Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims

Debate between Catherine West and Laura Farris

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

A point that I think we can all agree on is that victims should not have to wait. Throughout the pandemic, we have seen how difficult it is to accelerate justice. In May last year, Lord Brown, the retired Supreme Court justice, wrote in The Times that it was time to abandon jury trials. He recalled the experience of judge-only trials in Northern Ireland during the troubles and recommended that we temporarily pursue that route.

The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) disagreed. On 20 June last year, he wrote:

“You don’t fix the backlog with trials that are widely perceived as unfair.”

He later came forward with his own proposal for “wartime juries” of seven people, which he thought might reduce the backlog by 15% to 20%. A number of practitioners disagreed, including Baroness Kennedy, who said that that was

“opening the door to sacrificing the precious way people in our communities contribute to something really important.”

Again and again, she has talked about the magic number of 12 people on a jury, which is what the Lord Chancellor has pursued.

I say that not to criticise any of the views to which I have referred, but because there are good, fair, sensible arguments for and against any of those options. All of them are imperfect, but all have at their heart access to justice and the execution of article 6 rights. I respectfully say that these delicate, nuanced considerations about delivering justice deserve more than the atmospherics of an Opposition day debate.

It is important to contextualise our backlog. It is striking how much better we are doing than equivalent jurisdictions. New Zealand has a population of 5 million and a backlog of 75,000. New York City—one city in one state—has a backlog of 50,000 criminal cases. It is important to look at the progress that we are making through the backlog. The latest figures published by the MOJ up to, I think, 25 April show that disposals are now at a level 5% higher than before the pandemic.

[Catherine West]

If 44% of the victims are walking away, the backlog is dealt with.

[Laura Farris]

I think I understand the hon. Lady’s implication. Of course I am not suggesting that the backlog is dealt with, but the critical point is the progress that we are making through the backlog rather than the number itself. It is right to say that disposals now outstrip receipts and we are reducing numbers, which is something that I think we should be very proud of.

I also think that there is real cause for optimism in how remote hearings have been used. From a standing start, we saw courts embracing nascent technology, and in 12 months they have delivered everything from a 12-week trial in the High Court to a complex jury inquest in Kent, all of it online. These changes are becoming embedded. In the future, we will be delivering justice in a way that is more efficient, more economical and crucially, I hope, more swift.

I would like to spend a moment on the issue of justice for women. I echo the remarks of the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), in that I think we do women a disservice if we reduce these questions to a political tit-for-tat, although I think the mood has shifted a little bit since the start of this debate. There are Opposition Members for whom I have a lot of respect on this issue, and they know that.

The Government have made good progress. Stalking, choking, revenge porn and rough sex are ugly crimes that have found their way on to the statute book, where they did not previously exist. Of course, we are not there yet, and it is a raw feeling to be speaking on this in the week when Wayne Couzens admitted to the abduction and rape of Sarah Everard, but that crime did not happen because of an absence of laws. In fact, Harriet Wistrich from the Centre for Women’s Justice gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee this morning, where she said that the fact is we do not need more legislation. Her concern, which she expressed powerfully, is that the police are failing to implement what is already there. Very respectfully, when I read the Labour Green Paper, I saw almost no reference to police failings at all.

I also think that we as a House have to be honest. While young people can pick up a phone, click a few buttons and watch rape porn, we have a problem. While schools and universities, and even workplaces, tolerate or at least turn a blind eye to misogyny and harassment in their midst, we have a problem. When young people are living in families where they see perhaps violence and misogyny exhibited in the home, we have a problem. The justice system is the end point, but if we are serious about violence against women and girls, we owe it to the victims to work seriously and collaboratively on the causes.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Catherine West and Laura Farris

Report stage & 3rd reading & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 6th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

I will confine my remarks to Government new clause 20, which concerns the rough sex defence. Those on the Front Bench should feel proud of the new clause. The first question that any Government have to answer when they bring new legislation before the House is why the legislation is needed. It has been said, “If the common law already says that someone cannot consent to serious injury or death, does Parliament need to legislate?” The answer is emphatically yes, and here is why. R v. Brown, the authority for this issue, which is nearly 30 years old, does not cover consent in all forms of sexual harm. There are other cases—contradictory cases—that can be applied, and we saw that pretty starkly in the case of Natalie Connolly, where R v. Brown was applied, but only in part. When it came to her internal injuries—the ones that were the most savagely inflicted, the most serious and the most proximate cause of death—the court applied a completely different case and concluded that the violence in that context was lawful. That could not happen under new clause 20, because it rules out the possibility of consenting to any serious harm for sexual gratification, and the inconsistency goes.

