Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Alicia Kearns Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

I will confine my remarks to Lords amendment 72. Let me to say at the outset that I understand the laudable intention behind it, but I want to explain why, with the greatest of respect, I believe it to be misconceived.

It was the murder of Stephen Lawrence that set the origins of hate crime in train. He was killed in 1993, and hate crime became a criminal offence in 1998 under the Crime and Disorder Act. There was some confusion about the chronology earlier, but it is set out in paragraph 1.3 of the final report of the Law Commission. A hate crime is not a stand-alone offence, but it elevates another crime, most commonly assault, to an aggravated offence under section 28 of the 1998 Act if the prosecution can show that the offence was motivated wholly or partly by hostility towards another group. In the following year, the Court of Appeal finessed the test that applied, saying, in The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) v. Pal, that the prosecution must prove some demonstration of that hostility, most often a form of language that was used at the time when the crime was committed.

There are two reasons why I do not think that the amendment works in the context of violence against women. First, it sets the jury off down the wrong line of inquiry. Do we really want to legislate for a system that invites juries to judge the seriousness of an offence such as stalking, rape or domestic abuse through the prism of whether the perpetrator demonstrated hostility towards women? Even leading juries down that line of inquiry risks making acquittal more likely if they conclude that the defendant harboured no particular ill will towards women. When would we find examples of that kind of language? It would be much more likely in “stranger” contexts, and less likely when the victim had been on Tinder that night, had been out at a club or had been drinking, and this took place were behind closed doors—we know that that accounts for about 90% of serious sexual assaults—and we already have the greatest difficulties in securing convictions in such cases. Rape Crisis has said that

“the motivation of hostility is much more likely to apply to stranger perpetrators, and here we see the hate crime framework as propping up harmful myths about violence against women.”

My second reason concerns causation. Many offences against women are not motivated by hatred. Subtle, insidious factors are often at play—power, control, obsession, revenge, jealousy—none of which would meet the threshold for hate crime, but which are no less toxic or deserving of criminal punishment. In fact, we as a Parliament have worked collectively in the last decade to see the treatment of women through a more expansive lens. We recognised these complex causes when we passed the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, with its provisions on revenge porn and coercive control, and when we criminalised stalking in 2012. It is with that in mind that I am regretfully of the view that making misogyny a hate crime would be regressive rather than progressive, and would deliver less, not more, justice for female victims.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

I recently had a conversation with a constituent who has introduced reporting of misogyny as a crime in Nottinghamshire, where she is a senior police officer. She says that it has progressively changed the culture. Does my hon. Friend agree that the culture may change in police forces when acts of misogyny are recorded at an earlier stage?

[Laura Farris]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and it is the point that the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) was making about policing. It is true that the police have responded positively in reporting such incidents, but it is also true that the pilot has shown no increase in the number of prosecutions or successful convictions, with which we are primarily concerned. It is an enduring concern that we do not do enough to record violence against women and girls in general, and I think we ought to do more in that regard.

Let me address my final comments to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), who said in her opening remarks that this was a simple and straightforward step. The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said that the evidence was “obvious”. Let me gently point out that prominent feminists in the House, including the Mother of the House, do not support this proposal for exactly the same as reasons as me. I hope that the closing remarks from the Opposition will reflect the fact that there is a respected strain of feminist opinion that does not take the same view as the hon. Member for Croydon Central.