John McDonnell
Main Page: John McDonnell (Independent - Hayes and Harlington)Department Debates - View all John McDonnell's debates with the Home Office
(11 years ago)
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Stella Creasy
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman and he will have heard the voices of other victims. People have said to me, “The only reason there is police interest in your case is that you are a high-profile person.” I think that is an honest assessment, and I have said that that should not be why there is interest in any case.
We heard from the family of Clare Bernal and the Clough family during the inquiry, and Sam Taylor, who was a victim of stalking, is an amazingly inspiring woman for her fortitude in dealing with this. The police need to understand the range of behaviours and identify the different types of risk people face.
I will talk about online activity shortly, but first I want to point out that victims must also be asked about what they think should happen. When people are under this sort of pressure, we should not flinch from saying that the impact on the victim is paramount. Therefore, if someone is distressed, that is reason enough for the police to act and the CPS to be involved.
We also recognise that insufficient resources are put into this. There is a fear that we might open the floodgates, but if there are floodgates to be opened, we need to address that. That is one of the challenges we face.
I feel I can add a little insight in terms of online forms of behaviour, and I am very mindful of the fact that 50% of stalking cases involve both online and offline behaviour. That is part and parcel of modern life because we now spend our lives both online and offline. Our freedoms are involved in that, too, and, as I have said, stalking and harassment is about curtailing people’s freedoms and inciting distress in them, and therefore making it impossible for them to lead their lives as before. I direct the Minister to the work of Claire Hardaker, at Lancaster university, who is trying to understand online harassment and stalking. She was recently commissioned to do such research, and it would send an incredibly powerful message if the Home Office looked at it.
In my own case, the difficulties the current legislation has in dealing with the world online became powerfully obvious. The legislation refers to a “course of conduct” or a consistent type of behaviour, and the question is whether the same metrics for that course of conduct can be applied to the online and offline environments. When the Opposition were scrutinising the legislation, we tried to get the Government to think about a list of types of behaviour that we, the CPS and the police might be looking out for, because we recognised that as life evolves and people have a life online and a life offline it is important to ensure that we are not missing particular types of behaviour.
Although the legislation refers to sending e-mails, it does not even begin to deal with the very different types of behaviour that occur in the social media that are now so much part of the modern world, such as the ways in which and ease with which people can be contacted, and the ways a victim can express concern and displeasure about the messages they are receiving and behaviour they are experiencing. My concern is that the attempt is being made to apply the “course of conduct” test to the online and offline worlds in a similar way. There is the sense that if someone is experiencing serious alarm or distress online, it is somehow less serious. Instead, we need to understand that, if that person is experiencing such pressure, and if it is coming from someone whom they have told—whether online or offline—they do not want to have contact with, we should not see it as being any different.
The course of conduct deadlines need to be updated for both the CPS and the police, so that the different ways in which the online world works are recognised. One example is the different time periods relating to a course of conduct. Offline, we might be talking about a contact period of days or even weeks; online, an hour is a long time. Both Caroline and I experienced people setting up accounts in order to send us rape and death threats, causing us harassment and severe distress. We publicly said that this was causing us severe distress, and they had their accounts suspended, although they started new ones. However, the question whether each incident is seen as a separate course of conduct, or something that took place over the course of an hour, cannot be dealt with under the current legislation. That example makes a powerful case, which my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has also made, for cyber-awareness within the police force—for understanding that these are the ways in which online behaviour works.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
May I amplify the point? It is not just about the individuals concerned and the continuous nature of such behaviour over a limited period, but the prompting of others to participate in what almost becomes a conspiracy of attack.
Stella Creasy
My hon. Friend has literally taken the words out of my mouth; he is absolutely right. As I was about to say, we think of a course of conduct in terms of person-to-person contact. It is vital to understand that with social media, the ability to have an audience, to have spectators, is crucial to the level of stress that can be caused. Even if a perpetrator is not directly contacting somebody, by using that public forum they are using the way in which the internet and social media work to get a message to somebody. We need the police and the CPS to understand that, to understand just how dangerous these new forms of behaviour can be, so that they can act to protect people.
I encourage the Minister to revisit the debates we had a year ago on the importance of having a more extensive list, in order to give a flavour of the range of behaviours. Nobody is suggesting that there can be an exhaustive list of behaviours for stalking, but we need to recognise that there are sections of our society, and of our lives, that the training has not begun to touch, and that people are being abused as a result.
I am hopeful that the police and the CPS will take note of what has happened not just to me and Caroline Criado-Perez, but to a number of women in the public eye, and use it to develop guidelines. Many people have been affected by these issues. I have been contacted by people from across the country since the summer, and each of those stories shares some of the characteristics concerning how we deal with online behaviour. The fear is very real.
