Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]]

My Lords, this Bill is important and women need it. We have made substantial progress in addressing domestic violence, but there is still so much more to be done.

When I served as the elected UK representative on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women some years ago, I was so impressed when, on an official visit to a Latin American country, we were shown a designated police station, open 24 hours a day, for victims of domestic abuse to go for protection and/or help. Given that this was in the 1980s, this was very advanced for its time.

I welcome Part 4 of the Bill, which requires local authorities to assess the need for domestic abuse support locally, but I worry that it is not sufficient, as it focuses on those in accommodation, whereas an estimated 70% of victims never go to a refuge. These services need to go beyond accommodation and include community-based services so as to cater for all.

I know that many services rely on the internet, yet my daughter, who is a trustee of a charity in north Kensington in a different sector, tells me that this presents a challenge in itself. The charity did a survey and found that 38% of its clients had no IT access other than a mobile phone, and 26% had only one device between the entire family. We know that many domestic abuse perpetrators often use tracking software or monitor their partner’s mobile phone. My challenge to the Government is how to truly help and reach victims who cannot access the internet, particularly in these times of even more restraints with Covid lockdowns and tiers.

I know that time is short, so I will touch on one aspect that is not addressed by the Bill, which is how the presumption of continued parental involvement enshrined in other legislation works for victims of domestic violence and their children. The Bill needs to provide for it to be automatically presumed in cases of formally alleged domestic abuse that any visits by a child to an alleged perpetrator should be supervised or stopped altogether until the domestic violence case has been determined by a court. I have heard of cases where a parent has been forced by social services to drop their domestic violence case or lose access to their child by them being put in foster care, so that the child has access to neither parent rather than only the victimised parent. Surely this adds to the agony and angst of the domestic violence they have already endured. The Bill should address this.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 25th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP) [V]]

My Lords, I, too, wish to commend the Minister on bringing this solid piece of legislation before the House and getting it to this stage. However, I rise to speak in support of these two amendments and commend those who tabled them and brought them before the House. I know the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, speaks with personal knowledge on this issue, having listened to her on another occasion and to what she has said today. When someone refers to their personal experience, I think it is always prudent, has a lot of merit and deserves a lot of close attention.

I want to address my comments today to the narrow issue of parental alienation. I am aware that this legislation applies primarily to England and Wales, not Northern Ireland. However, it is important that all parts of the UK are able to move forward with these protections as soon as possible. A gap in legislation was created when the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended. My DUP colleagues and I will support the amendment in the event of the Committee dividing. It would insert parental alienation into the definition of domestic abuse in Clause 1.

Sadly, we live in a society today where there are thousands of parents who do not have any relationship with their children, and in some of these cases simply because one parent, for no good reason, turned their child against them. This amounts to abuse and is debilitating. Parental alienation is a serious, deliberate manipulation of a child by one parent against the other parent. Of course, it can take many forms, including speaking negatively to the child about the other parent, reducing and controlling the child’s contact with the other parent, cancelling contact at the last minute and forbidding the child to talk about the other parent.

The effects can be life-changing. A child may believe that their parent is bad and dangerous. This can adversely affect a child’s mental health in later years. The child can be left bereft of the love, compassion and guidance of a parent. The alienated parent cannot share key milestones in their child’s life. I do not think it is possible to overstress the importance and influence of parents in their children’s life. Often by the time alienation has been proven through the courts it is much too late to encourage a child to see his or her other parent. Clinical depression, anxiety, fractured attachments, suicide ideation, deliberate self-harm, alcohol abuse, premature sexual activity and academic underachievement may have already occurred.

The sweeping generalisation that parental alienation is a concept being used by fathers as a tool to silence female victims of domestic violence is not accurate. There is a real risk that those advocating that position will neglect the needs of those men and women who do not have convictions for domestic violence or other offences but have been cut off from contact with their children and grievously miss them.

However, I want to make it abundantly clear that I am not in any way seeking to challenge cases where a child has valid reasons for rejecting a parent, such as abuse or neglect, or where they have been unavailable to a child due to a prolonged period of addiction or of working overseas. My understanding of these amendments is that they are focused on situations where children become alienated through no fault of the affected parent, so it is critical that the Committee recognises that the harm caused in these cases is not restricted to abuse of a child. We should not ignore the fact that there is a range of motivating factors and circumstances involved in parental alienation, but I consider it appropriate to place it within the domestic abuse legislation as it victimises both parent and child.

I recognise and welcome that the Minister has already taken steps to classify parental alienation as an example of the psychological abuse in draft statutory guidance accompanying the Bill. On balance, however, I do not believe that this represents a level of protection or impetus that full legislative protection would provide.

My party, the DUP, has some concern around whether parental alienation will receive the attention it deserves in training and guidance on criminal behaviours without it being specifically stipulated as an offence in the Bill. Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly raised similar points during the development of the Domestic Abuse and Family Proceedings Bill. We must ensure that there is knowledge, understanding and application of domestic abuse law as it relates to parental alienation.