The second problem with Brown is that it answered one specific question: whether the defence of consent should apply to the infliction of bodily harm in the course of sadomasochistic encounters. I have heard it described as a case about consensual torture. That has always created the risk of conflating violent sex in a domestic abuse context with BDSM, as we saw in Natalie Connolly’s case and those of others. Sadomasochism becomes a prism through which the violence on the night is interpreted, because Brown invites that.

Not only does that traduce the reputation of the victim, but it offends one of the most fundamental principles of justice, that he who asserts must prove. In those serious cases, it was not proven in a way that a member of the public would understand. All we know is that it was violent and it was sexual and that she is dead. New clause 20 reduces the risk of the courts being drawn into such considerations by drawing a line through consent in the first place.

Above all, codifying the defence sends a powerful message about what we as a society say about sexual violence and degrading behaviour in a way that the common law never could. In fact, new clause 20 is not didactic—it does not try to tell people how to live their private lives—but it sends a powerful message to the perpetrator that they will be responsible for all the consequences of their actions, which is a game changer when rape convictions are at an all-time low.

The most affecting feature of the last two weeks has been other countries’ reactions to the Government’s decision. In New Zealand, where they were as appalled by the Grace Millane case as we were, Ireland, Hungary, Germany, France and Canada, people are writing about what the British Government are doing in the context of similar cases that have been before their courts and with reference to Members of their own Parliaments who are working to achieve the same thing. The Ministers involved should feel proud of the leadership that they have shown.

Finally, the most powerful message of new clause 20 is a tacit one about the dignity of the women who have been killed in this way. It is not the perpetrator in the dock who gets to define her, or the judge in his sentencing remarks, but we in Parliament who draw a line in the sand and say, in effect, what the victims and their families never could: that she could not consent to that.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a delight to have heard the excellent points of the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris). I put on record three fantastic women who have worked in this area in my constituency: Denise Marshall, who was the chief executive of Eaves, the wonderful Mary Mason, who was the chief executive of Solace Women’s Aid, and Harriet Wistrich, who is the director of the Centre for Women’s Justice and who worked hard on the Sally Challen case. That case is not dissimilar to those that the hon. Lady mentioned, although, of course, Sally Challen was acquitted after many years in prison and was subject to some awful coercive behaviour from her partner who she actually killed. My constituent Harriet Wistrich worked hard on that case, which is now a precedent. We need those important test cases to prove how we can improve the law and women’s experience.

I welcome three other elements of the Bill: first, the robust framework for the new domestic abuse commissioner; secondly, the two new civil protection orders, which will strengthen the everyday practice on domestic abuse; and thirdly, the secure lifetime tenancy in England housing authorities. I mention briefly the work of Hearthstone, which is Haringey Council’s excellent housing provision for women facing domestic violence. The fact that it is embedded in the local authority allows much better quality allocations for women who face uncertain housing situations.

The test of the Bill is not just how well written it is or what fantastic speeches we may give tonight, but the quality of the legal aid that women and victims of domestic violence can get day in, day out in our courts. I am sorry to say that legal aid still does not match the desperate need of so many women victims. I hope that the Government will look at the provision of legal aid in future, although not necessarily specifically in this legislation. In terms of the practice and the everyday experience, we need excellent legal representation for those women. I also put on record my support for amendment 35 looking at misogyny as a hate crime, which my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) has spoken eloquently about as part of the ratification of the Istanbul convention.

I want to put on record my support for new clause 22 for women who have insecure immigration status and a fear of deportation. Looking through my casework of this month, I had the case of a woman who had no recourse to public funds and was not able to gain access to important financial provisions in that she did not have access to housing benefit and all the other provisions. Fortunately, having written to the Home Office, my caseworker had an amazing success—a huge thank you to my team—but this cannot be down to individual cases on a case-by-case basis such as this; we need a much more holistic look at “no recourse to public funds”.

I was very pleased to hear the Minister announce this evening that there will be a pilot scheme worth £1.5 million, but I fear that pilot schemes peter out, are introduced very late on in the financial year and tend to be very piecemeal. In my view, we desperately need to pass new clause 22 so that we can take in the most vulnerable women, including those with no recourse to public funds, whom we see in our surgeries. We cannot rely on the fact that they may pop into our surgeries and we can write to the Home Office. We need a much more inclusive provision, so hon. Members should please vote for new clause 22.