Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Macdonald of River Glaven and Lord Blair of Boughton

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven]

My Lords, I spoke on the issue of domestic violence on a number of occasions during the Bill’s passage. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, said, domestic violence is a phenomenon that breeds insecurity, violence and, as we know, sometimes death. Perhaps as bad as any of those, it travels across generations, repeating itself over and over, in worse and worse spirals of crime. In recent years, as noble Lords know, very much progress has been made by people working in social services, by medical professionals, lawyers, judges and others, in recognising and identifying domestic violence, sometimes in prosecuting it—winning convictions more often than we used to—and in dealing appropriately with its victims.

My concern was that, in its original form, the Bill plainly failed to heed some of these lessons. It failed to recognise that victims do not always present themselves in predictable ways, and that the justice system should—indeed must—offer a broad, expansive and empathetic approach to this crime, and to the victims of this crime.

I had two particular concerns. First, the definition of domestic violence within the Bill was far too restrictive, much more restrictive than the definition that is employed by ACPO and the CPS regularly, successfully and happily and to the good understanding of all agencies involved, including the courts. Secondly, I felt strongly that the range of material allowed to evidence domestic violence so that there was a gateway into legal aid for its victims was far too narrow. I am inclined to agree that neither of these defects should ever have been in the Bill in the first place, and I was surprised, to be frank, that they were.

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend, who has been happy—perhaps I do not know how happy he has been—to have many conversations with me on this topic. I am grateful to the Secretary of State, the Lord Chancellor, as well. I believe that the Government’s response has been broad. I have enormous respect for the noble and learned Baroness who, when she was a distinguished Attorney-General, was an inspiration to prosecutors on this topic, as well as on many others. Her distinguished period of office is remembered with great affection in the CPS.

The Government have adopted the ACPO-CPS definition, for which we were asking since before Report stage, and included it in the Bill. I commend them for that. They have also broadened significantly—with respect, more significantly than some noble Lords’ speeches have allowed—the categories of evidence that will trigger legal aid in these cases for the victims of domestic violence, including evidence from social services and medical professionals in addition to the other gateways which existed, and where the court wishes to consider a finding of fact that domestic violence exists so as to grant legal aid, it can consider matters such as police call-outs and referrals to domestic violence centres, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, has called for.

After considering the Government’s response with as much care as I can, I have concluded that this has been a strong example of a Government who were clearly—and who, with respect, had been badly in error, in my view—listening to the concerns of this House and responding. For my part, I shall support the Government on this issue.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

My Lords, I lent my name to the first iteration of the amendment put forward by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland. I want to speak again for a moment about this. I accept and, as has the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, I praise the Minister for the movement that the Government have produced. However, in my experience of 35 years of dealing with these kinds of cases, there is something very specific about a certain category of offender, including the offenders of child abuse, domestic violence, stalking and partner rape—namely, their deviousness and the control that they exercise on their victims. Therefore, I strongly support the idea that we should not let down this group of victims by imposing an arbitrary limit on the time in which the evidence can be produced in a way that will provide legal assistance to those victims.

Some of your Lordships will be experienced enough to remember the great Erin Pizzey, who was the first founder of women’s refuges. Her book had the most staggeringly accurate title about the kind of man who would commit these offences. I do not mean to say that there are no women who do this but we are primarily talking about men. The title of that book was Scream Quietly or the Neighbours will Hear. I think that we should say, just one last time, will the Government please look at this time limit again, because this group of offenders works in a completely different way from most other criminals?