We are mindful that these amendments and the Bill in general would address only issues relating to parental alienation at the point at which harm has been caused. While it may dissuade such behaviour in the future, we also recognise that prevention and earlier and better support for parents—and between parents and children—are key to improving long-term outcomes for children and families. There is a need for better collaboration between health and justice departments right across the UK in respect of this and specific policies on alienation.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I support the Bill. The mental and physical damage of domestic abuse goes far beyond the pain and anguish caused at the time it occurs and stays with the victims and their families for many years, if not for the rest of their lives. It is important that we do all we can in this legislation to help victims to get out of abusive relationships and rebuild their lives.

I speak to Amendments 2 and 4, which propose to add parental alienation to the definition of abusive behaviour and therefore to every provision of the Bill. I fear that the proposed amendments may undo much of the work that the Bill seeks to do to protect victims of domestic abuse by swinging the pendulum of control back to the perpetrator of domestic abuse, rather than the victim, in making counterallegations.

Without meaning to sound flippant, at its extreme, any parent going through a break-up or divorce could find themselves of accused of domestic abuse under the Bill, and that is not what the Bill is intended for. I wonder whether the concern of the noble Lords who tabled these amendments is already covered by the combination of Clause 1(3)(e) and Clause 1(5). Alternatively, if the noble Lords behind the amendments have a specific instance in mind, they should look at where that could be catered for in specific clauses, but not as a wholesale change to the entire Bill in this way.

I can see these amendments having massive unintended consequences if they are included. I urge the Committee to accept neither change, to maintain the integrity of the Bill.

[Baroness Newlove (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I speak to Amendments 2 and 4 on parental alienation. As the former Victims’ Commissioner, over the years, I have spoken to many domestic abuse victim survivors, and I have spoken about parental alienation. I know that this issue has been raised several times over many years from several parts of the country. No doubt like others in this House, I have been inundated with briefings and emails from domestic abuse organisations and victim survivors.

Most recently, we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friends, the domestic abuse commissioner, the Victims’ Commissioner, Dame Vera Baird, and the London victims’ commissioner, Claire Waxman, who all say that they are very concerned about parental alienation. As we have heard, the domestic abuse commissioner is very concerned about giving perpetrators of domestic abuse a weapon to silence their victims in the family courts.

Submissions to a Ministry of Justice report last year made it plain that parental alienation is a barrier to victims of abuse. Current practices around parental alienation expose domestic abuse survivors and their children to further harm. Once again, silencing the victims of abuse and erasing the voice of children in the courts leads to their being regularly misunderstood or overlooked.

The criminal justice system and the justice system have been part of my DNA since 2007, so it does not sit comfortably with me to say that I also disagree with the amendments. However, hand on heart, I say to my noble friend Lady Meyer that her speech was very emotional, heartfelt and powerful. The justice system is a very lonely place to be. It still feels very lonely, clinical and unemotional and my voice is unheard as I go through it every day. I agree with my noble friend Lady Helic and the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. Parental alienation creates a loophole. It poses a huge threat to the validity of the Bill and will ultimately expose the survivors to the very harm that the Bill is designed to prevent. That is why I cannot support the amendments and ask my noble friends to withdraw or not to move them.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, some of the earlier amendments to the Bill have been about removing stress from survivors, particularly when they are in court. I support Amendment 130 moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and my amendment is a friendly amendment. Our amendments are about removing stress from children, which I think noble Lords will agree is a very noble cause. As other noble Lords have found, we have been contacted by an incredible number of people and organisations, who have explained that this is a problem and it needs fixing. The presumption of contact in certain family law cases involving domestic abuse needs to be rethought. Obviously, it is incredibly important in many family situations to help children maintain contact with both parents, but in circumstances of domestic abuse this can be precisely the opposite of what needs to happen and can result in disaster.

The whole point of family courts is that they are supposed to be about the welfare of the child, but it seems that too often a court maintains contact in situations that are obviously very harmful to children. The courts apply this presumption of contact too rigidly. Rather than acting as a presumption which can be rebutted, it has become more of an overriding obsession. It has been described as creating a “culture of contact” which pervades the entire family court system and then excludes other aspects of a child’s welfare, including listening to the child’s wishes and protecting them from abuse.

This culture of contact has led to serious tragedies. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned the Women’s Aid report Nineteen Child Homicides documents 19 children in 12 families who were killed at the hands of abusive fathers during unsupervised contact between the years 2005 and 2015. One example of a tragedy was Darren Sykes, who murdered his two children and took his own life by setting fire to his attic. Despite a consistent history of domestic abuse, and against the wishes of the two little boys, the pro-contact culture of the family courts led to Sykes being granted unsupervised contact with the children for five hours each week. This culminated in him taking the boys up to the attic, barricading the three of them in, and setting multiple fires. Mortally wounded, one of the boy’s last words were spoken to a firefighter. He said, “My dad did this, and he did it on purpose.”

