Domestic Violence and Abuse

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the importance of addressing domestic abuse is moving up the agenda, which is to the good. As the noble Baroness made quite clear, it is a people’s issue and not just a women’s issue, so I congratulate the one man in our debate—he contributed very effectively.

We are all aware of the significance of public awareness, in general and on the part of those affected—a point made by the noble Viscount—and those who abuse. None of today’s speakers come new to this subject, but we will all have been shocked by what we have heard and been reminded of, not least by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. I suspect we all have experience of discussing this with other people and seeing disbelief or dawning belief on their faces. That is particularly so in the case of coercive control, now recognised in law and by more, but not all, of the public.

I want to think aloud about two prominent points in the Government’s proposals. The first is the creation of a new offence. I am not arguing against consolidating what we have, but when legislation is proposed I always wonder whether it is because the Government do not quite know what to do, or know but want to avoid the issue of resources, or want to transfer responsibility to local government or the third sector, usually without resources. My concern is that violence and abuse are crimes now. We must all have argued against the characterisation of “just a domestic”, and I do not want us to do anything that diminishes the seriousness of the criminality. I might be more comfortable if we built on current offences but with recognised aggravating factors that can affect sentencing.

On that point, has the Sentencing Council been part of discussions about the proposed legislation? Indeed, what consultation has there been generally and what responses have the Government received? We all know that although legislation is important, and can indeed sometimes lead the way, it is attitude and culture that really matter. I have to acknowledge that a number of noble Lords made very powerful cases for changes in the law, but I do not think that that is inconsistent with the point I am making.

My second thought is on the creation of a commissioner—we used to have tsars, but I much prefer the term “commissioner”. I query whether the position is appropriate here, but that is not to question the energy or ability of those who fill various commissioner roles at present. Will the Government be transferring to the commissioner what should be their role and responsibilities?

Noble Lords have rightly emphasised the horrifying statistics. There is one trend I would like to mention: the prevalence of domestic violence in teenage relationships. To me, that says a lot about gender stereotyping and the importance of very wide PHSE. Perhaps domestic violence is one aspect of a set of wider issues.

On the point of connections, I want to mention a project run by Safer London—here I declare an interest as a member of the board. The project stems from its gang exit work, which includes relocating young people and their families when they are determined to get out of gang membership and activity. Safer London’s pan-London housing reciprocal agreement serves London boroughs and registered housing providers with reciprocal offers of housing to enable women and their families, who for their own safety need to get away from their home area, to move within London. It is very small-scale, but it is important.

Mentioning resources, in his contribution to the Queen’s Speech debate my noble friend Lord Paddick referred to local authorities outsourcing the provision of refuges, with contracts whose requirements are narrow so that the provision is the bare minimum of a roof—the physical provision—but not the very necessary support. We cannot avoid the issue of local authority funding.

The issues that any Government must address rarely exist in a vacuum but are related to other concerns. I want to draw attention to the circumstances faced by women whose experience of abuse leads, directly or indirectly, to them committing offences, usually minor. The Prison Reform Trust is undertaking a programme aimed at reducing women’s imprisonment. It seems from that work that the criminal justice agencies need better to understand the dynamics of domestic abuse, the behaviour of perpetrators and the effect on victims and survivors.

The Minister will not be surprised to hear me talk about training in this context, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, mentioned, and the need for joint working by and with specialist services. Again, it comes down to money, but also attitudes. I do not know whether the noble Baroness heard it, but this morning on the radio reference was made to police training comprising 25 minutes of a desktop module at the discretion of the police chief. I cannot comment on whether that was complete or accurate, but that was what was being discussed. It seems that this is affected by the turnover of police staff and officers.

Given that each speaker has the luxury of making a long speech, I will read part of the work done by the Prison Reform Trust:

“HMIC found in 2014 that in 30% of cases of actual bodily harm which were identified as domestic abuse related, there were counter allegations with both parties claiming to be the victim, and stated: ‘Information on the previous history is vital if officers are to be able to identify who the victim is in instances of counter allegations’”.


The work goes on to refer to a recent focus group, at which women commented that if the police attended an incident of domestic violence, it was more likely that their partner—the primary aggressor—would be calm, while they the victim would be agitated and lashing out, and therefore more likely to be arrested. One victim said:

“When the police do arrest you after a domestic incident, maybe because you’re the one that’s suffering you tend to be the one that’s going to kick out at the police. And the chap, you know your abuser, tends to be … dead calm …You just think, ‘I’m trapped again, I’m trapped.’ And my arrests have been when I feel trapped and then it’s just like everything’s like a volcano because you think, I’m getting framed here by my abuser and nobody seems to understand”.


The briefing I have seen refers to the need for police discretion in these circumstances. It goes on:

“Prosecutors must make the same judgement when deciding whether it is in the public interest to pursue a prosecution. Similar expectations must be placed on offender managers, defence solicitors and barristers, to identify where a defendant has been a victim of abuse or coercion and to ensure this is taken into account in decisions throughout the criminal justice process. Sentencers also have a critical role to play in ensuring that appropriate account is taken of women’s experiences of abuse and coercion. The provision of high quality pre-sentence report is essential here”.


I saw the noble Lord, Lord Bates, in the Chamber a few minutes ago. This would have been familiar to him as it was an issue in the Modern Slavery Bill and was taken into account in that Act.

This leads me inexorably to the importance of strategy and its implementation for women in the criminal justice system. The Corston model, as it has become known after the noble Baroness, of women centres is more effective than prison and much less expensive.

On joint working, can the Minister confirm that the Home Office is working with colleagues in the MoJ, the Department of Health and DCLG to deliver the long-promised strategy on women offenders that will improve the response of criminal justice agencies to victims and survivors of domestic abuse, including through ongoing training and sustained investment in the national network of women-specific services in the community?

Like other noble Lords, I have had connections with these issues for some time. This valuable debate has given us an opportunity to think afresh and to hear new points. However, I fear that this will not be last time we will need to debate these issues.