Patrick Stewart: the legacy of domestic violence | Society | The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/27/patrick-stewart-domestic-violence

As a child, the actor regularly saw his father hit his mother. Here he describes how the horrors of his childhood remained with him in his adult life

As a child, the actor regularly saw his father hit his mother...

An eloquent and personal appeal for greater awareness and proactive confrontation of the scourge of domestic violence from Captain Jean Luc Picard himself.

In civilian life it was a different story. He was an angry, unhappy and frustrated man who was not able to control his emotions or his hands. As a child I witnessed his repeated violence against my mother, and the terror and misery he caused was such that, if I felt I could have succeeded, I would have killed him. If my mother had attempted it, I would have held him down. For those who struggle to comprehend these feelings in a child, imagine living in an environment of emotional unpredictability, danger and humiliation week after week, year after year, from the age of seven. My childish instinct was to protect my mother, but the man hurting her was my father, whom I respected, admired and feared.