Domestic Abuse Offences

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I first commend the hon. Gentleman for his courage in telling his personal story. We are all moved by it—I know I am—and I thank him for that. He has shown himself to be a determined, capable Member of Parliament, and I wish him well.

Across Northern Ireland, we witness people being arrested for first-time domestic offences. Ultimately, the charges are not prosecuted in court and the cases are dropped. Fast forward and people are re-arrested for domestic charges that are in fact worse, showing a pattern of escalating violence. Does he agree that arrests for domestic abuse must be fully investigated and, if proven, prosecuted to the full extent of the law to protect people from violence and instil confidence in the judicial system?

[Josh Babarinde]

I thank my friend the hon. Member for his kind words, and I completely agree that all abusers, domestic or not, must face the full force of the law. It is critical that happens for victims and survivors to have confidence in the police and our wider criminal justice system, and that is lacking for many victims and survivors. We see that in some of the consequences of the SDS40—standard determinate sentences—early release scheme that the Government had to implement in the light of the poor state that the last Government left our prisons in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) for speaking so movingly and convincingly.

I want to raise the case of a constituent who has come to me with multiple problems to do with her abusive husband. He is not yet her ex-husband, because he is stalling the divorce process, and hiding and dissipating assets. I worked briefly in family law, so I know that this is by no means an unusual situation and that, in most cases, it is the man who is involved in perpetrating this sort of thing. If this was happening in any other situation—for instance, between two business partners—such actions would be prosecuted as fraud, but when pursued through the family court, as they are all the time, they are not prosecuted at all; they are just treated as one of those things.

Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 created the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship. An example of coercive or controlling behaviour is economic abuse, including coerced debt, controlling spending and similar activities. However, in this case the husband is no longer directly controlling or coercing the wife because they are separated; he is just spending all of their money and she cannot stop it.

Economic abuse that relates to deliberately dissipating someone else’s assets is not really dealt with. Many victims of domestic abuse have their personal finances ruined in the course of their relationships. It is a real problem that any insolvency solution that might help them to rebuild their finances involves having their home address and other personal details published online in the insolvency register. That deters a lot of people from getting involved in the insolvency solutions that would enable them to start to rebuild their finances and their lives.

One can apply to withhold the details of addresses and so forth, but that involves paperwork, possible court proceedings and a fee of £300, which is a huge amount of money for someone who is already in an insolvency process. There is a strong argument that we need to reform the process and potentially make the insolvency register private.

Finally, I again thank the hon. Member for Eastbourne for securing the debate. I thank Cheshire Without Abuse, which does work in this area in my constituency, and the Money Wellness service, which people can engage with if they are having money difficulties.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady has brought to mind a circumstance that I, as an elected representative, have witnessed on a number of occasions over the past few years. A married man has secured a loan on a joint account held with his wife but then, when the relationship fell apart and all the money in the bank was away, she was left with the loan, so she was done over twice. That is an example of a situation that could be sorted out in the legislation that the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) referred to, and I thank the hon. Lady for mentioning the issue.

[Mrs Russell]

I have seen instances like that within my own social circle. It is not unusual and a lot of the people involved appear to be people who would have engaged with the bank. I know banks have some safeguards around this sort of thing now, but they are inadequate and people are often left in terrible financial situations.

In conclusion, I thank the hon. Member for Eastbourne and I wish him luck with his campaign.