Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, perhaps I may raise two small points. They seem almost trivial in the context but they are important and, as the noble Baroness said earlier, the opportunities for this sort of discussion are limited to Committee. I appreciate that this is existing legislation in Scotland. My first point relates to proposed new subsection (4) in the amendment, which states,

“where A knows, or ought in all the circumstances to have known”.

The existing Section 4(2) brings in the notion of a reasonable person. I read the existing law as objective and this proposal as being subjective, and I am not sure whether it is strong enough.

My second point relates to new subsection (2) of the proposal, where it would be necessary for the course of conduct to cause “fear or alarm”. Again, I wonder whether that is strong enough. What if the victim is a particularly resilient person? Should the person engaging in the conduct be able to do so because of the toughness of the victim?

[Lord Sharkey]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for tabling this amendment, whose objectives I strongly support. As noble Lords have already noted, the situation relating to stalking in England and Wales is entirely unsatisfactory. It is clear that the offence of harassment is not an effective way of dealing with the problem of stalking. It is not effective for the protection of possible victims; it is not effective for the successful prosecution of offenders; and it is not effective in the delivery of appropriate punishment for those who are found guilty.

A recent survey conducted by the members of the National Association of Probation Officers showed that the overwhelming majority of victims were in constant fear and many were physically injured. Most victims claim that there are a number of incidents before they feel they can go to the police. Often their complaints are not properly investigated, and the perpetrator’s behaviour escalates over time if there is no criminal justice intervention or treatment.

It appears that stalking behaviour is simply not recognised by the majority of professionals who have to deal with the cases. Probation staff are concerned that when sentences are handed down they are often too short for rehabilitation or treatment to occur, or even to match the gravity of the offence and its effect on the lives of victims. We should not allow things to continue as they are. The suffering caused to victims is often harrowing and sometimes life-destroying.

The current methods for dealing with the problem are clearly inadequate. However, as noble Lords have pointed out, there is an obvious way forward, which is to learn from the experience in Scotland. As noble Lords have indicated, Scotland chose not to introduce a version of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997—currently the law in England and Wales—on the grounds that the Act did not transfer powers into practice. Instead, a new law, on which this amendment is based, was passed in December 2010 creating a specific offence of stalking and offences of threatening and abusive behaviour. This legislation has the support of the police, who have themselves adopted new operational guidelines to ensure proper awareness of stalking and harassment. There are clear signs of the success of this Act, even at this very early stage.

I acknowledge that the Government take this matter extremely seriously, and I know that the consultation on the issue runs until 5 February. It is important that we learn from it. Nevertheless, I urge the Minister to take account of the strong views expressed today and the terrible plight of the victims of stalking and not to delay legislation on this issue one moment longer than is absolutely necessary.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I note what my noble friend Lord Sharkey and all other noble Lords said. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Dear, who said that we should take away all the comments. My noble friend said we should look at this and not delay legislation. As he reminded us, we have a consultation that runs to 5 February. Obviously, we want to see the result of that consultation before we move much further, but I am grateful to the noble Baroness for explaining how her clause works and allowing us the opportunity to debate these matters.

As the noble Baroness will know, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary’s ambition, and the Government’s ambition, is nothing less than ending all forms of violence against women, including stalking. I am again grateful to my noble friend Lady Brinton for reminding us that stalking is not committed just against women and that some 20 per cent is against men. It is an offence that affects and can be devastating to many lives, and that is why we included stalking as a priority in our Call to End Violence against Women and Girls strategy published last November and why we followed it up with specific actions to tackle stalking in our action plan published this spring. It is why my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in response to a Question said:

“It is important that we take forward the work that the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice have done in looking at a proper, separate offence for stalking and recognising that there is a gap in the current law that we should fill, because there are people who are not getting the protection and help from the police that they need”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/11/11; col. 292.]

The noble Baroness is seeking to strengthen the law on stalking and, as I said, there may be a case for that, but we should remember that we have that consultation and we want to look at it in some detail. There might be a degree of unanimity about what we can do and that at a later stage of the Bill—I do not know—something might be possible. That is a matter for the future, but before I go into some of the detail about what we have at the moment and what the noble Baroness’s amendment does, I think it is important to get that on the record.

I would like to make one comment that I think is relevant and to deal with the question of police training and training for others that was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and my noble friend Lady Brinton. It is important that the right attitude exists within the police and those who have to deal with these things. We recognise that in the past that was not always the case. The Home Office has been working very hard with ACPO, the Crown Prosecution Service—which is important in this—the Ministry of Justice and, equally importantly, various stalking charities to ensure that best practice guidance has been disseminated. We are trying to do that through a series of regional events to make sure that how they must deal with these matters gets down to the police at the grass roots. ACPO now thinks that 65 per cent of forces currently have officers trained in risk assessment in this area, and it hopes to get that up to all forces by the end of the year, so awareness is improving and training will go on, but I recognise that there are concerns in this field.

I shall go back to some detail because I would like to get this on the record so that the noble Baroness can understand where we are with the existing Act—it was possibly the first Act that the previous Government passed, with the exception of that rather pernicious Act, which I was involved with, that abolished grant-maintained schools, but we will not deal with that at the moment. Probably one of the earliest Acts they passed was the Protection from Harassment Act. That was brought into force primarily to tackle stalking, but extends to any other persistent conduct that causes another person alarm or distress.