Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 15th March 2021 Lords Chamber

Thirdly, we looked at the whole question of a pilot scheme. I looked at the response of the review from July last year. It seems that even if a pilot scheme is required, what it is required to do is understand what the administrative processes concerned are—not suggest that we should be in contravention of our international obligations under the convention. We should accept Amendment 87 in the name of my noble friend Lady Helic, who was a distinguished adviser to that coalition Government, and say that whatever the outcome of the pilot scheme, whatever the administrative arrangements, we should not arrive at a position where we discriminate between people according to their status, including immigration status, in respect of the support they receive as victims of domestic violence and abuse. That cannot be the right outcome. Ministers, to be fair to them, have not suggested that they want to discriminate between people by their status. That being the case, we should use this opportunity to bring ourselves into compliance with our international obligations, then let Ministers work out subsequently what the administrative processes are for achieving that.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, that was a powerful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, particularly in relation to the ratification timetable. I hope the Minister is able to respond positively.

Listening to the debate, both at Second Reading and in Committee, and indeed today, I fail to see how any Member of this House could not be concerned at the plight of migrant women who are victims of domestic abuse. Given the vulnerability of these women in general, the Government need to agree and accept both these amendments. It is clear that the current, large proportion of migrant women who have no recourse to public funds are having real problems, being barred from accessing certain types of financial support from the state, including homelessness assistance and other welfare benefits.

As my noble friend Lady Warwick has just said, survivors staying in refuges most commonly support their stay using their housing benefit. The funding crisis within specialist domestic abuse services means that many are unable to support women who have no recourse to public funds. Migrant women in that situation have found it very difficult to secure a stay in a refuge.

We know that survivors in the UK on a spousal visa or one of a small number of family visas can apply for the destitute domestic violence concession, but only migrant women on a very limited number of visa types are eligible, and this arbitrarily leaves out an enormous proportion of migrant survivors with NRPF status, who have few options of where to go if they are experiencing domestic abuse. The Covid crisis has served to demonstrate how precarious the position of migrant survivors is and how essential it is they can access financial support from the state to keep them and their children safe.

I always thought it significant that the domestic abuse commissioner has stated that the no recourse to public funds rule means that a significant number of the most marginalised victims of domestic abuse in our society are unable to access the support they need. Not only does this leave people facing destitution, homelessness or staying with their abuser, it is discriminatory in the terms the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has just referred to.

A number of noble Lords have referred to the Minister’s comments at Second Reading and in Committee. They have commented on what she had to say about the use of the DDVC. But I would like to go back to her saying that the Government lacked data and, as a result, launched the pilot scheme. The problem I have with this is that this is the Bill that everyone is committed to supporting; noble Lords have worked very hard to achieve a consensus on the outcome. I, for one, find it difficult to allow this Bill to go forward without resolving these issues and the evident discrimination that applies to many migrant women.

As for the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, I thought the evidence from the Equality and Human Rights Commission was significant:

“Migrant survivors often find themselves in particularly vulnerable situations owing to their insecure immigration status being used as a tool of control by perpetrators. Their immigration status in turn bars them from access to essential services and support. These barriers are compounded by other factors such as language and a lack of understanding amongst services of relevant cultural and social issues.”


I hope the noble Baroness will put this to the vote.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who always speaks with great reason.

My meetings with the excellent charity Kalayaan during previous immigration Bills—which some here will remember—left me in no doubt about the exploitation of migrant domestic workers in London and elsewhere. We heard some chilling case studies of how their employers confined them, did not pay them and removed their passports, among other forms of flagrant abuse and exploitation, which continue today. Noble Lords will also remember that the strength of such stories led directly to the Modern Slavery Act.

