Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

Let us take the opportunity of this Bill to right a wrong. There are still women who are denied justice for what happened to them in their early teenage years and men who can be fairly tried. Let them now be tried if the CPS considers the evidence strong enough and that the case still merits prosecution. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to support both amendments, and echo the very strong points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, regarding Amendment 277, which relates to Section 6 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 and removing the time limitation on proceedings for the offence of intercourse with a girl aged between 13 and 16.

This appears to be a loophole left over from the Sexual Offences Act 2003, as ably argued by Jonathan Rogers of Cambridge University in his chapter in a book analysing the law on historic offences. He referred to the case of J, outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, earlier, affecting cases where the offence occurred before 2004. In that chapter he says that a workaround regarding the time limit on reporting offences was:

“In the years leading up to the SOA 2003, this unusual time limit proved to be tolerable only because it used to be evaded (!), namely by charging instead indecent assault under section 14 of the SOA 1956, for which the underage girl could also not give effective consent, but for which no time limit was provided in the statute. So ‘rough justice’ could still be done, and it frequently was.”


His chapter goes on to explain that much of the law, including subsequent judgments, is grounded in

“a toxic mixture of misogyny, prejudice and ignorance.”

Reading evidence from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and its various specific reports on child sexual abuse in certain areas of society, it is absolutely clear that victims—especially child victims—of sexual abuse often find it difficult to come forward at the time. It is worrying, therefore, that there has to be a workaround to deal with a law that reflects late Victorian society’s attitudes to girls aged 13 to 16 being abused.

Amendment 292C asks for an extension of time limits for prosecutions for common assault in domestic abuse cases. I look forward to hearing the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, speaking to her amendment, and propose to speak briefly only on one common theme that links these two amendments.

In 2017, the Ministry of Justice responded to a petition to Parliament that sought to remove time limits on the victims of domestic abuse getting legal aid, saying:

“Respondents to the survey in particular felt that the time limit is arbitrary—respondents felt that a victim does not stop being a victim after the passage of time. Similarly, they felt that the risk of experiencing violence does not necessarily dissipate over time.”


There is substantial evidence to show that many women—it usually is women—do not report the first, second or even 10th incident of domestic violence. The reasons for this are many, but fear of the behaviour of their partner is key. They may also still be in a relationship with the abuser, and there is the worry—too often well founded, sadly—that they will not be taken seriously when they report the behaviour. The current six-month time limit means that many common assault charges time out and the women cannot access justice, and the protection and support that the justice process can offer them is denied.

Both amendments seek to change the time limits. First, there is a loophole that needs to be sorted out in a 21st century world that understands child sex abuse better than seven decades ago, let alone in the late 19th century. Secondly, they seek to extend the time limit to up to two years for domestic abuse victims to be able to report their abuse to the police. I shall be glad to support both amendments. The courts and prosecutors should not have to rely on workarounds.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, as the former Victims’ Commissioner, I am amazed by these time limits. To find our domestic abuse victims were being constantly told they were timed out beggars belief in the 21st century, considering we can buy an item in our homes that has a 10-year guarantee, a two-year guarantee, or whatever, yet common assault has six months. What does that say about how we look at human lives?

Under current rules on common assault, any instances of common assault, regardless of context, must be reported within six months of the incident occurring. If a report is made outside this six-month period, there is no option, as has been said, for the police or the CPS to bring charges and, unless there are other charges to be brought, the alleged perpetrator faces no further action.

The CPS definition of common assault is

“any act by which a person intentionally or recklessly causes another to suffer or apprehend immediate unlawful violence.”

It does not necessarily have to include literal physical violence; it can include raising a fist, spitting or using threatening words.

The reason for the rule is that we need cases to travel through the system quickly—especially considering recent court backlogs and long delays across the system. However, the rules on common assault are built on the assumption that crimes can be reported quickly and easily. This might be the case for a fight in the street with a stranger, but it cannot and should not be applied to domestic abuse contexts.

Regarding the impact on victims, most will not even know that this law exists until they come forward and find that it is too late. They will make the hugely brave decision to come forward and make a report to the police, only to be told that time has run out and there is nothing to be done. Victims are being left completely in the dark.

Perpetrators, however, will often have the support and guidance of a legal representative, especially if they have offended in the past. It is highly likely that perpetrators are much more aware of this time limit than the victims—some perpetrators may even use this loophole in the law to their advantage.

The time limit not only allows perpetrators to carry on abusing, it emboldens them to do so. There are sure to be cases where a victim has come forward with their report; it has failed due to the time limit, and they have faced further abuse and violence as punishment or retribution for telling the police. The time limit in its current form is putting victims in harm’s way.

The offences covered by common assault—threatening words, raising a fist and spitting—are the types of crime that can easily escalate if perpetrators are not stopped. The time limit is preventing any kind of intervention. The message being sent to victims by the current law is that common assault is not important enough to prosecute, and that victims will be listened to only if they have been more seriously hurt.

Common assault is often the only charge left to lay. Police officers have spoken to me about their frustration in trying to reach the higher evidence threshold for actual bodily harm or coercive control and being told by the CPS that it should be downgraded to common assault instead. However, because of this rule, it is often too late. A dangerous perpetrator is allowed to go free and will probably go on to offend again, against the same victim or someone new.

Police forces have also spoken about the complexity of investigating domestic abuse. It can often require extensive digital investigation and the need to gather medical and forensic evidence. All this takes time and often cannot be done in a six-month window, even if the victims report straightaway.

There are examples of victims coming forward with reports a month or two after an incident occurs—so within the time limit—but cases still failing because they cannot be adequately investigated in the time left. So, it is not just about victims coming forward, it is about the complex nature of domestic abuse, which is not currently reflected in the law.

BBC figures obtained through freedom of information requests show that nearly 13,000 cases of common assault in the domestic abuse context were closed due to the time limit between 2016-17 and 2020-21. Only 30 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales responded to the freedom of information request, so the real figure is likely to be much higher. In the same period, the number of common assaults flagged as domestic abuse increased by 71%. Meanwhile, the number of these common assaults that resulted in charges being brought fell by 23%.