I am sad to see that there is no one here from the Ministry of Justice today, but I urge the Minister for Immigration, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), to work with the CPS not only to get the training in place but to get a commitment about test cases. It must be made clear that, as the world evolves, we will not falter in our determination to change the way in which the legislation is being used. We must ensure that the police, the CPS and the judiciary as a whole are what I would call cyber-sensitive. Just as we would not say to a woman, “Don’t walk down those streets at night”, we must ensure that we do not say, “Just come off Twitter and Facebook. Don’t put yourself in a position of risk. You must curtail your freedoms and rights so that we don’t need to deal with the risk that you are facing.” We need to send a strong message that these behaviours must be addressed and changed offline and online, throughout all the areas that I have described.
I am sure that we have all heard Laura Richards say that we need to change the culture so that we recognise stalkers as predators. These cases are not about a spurned loved one. I imagine that all of us who are in the public eye are fairly robust. We have all dealt with words, messages and debates that have been close to the bone, but this legislation was designed to deal with something very different—predatory behaviour. It was designed to deal with the person who will send 50 rape threats in an hour, not just on one night but over the course of two weeks. I have received another threat this week, which is terribly bad timing for this debate, as it is now months since it all happened.
Those people will not stop unless we change the culture and recognise that we are talking about predators in our society who will use a range of means to control and distress people. This is a matter for the law, and it is about how the law is applied. It is also about how we make good on the promise we made in this House a year ago that we would change this offence, that we would finally deal with this and that we would bring justice to the victims and find a form of prevention.
I hope that the Minister will listen to the genuine pleas from a range of sources about the difference that that would make. I would be happy to talk to him further about my personal experience, and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) and I would also be happy to introduce him to other people who are dealing with these worries. We have to get this right. We cannot have another year of not getting the levels of prosecutions that we should be getting, given the number of cases that are coming forward. Our frustration is growing, not diminishing. This is not justice; it is not fair and this is not the kind of Britain that we want it to be.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
In all the justice debates over the past 10 years, I have felt the hidden hand of Harry Fletcher on us all, especially as we are probably reciting from the briefing papers that he has provided. I again thank him and Laura for the work that they have done. I keep saying to him that he should stand for election to this place, but if he cannot do that, perhaps some political party could nominate him to the other place, because he would be a valuable asset. Instead of writing the briefing papers, he might be able to make speeches about them.
Mention has been made of the justice unions group of which I am the secretary and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) is the chair. I am also secretary of the fan club for the right hon. Gentleman, who has announced his retirement—it is not retirement but desertion—and I am trying to encourage him to stay on and stick with us.
As the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) said, the debate on the stalking law started at the justice unions group a number of years ago. We received papers from Harry Fletcher, Laura and others explaining the problem, and the right hon. Gentleman came up with the idea of setting up a separate all-party group to carry out the investigation. I apologise for attending only a couple of those sessions, but they were enlightening to say the least.
I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) took the decision to speak and to explain some element of her experience. We hear from other people who have had equally horrendous experiences. To have got the legislation in place within such a time scale from a Back-Bench initiative was a near miracle, and certainly set a precedent, but, as has been said, we are now a year on. What we have done so far is all well and good, but we must also ensure that the law is implemented properly. What we have heard across the House is that there are real issues with implementation.
A number of hon. Members quoted the arrest statistics, the comparison with Scotland, and training. May I make a number of suggestions? On training, it would be helpful if the Government brought in the police and crime commissioners, the Magistrates Association and the Crown Prosecution Service to have a joint discussion about where we go from here. There is an inconsistent approach across the country in the e-training of the police. Some police authorities and police and crime commissioners have taken the matter to heart and engaged in the process, but others have not. The job of Government is not to interfere in the local aspects of what is happening on the ground but to encourage a consistent approach. As has been said, that applies to the police in terms of training, the CPS in terms of training and possibly how it prioritises such matters, and the Magistrates Association in terms of what is happening in the courts. Producing that defined line is the role of Government. It is not about interfering, but about bringing people together to discuss how we go forward more effectively. In doing that, it would be useful if the Minister involved the justice unions group and Paladin in the discussions, so that we can develop a national strategy.
Let me turn to a couple of contentious issues. The proposed new legislation on probation will mean that there is the potential for a large number of people who have been convicted of stalking to be categorised in due course as low or medium-risk offenders and to be managed not by the probation service, as they are now, but by the private company that will take over some of that work. Apart from my opposition to the privatisation overall, that makes me anxious because we have still to learn the details of the professional qualifications and level of training and experience in the supervision of offenders that the private company’s staff will have. We await the details from the Government and a number of us will seek to insert something into the legislation to ensure that there is the required standard of service. I would welcome an assurance that part of that will involve training people on stalking and the legislation. I am worried that in the rush to get the legislation to privatise the probation service through—that is, the provisions in the Offender Rehabilitation Bill on the supervision of nought to 12-month sentences—we will lose expertise and no longer concentrate on training people on the legislation on stalking.
As well as the justice unions group, we have established a family courts unions group, which met this week. The legal aid cuts mean that there are more litigants in person, so a large number of cases now involve two individuals turning up without any legal representation whatsoever to pursue their cases in the courts themselves. We are also concerned that ex-partners who have become stalkers then use the family courts as part of the stalking process to intimidate their former partners though a dispute that is often unrelated to the future of their children. The existence of litigants in person will mean that behaviour in courts will become increasingly difficult to control. In the past such people will have received legal aid and legal representation and there would have been some control over the presentation of their cases. When they become litigants in person, it is extremely difficult to ensure that they behave in a manner that is not threatening or abusive. As part of the monitoring of the stalking legislation, we must monitor whether our family courts, in particular, are being used for abusive behaviour by past stalkers.
