London, Sep 06 (ANI): A new report has claimed that four out of ten victims of domestic violence in Britain are men and are often ignored by police who believe that a woman is the real victim.

The study comes at a time of complaints that men are treated unfairly by the justice system.

A new set of guidelines for judges on fairness in the courts has been criticised for playing down the likelihood that women attack men and pushing for judges and magistrates to go easier on women offenders.

The study by the Parity campaign group based its assessment of the number of male victims of domestic violence on Home Office statistics and the British Crime Survey.

It said that the average proportion of male domestic violence victims was 40 per cent.

The charity report added that more than 41,000 men were prosecuted for domestic violence in 2008/09 but only 2,700 women.

More than half the male victims of domestic violence suffer injury.

The report comes amid protests over the latest guidelines published by the Judicial Studies Board, the body responsible for training judges.

Its revamped court manual states that domestic violence ‘consists mainly of violence by men against women’.

“For a document that claims to be about gender equality, it leaves the impression that male victims are seen as second class,” the Daily Mail quoted Mark Brooks, of the ManKind campaign group, which supports male victims of domestic violence, as saying. (ANI)