I have not yet spoken on this Bill, but I speak now, more narrowly, as a member of the International Agreements Committee, like the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, to support Amendment 87, persuasively argued by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, and Amendment 70, which also concerns migrant workers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, the committee recently listened—with some surprise, I might say—to the Minister for Safeguarding proposing the pilot project to collect further evidence instead of ratifying the Istanbul convention. The Home Office problem is, as usual, that it cannot catch up with unregistered migrants. One can sympathise with that but, as was said, the procedure could take another 14 months at least. My noble friend Lord Kerr questioned her on this specifically, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, will explain that we all thought the evidence was already running strongly in the other direction, and we were overwhelmingly in favour of the solution proposed originally by the End Violence Against Women Coalition, urging the Government to skip the pilot and adopt this amendment, which could then lead directly to ratification.

The relevant provisions of the convention relating to non-discrimination on the grounds of immigration status are Articles 3, 4 and 59. They say simply that all women, of whatever status, who are victims of domestic violence and abuse must be protected. Surely, delaying ratification any longer will seriously damage the UK’s international reputation. This message also comes from our Council of Europe delegation, which has already made its position clear. I support both these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am in an unusual situation. When I am fourth on the list, I would usually feel that I had something to contribute, but listening to the harrowing experiences of the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Bertin, it makes me feel that this is the most challenging amendment I have ever spoken on. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, very clearly explained the need for this amendment and the fear that women face. I feel very privileged that I have met the family of Jane Clough, whom she mentioned, and listened to their heart-breaking experiences and how time and time again they felt that they were not being listened to.

Like so many women in public life, I have experienced very uncomfortable situations where I have had unwanted attention, been bombarded and had threatening behaviour. I have been incredibly lucky that people have helped and supported me through it, but even with that support and police support around me, I was not able to sleep, I could not eat, I was scared to go out and I was constantly looking over my shoulder. It changed how I felt about myself and my ability to cope with everyday life, and that was with help and support around, so imagine what it must be like to feel that nobody is listening to you and nobody is helping. That is why I strongly support Amendment 73 and the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger.

I thank the London School of Economics, which provided incredibly useful information and support on this amendment. Gathering data is important, but so is sharing that information with police forces. It does not seem right that this data is not systematically shared and is shared only through the Police National Computer, which records only charges.

I urge the Minister to listen to the speeches tonight. A comprehensive perpetrator strategy for domestic abusers and stalkers is essential. It is needed more urgently than a year from now. It must help the identification, assessment and management of perpetrators. We must focus on perpetrators’ behaviour and not blame victims. We must support the victims to enable them to have a chance to get through it. I shall not say any more on amendments tonight, but I strongly support the amendment and will vote favour of it if the noble Baroness divides the House.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, I strongly support my noble friend Lady Royall. Like her, I essentially want to see a co-ordinated, consistent and mandatory approach to the flagging and targeting of perpetrators, with a statutory obligation on police, prison and probation services to identify, assess and manage serial and serious domestic abuse perpetrators and stalkers. Without such a comprehensive approach, we will not get anywhere with this problem.

The appalling murder of Sarah Everard yet again highlights the fear and reality of male violence for all women. Femicide is at an all-time high; a woman is murdered by a male ex-partner every three days. These are not rare occurrences, as the police so often claim to justify the lack of priority given to the protection of women. The list of women killed by men since this Bill had its First Reading, read out by my noble friend, is surely testimony to that. Throughout the first lockdown. five women a week were killed by a male partner or ex-partner.

It is so striking that most of those men had a history of harming other women—yet there is no proactive risk identification or assessment or management of the perpetrators. Ministers attribute this, essentially, to poor practice. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has argued that offenders should be managed under MAPPA—but the reality is that domestic abuser and stalker cases are just not heard at MAPPA meetings; they are screened out as cases not seen as serious.

In a moving, courageous speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, referred to three cases. I want to talk about another one: that of Cherylee Shennan. Cherylee was stabbed to death outside her home by convicted killer Paul O’Hara in March 2014 in front of police officers who had been called to investigate reports of domestic abuse. She had suffered a broken nose, repeated facial bruising and a broken jaw at O’Hara’s hands. She was held hostage at knifepoint at least twice before O’Hara killed her.

