Same Roof Rule: Familial Sexual Abuse Cases

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

I welcome this opportunity to raise a little-known but significant issue. Before I move on to the substance of my remarks, I wish to put on the record a number of thanks. First, I thank Pat Strickland in the House of Commons Library for providing an excellent background briefing to the subject, and I also thank Alex Mayes of Victim Support, and Lisa Longstaff from the charity Women Against Rape, who provided me with further detail and powerfully put the case for change in the current legislation. I would also like to thank Andrew Perriman, a senior lecturer in law at Teesside University, who gave me a real insight into the problem and identified potential solutions. Above all, I would like to thank my constituent Alissa Moore, who has shown great personal courage in speaking out about her case.

--- Later in debate ---

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Andrew Stephenson.)

[Iain Stewart]

My constituent, Alissa Moore, whose personal case has led me to seek this debate, has shown exceptional courage in speaking out and a great tenacity in pushing for a change to the regulations. Let me introduce the substance of the issue by giving details of Alissa’s story. I have her permission to relay the details.

Alissa and her sisters were sexually abused in their own home by their father when they were children over a long period of time. In Alissa’s own words, she said her father

“sexually abused me from the age of seven until I was 15. I was petrified of him. I couldn’t get away. I say seven, but he was caught abusing me aged one by my mother. I don’t think anyone knows what it feels like to be a child hiding under your covers, knowing that at any time your father is going to creep into your bed and rape you, and that this is something that happens almost every night. The nightmares still affect me today at the age of 53. The fear is still inside. The anxiety stops me doing so much more.”

Alissa kept her awful secret to herself until three years ago, when another family member reported her father to the police. Her father was convicted in 2015 and is rightly serving a 24-year prison sentence for his horrible crimes. She was advised by the police to make a claim to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, as she still needs medication and counselling to deal with the trauma of her attacks. However—this is my reason for seeking the debate—while her sisters were eligible for compensation, she was not, owing to the 1979 same roof rule. The rule prevents any survivor who was living with their abuser, as a member of the same family at the time of an assault, from claiming compensation if the offence took place before 1 October 1979. In Alissa’s case, her abuse stopped just a month or two before that deadline, while her sisters’ continued after the date. That cannot be right.

I will go on, later in my speech, to argue the case for wider reform of the same roof rule, but my first request of the Minister tonight is to look at a relaxation of the rule when the abuse was perpetrated by the same person or persons to members of the same family, irrespective of whether that happened before or after the 1 October 1979 deadline. I do not believe that there are many such cases, so the administrative and financial consequences of doing that would be minimal. That would be an enormous relief to my constituent and others in her situation. It would remove one of the most absurd anomalies of the legislation and allow each familial case of abuse to be treated as a whole. It would bring closure and enormous relief to people who have suffered greatly.

I would also like to make the case for the wider reform of the same roof rule. My understanding is that the intended purpose of the same roof rule was to prevent perpetrators of such despicable acts from benefiting financially from their crimes. I have to say that I struggle to understand the logic, because surely any compensation paid could have come with conditions so that the perpetrator would not be able to benefit. I am not a legal expert, but surely that could have been a way around it. Surely there could be some modification to differentiate the claims of those who still live with the perpetrator, or are likely to do so in the future, from cases in which that is not going to happen. The proposal has been made by Andrew Perriman of Teesside University, and it relates to paragraph 20 of the scheme. The distinction already applies to cases that occurred after the 1 October threshold. Why could it not apply to cases that predate it?

Over many years, Governments of all colours have been asked to review the rule. When they have done so, the defence for maintaining the status quo has been that change would cause a disproportionate financial and administrative burden. Those are not factors that we should dismiss lightly, but I remain to be convinced that such a burden would result. I have yet to see definitive figures from the Government for the number of cases that would be expected to arise. Andrew Perriman’s research suggests that it would be about 80 a year, and that the compensation per case would probably be less than about £20,000. That does not strike me as a disproportionate burden on the public purse, but if my figures—or Mr Perriman’s—are wrong, I should be grateful to be told why that is the case.

Mr Perriman also proposes a solution to the funding issue, if there is one. He has established that the Ministry of Justice has an annual £500,000 hardship fund which is barely touched in any one year; in one recent year, the amount spent was less than £2,000. Could that pot of money not be reallocated to the small number of cases involved? As the charity Women Against Rape has pointed out to me, achieving justice and compensation is seen by the victims as a proper and official recognition of the wrong that has been done to them, and it is often a crucial step on their path to recovery.

I also believe that the time is right for us to consider reforming wider aspects of the same roof rule, and the way in which rape victims are treated more generally. Not only is there currently a much higher focus on historical sexual abuse cases, but I know that the Secretary of State and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority are considering separate but related concerns, such as the two-year limit after the date of the crime for requesting compensation, the absurdity of some claims being rejected because the child supposedly complied with the attack, and the denial of compensation to those with criminal convictions when there is plenty of evidence to suggest that those convictions arose, directly or indirectly, as a result of the abuse that they were receiving. In all those scenarios, we need to have a much more compassionate understanding of the impact that such crimes have on individuals, and set our regulations more humanely.

In securing the debate, my principal focus has been on the problem that my constituent Alissa Moore displayed to me. If the Minister can do nothing else tonight, I hope that he will give careful consideration to making the adjustments that I have suggested in cases in which all the abuse happened within one family, regardless of whether one particular attack happened before or after the 1 October deadline. I hope that he will also take this opportunity to look afresh at the wider issues that I have outlined. Victims of sexual assaults often feel that they have been doubly punished, first by the attacks themselves and secondly by the way in which they can be treated by the system. Surely we can do better than this.

Let me conclude by thanking, again, all those who have provided me with information, and have deepened my understanding of what is a very complex issue. Above all else, let me give heartfelt thanks to my constituent Alissa Moore for her bravery in speaking out so that she may be helped to gain closure, but also so that she can help those who still suffer in silence. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively.