Domestic Abuse Victims and Family Courts

Paul Scully Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

It is pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) on securing the debate and on her amazing and powerful speech. Hansard does not record blushes, but she has done a fantastic job, as ever, on an important subject.

When we talk about domestic abuse in this place, there is often a lot of commentary along the lines of, “What about the men?” Of course, we know that women are not the only victims of domestic abuse, but it is an unassailable truth that the vast majority are women, so I make no excuse for the fact that we are concentrating on women predominantly, and Women’s Aid has been an invaluable organisation in pushing the campaign on this issue.

I look forward to the introduction of the domestic abuse Bill. We have all been working towards it and pushing for it, and it will be welcome. I understand that one of the main reasons for the delay was that we were trying to get a good, rounded definition of domestic abuse and coercive control so that there can be legislation. In the 2016 debate, I raised a couple of examples of coercive control, one of which involved a family member of mine, to show that it is not something that just happens to other people. It can happen to people of any background, from any geographical area. The woman in question had a tracker put on her car—that was the level of control that the man wanted. That makes me think, “Crikey, what would have happened if she was in court with him?” if she faced that level of coercive control. That level of control, which might start with a tracker, can mean a repeat of abuse in court, bringing up time and again the previous horrific instances.

Before we look at what we are pushing for in campaigning, it is important to acknowledge the good things the Government have done. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley correctly said that, in too many cases, there are still curtains and screens around certain areas. However, family procedure rules part 3A and practice direction 3AA came into effect only in November last year, and they will, unfortunately, take time to get through the court system—indeed, certain areas that require separate waiting rooms might even need new construction.

None the less, more can clearly be done, and I take the hon. Lady’s point about robing rooms—we have one of those here, so perhaps we can think about that as well. We must speed up action to ban perpetrators from cross-examining victims in court, because there cannot be anybody in this place who believes that that is right. Women’s Aid has said that a perpetrator can be seen as a violent criminal in a criminal court but as a good enough parent in a family court, which is patently ridiculous.

The hon. Lady mentioned the need for more female judges. Clearly, the numbers and percentages are too low, but that in itself is not necessarily the origin of bad judgments. Indeed, it was a female judge who sent Ellie Butler back to my constituents in Sutton, which resulted in her death shortly afterwards. We need judges who are not out of touch and who can relate to people—the hon. Lady referred to that. We need a judiciary that can take a rounded position, in the same way that anybody outside a court room might think, “My goodness. This is so obvious. Why are we not doing it?”

In conclusion—I know other Members want to speak—let me say to the Minister that I am looking forward to the domestic abuse Bill. If I can help in any way in formulating it and pushing it through this place, I would be more than happy to do so, because we have been waiting for this Bill for so long.