O’Hara was previously given a life sentence in 1998 for killing ex-partner Janine Waterworth, but he was released on licence in 2012. He had other previous serious convictions for violence against women. He had been assessed in prison as displaying traits of psychopathy. At the time of his release, he was assessed as posing a serious risk to women. Despite his history, O’Hara’s risk was not required to be managed within MAPPA.

Cherylee’s family first suspected that O’Hara was abusing her when they saw her with serious facial injuries at a family gathering on bonfire night. At the time, Cherylee gave an alternative explanation for the injuries but, on 1 March 2014, she told her sister Ellen that it was O’Hara who had caused them, that he had also fractured her jaw and that he had held her hostage at knifepoint. She also told her sister his offending history.

The family called the police. Police officers attended what they believed to be an ongoing domestic violence incident, without any knowledge of O’Hara’s history. They discovered his history on doing a PNC check at Cherylee’s home, but they took no positive steps to arrest or risk-manage O’Hara. They also did not take a full account either from Cherylee, who was fearful of the consequences of police involvement, or from the family members present who could confirm the injuries.

Coroner James Newman published a “prevention of death” report, raising alarms over the lack of interagency communication between probation services and the police. In his findings, he questioned the role of MAPPA. He said that, following O’Hara’s release,

“there were no local MAPPA meetings, no inter-agency meetings and no significant inter-agency communications regarding the perpetrator, no detailing of his licence conditions, and no information regarding either his nature or the trigger factors of his offending. My concern is despite this, and the findings of the report, there is still no mandatory process for the sharing of information between agencies where the offender, despite a known extensive history of domestic abuse and identified trigger factors, is then managed at MAPPA Level 1.”

This is the tragedy of the current system. Chief constables apologise when these cases come to light and promise to do better, but history repeats itself time after time. The Government set great store by guidance; the police and probation services are awash with it, but it is not read, it has no teeth and very little has changed in 20 years. Serial perpetrators and stalkers are simply not visible or held to account, even though past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour. We know that they are transient; they seek to control the most vulnerable women and children, and if that includes moving across borders to meet their needs, they will do so.

There is no duty on the police to add any information or intelligence about a perpetrator’s previous offending to a local or national system; if information is put into the local system, it often lacks the detail required. The burden is placed on the victim and too often the perpetrator’s narrative is believed rather than the victim’s. As my noble friend said, how many times do we see the depressing response from the police that women in the wake of these terrible crimes should stay indoors at night for their own safety? It is as if it is women’s responsibility and, essentially, they are to blame.

My noble friend also referred to the 2014 to 2017 inspections by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary into the police response to domestic abuse perpetrators. The recommendations from these reports still have not been put in place locally or nationally. It is the same with homicide reviews. Why is that so? The reality is that domestic abuse and stalking responses are woefully underresourced. Misogyny and institutionalised sexism are rife and no amount of guidance will change that.

On data, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, is so right. Police forces do not have systematic ways of recording the same person, victim or perpetrator; hence, repeat victims or perpetrators are not spotted and no action is taken to protect and prevent. As she said, police forces do not share data systematically with each other apart from through the Police National Computer, which records only charges. The advice of LSE researchers Professor Tom Kirchmaier, Professor Jeffrey Grogger and Dr Ria Ivandic—which suggests that police forces should use machine learning predictions based on two-year criminal histories because it would be more effective—is ignored.

Last year, over 80 signatories, including charities such as Women’s Aid, Respect and Action for Children, as well as academics and individuals, called on the Government to invest in a perpetrator strategy. Nicole Jacobs, the designate domestic abuse commissioner said:

“I support the call on Government to publish a Strategy on Perpetrators of Domestic Abuse.”


As she said:

“Current prevention work is patchy and too often perpetrators go unchallenged and are not offered opportunities to change their abusive behaviour.”


If we are to better protect women and girls, the Government must act now to support these amendments and shift the focus onto the men who cause the fear, terror and violence. It is time, too, that we eradicated misogyny and sexism from our criminal justice system. It is time these dangerous domestic abusers and stalkers were registered and monitored in the same way as sex offenders, and that the victim’s right to safety and to live free of fear was realised and prioritised over an abuser’s right to freedom.