to run street patrols, standing with men outside schools in the mornings and afternoons as children come and go, and erecting St George’s Cross flags on lamp-posts.

The Guardian previously revealed police data indicating patterns of intimate partner violence among 2024 rioters, and similar links can be observed for those involved in these forms of vigilantism.

Last August, Reece McCarron founded the Corby Guard, claiming he had been inspired to set up a group for the Northamptonshire town after seeing someone “making advances to a young girl on the way from school”. On early street patrols he was joined by James Kenna, who had a domestic violence protection order imposed on him in 2020.

A month later, McCarron broke into his former partner’s house, swinging a machete around the kitchen and threatening to kill her. He was later charged with a string of offences including rape, actual bodily harm and intentional strangulation, which have been dropped after support for prosecution was withdrawn by the victim. In May, he was convicted of coercive control, as the prosecutor told the courts “the victim said that she was very scared he would kill her. She couldn’t sleep for weeks.”

In Greater Manchester, Adam Farrell and Jamie Thomason formed the Heywood community guard. Several schools in Heywood were forced to go into lockdown when the guard ran patrols outside their gates.

Farrell was jailed in 2022 after a racist attack on a man that left him with life-changing brain injuries. Thomason has claimed he is “doing God’s work” protecting women and children. In 2018, he was convicted under section 4A of the Public Order Act after arriving at a former partner’s address, banging on her door, threatening to slit her throat and punching her car.

Names have been changed to protect the identity of the survivors of abuse.