Domestic Abuse Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Julie Marson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 12th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to the new powers in relation to terrorism offences, if I have understood correctly. That is a discrete part of the criminal justice system. Pre-charge bail has the potential to apply to pretty much every criminal offence, with the exception of the murder; it would clearly be very unusual for anyone facing a murder charge to be released on bail. Again, we have to look at the system in a holistic way, which is what we are planning. However, I will raise the point about risk with the NPCC so that in the intervening months, while the Bill is still going through Parliament—let us not forget that that does not finish when we finish here tonight; the Bill has some scrutiny ahead of it—we get the message through to the police chiefs, in addition to what we have already said, that this matter is of particular concern to the Committee.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

At the risk of sounding like a one-trick pony, I want to talk about some of my experience in court, touching on some things that we have just been speaking about, or that will be referred to later when the hon. Member for Hove speaks again about court.

My experience is that magistrates consistently deal with difficult cases. It is difficult to balance the rights of a victim and the rights of a defendant. I have not talked much about defendants, but it is true that we see a lot of defendants who have terrible stories to tell. In my maiden speech, I said that being a magistrate had changed my perspective on the world, because I had never seen the kinds of lives that were coming up in front of me, and not just of the victims but of the defendants.

I told the story of a boy who walked in on my first day, when I was still being mentored. He was 18 and it was his first appearance in an adult court. He looked about 10—he was tiny—and he was grey. I said to my mentor, “God, he can’t be in this court, surely,” and they said, “No, I know him from the family courts.” He was malnourished because his parents were drug addicts and he was never fed properly. He was grey because he was malnourished and he had been injected with heroin to keep him quiet as a child. But he had burgled an elderly couple’s house. There are lots of victims in a courtroom and it almost does not matter where they are sitting. It is a constant battle as a magistrate to weigh up the rights of the defendant and the rights of the victim.

That touches on bail, which is an unpopular thing to talk about in court, because in some ways everyone is a threat and everyone can go on to do nasty things to nice people, but magistrates have to weigh up the right of habeas corpus—the right of a defendant to have liberty until he has been convicted of a crime. That is really difficult to weigh up, because it involves thinking about the risks to the victim, the defendant’s right to liberty and the presumption of innocence.

That is why the holistic approach that the Minister is talking about is important, because it will touch on not just domestic abuse cases, but the precedents and the impact that has on the court system and the rights of defendants in the court system. The hon. Member for Hove mentioned the pendulum, which it is important to get right. I think the more holistic approach is genuinely the right way to go on that.