Domestic Abuse Bill (Second sitting)

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 4th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Jess Phillips]

Thank you for sharing your story with us.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Q Thank you for sharing your story. I am sure it is very difficult having to keep repeating your story, but thank you. It is very powerful.

You have obviously been getting help from the Southall Black Sisters, which is good to hear. Have they or anybody else referred you to the national referral mechanism, which is for victims like you?

Somiya Basar: From what I understand, it takes forever for that system to work, and I don’t think that system works as efficiently as the pilot scheme by Southall Black Sisters. I don’t think I am an expert here and I do not understand the terminology, but what I understand is that the other system that you are referring to takes forever. It is not a system that works efficiently to the full benefit of the victim.

[Nickie Aiken]

Q But you do not think you have been referred.

Somiya Basar: I am not aware of it.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

Q Thank you for coming today. As an individual, as a mother to British children and as a victim, have you at any point felt that the British Government and the British state is on your side?

Somiya Basar: I really felt abandoned, even by the British state. I think they have failed me. Had there been any other channel of being here, I would have been notified by the embassies, because the embassies in the different countries that we lived in knew exactly what was happening with myself, with my children. At some point the father had abandoned the children with me in South Africa with no immigration status. The British embassy knew full well that we were in dire straits, and not much help was available, so I think I have been failed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nickie Aiken]

Q I was interested in what you said about the MARACs, having been responsible for MARACs in a previous life. What do you think the Bill will do, if anything, to strengthen MARACs and the ability to work across agencies?

Lyndsey Dearlove: The Bill talks around MARACs quite efficiently and gives additional powers to the police and the criminal justice system. However, it does not look at the third sector’s involvement in MARAC, or at making it a statutory obligation for people to be at that table and ensuring that the people who come to the table bring the right information and act on it.

In a way, the Bill will be great because we will see a resurgence in attention, but the reality is that in a couple of years’ time we will be saying the same things. We cannot let that happen. MARAC, and attention to detail around victims of domestic abuse and safety planning, must remain an incredibly important and prioritised issue in all agencies.

[The Chair]

Does anyone else have any questions? In that case, thank you very much for your evidence this afternoon.

Examination of Witness

Dame Vera Baird QC gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We have two minutes. I know Nickie wanted to come in.

[Nickie Aiken]

Q There has been a lot of discussion today about whether children are direct or indirect victims of domestic abuse if they are within a family or household where domestic abuse is taking place, but they are not actually being abused physically themselves—but they are witnessing a parent. How do you feel—I am speaking particularly to you, Councillor Simon, with your local government hat on— about whether children should be considered victims, whether they are indirectly or directly affected?

Simon Blackburn: Children are direct victims—

[Nickie Aiken]

Should they be considered victims?

Simon Blackburn: When I was a social worker—I used to be a child protection social worker—I had numerous arguments with my bosses and the police along the lines that even if the children were not present in the house, and were staying at grandma’s, for instance, and there was an altercation and their mother was hurt by their father or her partner, the children were none the less victims, because when they returned home the trauma, whether physical or emotional, is there, and it impacts on Mum’s ability to parent and her ability to manage relationships with the children. So it does not even matter if they are physically present. They are direct victims, in my view.

[Nickie Aiken]

Q How do you think councils could deal with that if the definition covered children?

Simon Blackburn: The Children Act, the legislation under which all social workers operate, is clear that children are at the front and centre of every assessment that is completed, so I am not sure that there is a need for anything. There may be a need to emphasise that. There may be a need for Ofsted and the Department for Education to remind local authority social services departments of that, but I think that is already very clear in legislation.

[The Chair]

We have run out of time for this sitting. I thank our last two witnesses very much for coming along.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Rebecca Harris.)