Violence Against Women

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, it was a sunny Sunday morning in the middle of the summer of 1971. I had spent the morning drafting seven divorce petitions. It was, I have to say, depressing and oppressive. At lunchtime I gave my wife a cuddle and said that I could not stand it any longer: I was not going to do this work any more—and I did not. As your Lordships will appreciate, that day is firmly fixed in my memory. I had had 10 years of it. As a solicitor you are very much closer to the client. As a young solicitor listening to women who had been attacked by their husbands or partners, I realised then what a terrible problem domestic violence was.

Later I was involved in many murder cases that involved domestic violence. The ones that stick out in my mind are those where women reacted to the abuse they had suffered over years. There was a lady who put a hammer through her husband’s head when he was asleep, dragged his body into a back room and brought up her family for 20 years before the body was found. She received an absolute discharge. Another lady put a knife underneath a pillow on the sofa, took her husband out and got him really drunk and killed him when they got back. She was given a conditional discharge. I recall a third lady who, after years of abuse, reacted when her husband refused to come through for the dinner she had prepared for him. She picked up the bread knife, looked at it, put it down, picked up the carving knife and killed him. She was given a suspended sentence of imprisonment.

These cases occurred in the 1970s and 1980s and I take no credit for them, because I was prosecuting in each one, but they indicate that there were at that time humane judges who imposed humane sentences and were aware of the issues involved. Those sentences would be impossible in the climate of sentencing that has existed over the past 10 or 15 years. What lessons did I learn from this experience? There were some real psychopaths who enjoyed inflicting cruelty and pain. I remember that one man tied his wife to a chair and left her for three days in that position. But more often, faced with another sentient being, sometimes a dependant with needs and wants to be fulfilled and sometimes a person of superior intelligence and ability, many men are at a loss how to behave. Very often they have grown up without role models. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, pointed out, perhaps they take their models these days from violence that is portrayed in the media or, even worse, from pornography which is so freely available on the internet.

These are the last chapters in a matrimonial or other relationship but it is the first chapter that really counts. The Department of Health statistics show that 750,000 children witness domestic violence each year, and most of them do not share that experience with others. These are the closed doors to which my noble friend Lady Hamwee referred. In Wales we have a number of initiatives: the Children’s Commissioner; MARAC, the Multi-agency risk assessment conferences, which started in Cardiff; and the current education policy of the Welsh coalition Government, which is well in advance of that in England. Personal and social education is a compulsory part of the education curriculum in Wales. The Welsh coalition Government put into effect explicitly the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Each school must agree a personal and social education policy which will include sex and relationship education and must be delivered by a senior member of staff.

PSE and CWW—careers and the world of work—are mandatory components of the Welsh baccalaureate qualification, the WBQ. They are core studies. Learners are obliged to study four elements of PSE and undertake community participation. In Wales this is seen as an opportunity to explore social issues with young people just as they begin to form relationships with each other. The guidance given in a document entitled Personal and Social Education Framework for 7 to 19-year-olds in Wales, published in 2008, states that learners should be given opportunities to develop a responsible attitude towards personal relationships; to understand the range of sexual attitudes, relationships and behaviours in society; to understand the importance of sexual health and the risks involved in sexual activity, including potential sexual exploitation; and to learn about the features of effective parenthood and the effect of loss and change in relationships.

Girls should be taught that domestic violence is never acceptable or justified, so that they will react if they are subjected to it. Boys must be taught what is acceptable behaviour, how to respect a partner and to learn about that give and take of a partnership which is the foundation of a stable home in which children can be taught values that will see them through their lives. Investment in education at this stage saves money in the long term on healthcare, lost days of work, criminal justice involvement, housing difficulties and other social problems. I cannot understand why the previous Government allowed the amendment that was introduced in the previous Session of Parliament to be dropped in the wash-up as it would have permitted similar compulsory education to be introduced in England.

Healthcare professionals have a great deal to say in this area. It is said that one-third of violence against women begins when they are pregnant. I do not know why that should be. Are they physically and emotionally vulnerable at that time? It is the policy in Wales that midwives should on a number of occasions—more than once—question a pregnant woman about any concerns that they may have at home in order to satisfy themselves that there is no background of domestic abuse which may harm the mother or the newly born child. That should be extended to other healthcare professionals such as nurses in accident and emergency departments who may have the opportunity to speak to the patient alone after an incident. Training takes place in some hospitals but there are sensitivities in involving health professionals in the detection and investigation of offences.

The Sheffield domestic abuse partnership case study is a new project that was set up in May 2010 because,

“the pathways for support for victims of domestic abuse were unclear and confusing”.

This project has grouped together a helpline, domestic violence advisers, outreach workers located in a hospital maternity wing, police domestic violence officers, social workers and youth offending service officers. I shall be very interested to read that study when it reports. It surely is the way ahead.

Specialist domestic violence courts have been successful but they are not rolled out across the whole of the country. Seventy-three per cent of domestic violence is repeat offending, with 27 per cent of victims attacked three or more times according to a progress report published in 2007-08. However, a woman will have been beaten many times before she involves the criminal justice system in the first place, which illustrates the strength of the points made by my noble friend Lord Lester. Home Office and academic studies establish that domestic violence accounts for between 16 per cent and 25 per cent of all recorded violent crime—up to a quarter of it results from domestic violence.

Specialist domestic violence courts have increased the number of convictions. However, the problem in these proceedings is keeping the victim on board as a witness. The courts provide specialist teams who are committed to cases being dealt with swiftly. This lessens the stress for a victim called to give evidence and decreases the opportunities for an abuser to stretch out the proceedings in the hope that the victim may be deterred from giving evidence or the chances that the defendant and victim may be reconciled by the time of trial with the victim retracting her statement. There is a disparity in the number of witnesses in domestic violence cases who retract their statements or refuse to attend court as compared with mainstream cases.

In a paper entitled Call to End Violence against Women and Girls, which has already been referred to, my honourable friend from another place, Lynne Featherstone, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities and Criminal Information, said:

“We need to do, not simply talk about doing”.

I commend her determination to make a real difference to women and girls who have suffered or are at risk of suffering violence, to ensure that they can achieve their full potential and live fulfilled lives.