Each one of these deaths is a preventable tragedy. Your Lordships have a duty, through the Bill, to prevent each one of them happening again to another child. My amendment to Amendment 130 has a straight- forward purpose: to ensure that unsupervised contact is not granted where the court has found that domestic abuse has taken place, or where there is a relevant criminal conviction. It should be put beyond doubt that a parent cannot have unsupervised contact when they have been proven to be a domestic abuser. This is a simple proposition: too many children are murdered by parents who are known—and who have been shown —to be abusive. We must protect these children and say, “Never again”.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am very supportive of the Bill. The mental and physical damage of domestic abuse goes far beyond the pain and anguish caused at the time it occurs and stays with victims and their families for many years, if not for the rest of their lives. It is important that we do all we can in this legislation to help victims to get out of abusive relationships and rebuild their lives.

I will speak on Amendments 130 and 130A and propose to add parental alienation to the definition of abusive behaviour and, therefore, every provision of the Bill. I fear that the amendments may undo much of the work which the Bill seeks to do to protect victims of domestic abuse and swing the pendulum of control back to the perpetrator of that abuse, rather than the victim, if they make counter-allegations.

Without meaning to sound flippant I say that, at the extreme, any parent going through a break-up or divorce could find themselves accused of domestic abuse under this Act. That is not what the Bill is intended for. I wonder if the concerns of noble Lords on these amendments are already covered by the combination of Clause 1(3)(e) and (5). Alternatively, if they had a specific instance in mind, they should look at where that can be catered for in specific clauses, not by a wholesale change to the entire Act in this way.

The noble Lord, Lord Marks, has made it clear that direct cross-examination can cause great distress. It is important to help all people in vulnerable situations. I can see these amendments having massive unintended consequences if they are included. I urge the House not to accept either of these changes, so as to maintain the integrity of the Act.

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak principally to Amendment 130 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. Parental contact is, of course, enormously important. Continued contact can be very dangerous both mentally and physically, but it can be beneficial. To make the right decision for each family is of the utmost importance, and sometimes people get it wrong. However, my support for the amendment is nuanced. I support proposed new subsection (4) but I add that a parent of either sex who has been found to exercise controlling or coercive behaviour should probably not have continued contact with the children. Such contact is likely to be used to continue controlling the partner. The child becomes a pawn in the fight with the partner.

I know an appalling example of this. Years after a divorce between an American dad and a British mum, the mother is required to pay to fly to the US five or six times a year to take her child to the father for contact. Because she cannot trust the father to allow the child to come back, the mother keeps the passport. This means that, after the week’s contact, she has to fly to the US and pick up the child. Even Covid was not accepted as a reason not to go, and the mother caught it on the plane back to the UK over Christmas. The child does not want to go to see her father but is being used as a pawn.

I accept that anecdotal evidence is of limited value; I am a great believer in research. However, I ask that, before Report, the presumption of parental contact be considered in the context of controlling or coercive behaviour and the results of relevant research on the issue.

The first part of the amendment assumes that the presumption of parental contact should not apply in relation to a parent where domestic abuse has affected the child or other parent. I support the implication that parental contact should be very carefully assessed in these circumstances, but the wording of the amendment could be nuanced before Report. I fully accept that it should not be presumed that parental contact would apply in these circumstances.

In my experience, even when domestic abuse against children as well as a partner has occurred, this should not necessarily rule out parental contact. This depends on the nature of the abuse, the ages and level of understanding of the children, the presence or absence of controlling behaviour—a key factor in the situation—and an overall assessment of the potential harms and benefits involved. I also broadly support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, but I would qualify it on Report.

While again recognising the limited value of individual cases, I will illustrate with a personal experience my point that very serious domestic abuse and continued parental contact may be compatible and, indeed, helpful. The case I will cite involves abuse of children by a mother. As with abuse by a father, abuse by a mother can be extraordinarily damaging, and it can take the authorities a very long time to recognise it.

A male member of my family and his children suffered what can be described only as severe trauma over several years. It took Cafcass and the judicial system two and a half years to recognise that the person who was lying about her abuse of her children, and making up allegations, was in fact the mother. The authorities assumed at that time that mothers did not abuse their children. The very little eight year-old girl climbed up on a chair and unbolted the front door—she was always locked into her mother’s house—ran to the bus stop, managed to get on the right bus and get off at the right stop, and ran one mile through Tottenham to her dad’s house. Only then did the matter go back to court and the judge recognised that he and everyone else involved had made an appalling mistake. Having required the children to live with their mother for two and a half years, the lead social worker in the case finally made it clear that the children should only visit her but certainly not live with her.

The children have lived with their father ever since, but all have suffered from various levels of PTSD. They have had years of therapy, paid for the father, not by the state. Despite the abuse of the children and the damage to them, this father has encouraged contact with the mother. Once the children were safely placed with their father, he felt it was important for them to accept that their mum could not provide parenting but that she was, nevertheless, herself a victim. Her behaviour very much reflected her own experiences as a child. The children know that they cannot expect normal parenting, but they understand her mental state and therefore see her as a person with her own problems. In my view, they have benefited very much from the fact that they are not left with only the horrendous memories of their abuse as small children.

My personal experience, while only anecdotal, explains why I feel so strongly about the issue of parental contact. It is very complex yet hugely important. In conclusion, I support both these amendments but would like to see them adjusted before Report.