Court reports have also been mentioned. The cuts to the probation service and the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service have increased the workload of the officers and mean that although people are meeting their targets as best they can, it is becoming increasingly difficult to provide court reports or even to enable time to be spent on ensuring that sufficient information is provided to the court. It has now been reported that cuts in the court service have led to some of those staff being involved in the drafting of court directions as there are insufficient clerks within the courts. The situation in some of our family courts is almost chaotic.
The other issue brought up by the family courts unions group this week concerns contact centres. Again, many of the cases of stalking we have heard of have involved past partners who, for a variety of reasons, have continued abusive behaviour after separation. Often, they will be granted access to their children but it will be supervised access, often through contact centres. There is a report in the Law Society Gazette this week, I think, and we received a report from the National Association of Probation Officers and the Public and Commercial Services Union that states that there will be cuts to the contact centres and some are now closing. They are usually run by voluntary organisations, charities and others but because of cuts, often to local funding, contact centres are closing or curtailing their facilities. There is a concern that cuts overall might mean that contact centres cannot be properly supervised. If a contact centre is not available, we return to unsupervised contact, leaving victims of stalking and abuse vulnerable. I would like the Minister to look at that. The family courts unions group would welcome a meeting with him to discuss it and the courts issues. As I have said, the important thing now is to ensure that the system is geared up for implementation of the legislation, and central Government have a role to play in that by overseeing different aspects of the processes involved.
The briefing papers that Paladin provided show that there is an unusual inconsistency across the country. In some instances that might be down to the personal priorities of the police and crime commissioner, or the background and experience of the individual chef police officers. I think that it is the role of Government, when introducing legislation, to ensure its consistent implementation across the country, because otherwise it will become a postcode lottery whether stalkers are prosecuted, whether the police are adequately trained and whether other services are adequately resourced to tackle what at least is now accepted as a significant issue in our society.
Mr Harper
I listened carefully to the hon. Lady’s point on that issue. The inter-ministerial group on violence against women and girls, which is chaired by the Home Secretary, draws together the Government’s efforts on this matter and on the support for victims. I will draw the hon. Lady’s point to the attention of the Home Secretary.
There are some offences for online communications that do not require a course of conduct, some of which can result in custodial sentences. I think that the DPP’s guidelines are clear and robust. The hon. Lady is right that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Like us, she will want to see that the guidelines are taken seriously by Crown prosecutors.
As I said, police and crime commissioners should remember the “and crime” part of their job title. This matter is absolutely within their remit in their local areas. As well as looking at the police’s response to these offences, they should look at the response of the Crown Prosecution Service and the way in which it works with the police. One advantage of police and crime commissioners over the police authorities that we had previously is that they can pull those organisations together locally and get them to work more effectively together. Commissioners can draw to the attention of those organisations the guidelines that the DPP has issued and ensure that they are followed locally.
I will draw the specific concerns of the hon. Lady to the attention of the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary. I am sure that she will monitor the matter closely and come back to us if she does not see action on the ground.
My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) cited some good work that has been done by the university of Worcester and the Worcestershire forum against domestic violence. They have done some very practical work to raise awareness of the new law and to hear from victims. From his description, it was clear that that was part of a preventive strategy, which is something that has been raised by the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) and others.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham asked specifically about data, which we have spoken a little about. Convictions and sentencing data are collected by the Ministry of Justice and published on an annual basis. The data for 2012 were therefore published just a short period after the offences under sections 2A and 4A were inserted into the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Headline data on court proceedings have been published, but those are at a high level. Detailed data will be published for this calendar year in May next year—that is when properly robust and assured data will be published.
On policing information, we are working on a new method of data collection specifically to call out the offences from this legislation, but again that will not be available at national level until next year. More detailed information is available at police force level, and I know that Labour Members and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd have attempted to get those data from police forces under freedom of information legislation. The Home Office is working to publish those data on a consistent basis at national level, and will be able to do so next year.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham and others, including the hon. Member for Warrington North, mentioned sentencing guidelines. The Sentencing Council plans to start work on a new public order guideline in 2014, and it will consider guidance on stalking offences as part of that. Several Members, including the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, mentioned out-of-court disposals by police forces. The Justice Secretary has announced a review of those, and we will ensure that for both stalking and domestic violence, we look specifically at whether out-of-court disposals—cautioning, for example—are being used properly and appropriately for these serious issues.
I am conscious that I want to leave time for the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd to wind up this debate, which I have found very constructive. Members have raised a lot of serious issues, and I hope I have been able to demonstrate that the Government take the issue seriously and want to drive responses across a number of organisations.
John McDonnell
Will the Minister take back to his Department the request from the family courts unions parliamentary group for a meeting about the closure of family contact centres?