Domestic Homicide Sentencing Review

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Lord Cryer

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Domestic Homicide Sentencing Review.

It is great to see Members here, and I thank the House for allowing time for this vital debate. I believe this Government have a strong and world-leading record on tackling violence against women and girls. I am very proud of what the Government have done, including, to name just a few, the violence against women and girls strategy, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the domestic abuse plan and the “Enough” campaign—a multimillion-pound public education broadcast campaign aimed at achieving long-term behaviour change and preventing public sexual harassment and domestic abuse.

Time does not allow me to give a comprehensive summary, but I am confident that the debate today will receive a positive hearing from the Minister. It deals with the most serious form of violence, which is where the violence ends in the death of a victim.

Last week, I spoke to two bereaved mothers of beautiful, young, talented daughters who had their whole lives ahead of them, but were murdered by their male partners. It was impossible to come away from a meeting with Carole Gould and Julie Devey, the mothers of Poppy Devey Waterhouse and Ellie Gould, without feeling heartbroken and devastated, not least because Poppy was about the same age as my daughter. I feel her mother’s pain only too intensely.

Carole and Julie are just two parents bereaved as a result of domestic homicide. There are too many more, and too many for me to refer to each one by name, but that in no way diminishes their pain or trauma. In researching this debate, I read hundreds of stories. Each one is harrowing. I want anyone watching or reading this debate to know that their loved ones are not just a set of words on a page, or a statistic that we can flick past and forget. As Her Majesty the Queen Consort said yesterday in her first major speech since she ascended to her position,

“we refuse to be desensitised by cold facts and figures and we resolve to keep the names and the memories of these women alive.”

Domestic homicide means that the victim is killed by someone with whom they are closely connected—either their intimate partner or family member. Before I go any further, I want the House to be in no doubt about the facts. Men and boys can be, and are, victims of domestic abuse and homicide. Government policy rightly can and does take account of that, but in the context of the United Nations campaign to raise awareness of violence against women, it is also a fact that domestic abuse is a gendered crime. In that context, I will keep the focus of my remarks on female victims.

Women are much more likely than men to be victims of domestic homicide. Forty-nine per cent. of all female homicides and 10% of male homicides are domestic homicides. Home Office data for the past three years records 207 female victims of domestic homicide who were killed by their male partner or ex-partner, compared with 29 male victims of domestic homicide killed by a female partner or ex-partner.

Poppy and Ellie’s killers were caught and sentenced, but the court cases did not bring justice for their families and friends. Poppy’s murderer, Joe Atkinson, was sentenced to a minimum term of 16 years and two months, and Ellie’s murderer, Thomas Griffiths, who was sentenced as a child, got 12 years and six months. The families point out that had the killers taken a knife out of the home and gone to the local park to stab their daughters, they would have received a much higher sentence, with a 25-year starting point, but most domestic homicides take place in the home, meaning that a knife is not taken to the scene; it is already there in the home. That automatically reduces the available sentence starting point to a minimum tariff of only 15 years.

Carole and Julie point out that overkill is overlooked. Overkill is a typical feature of domestic homicides; they are often frenzied, brutal and violent, involving excessive, repeated use of force or injury way beyond what is needed to achieve the actual killing, yet that does not add any significant time to the sentence.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

I agree with everything that the hon. Member said. I wish to place on record a similar case from Leyton in my constituency: Linah Keza was murdered by her former partner in the home in a very frenzied attack. Does the hon. Member agree that, very often, the system lets down these women? In this case, the police repeatedly refused to take any notice of threats to her, one of which was recorded, and a police officer told the attacker, Ms Keza’s former partner, that he was fine to visit her unsupervised.

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing that case to the House’s attention. As I said, I have read about hundreds of such cases. It is very important that the police and all the frontline services put into practice the training that they now have to deal with these issues. I will come on to my recommendations later.

For many women, the murder comes after they have experienced domestic abuse, including violence or coercive and controlling behaviour. An overkill element also means that the family members’ trauma is even more heightened. Many of them suffer from post-traumatic stress.

Let us turn to another killer. Sally Challen bludgeoned her husband to death with a hammer. She was sentenced to life imprisonment with a tariff of 18 years, but a landmark judgment using the new coercion and control offences that the Government introduced in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 saw her conviction quashed, and she walked free after serving nine years. The judge agreed with her barrister, Clare Wade KC, and the campaign group Justice for Women, that Challen was a victim of coercive control that spanned decades; she met her husband aged 16. He had humiliated and manipulated her, which is a classic pattern of controlling behaviour. The court accepted that, and her sentence was converted to manslaughter.

Let us touch on the case of Anthony Williams, who strangled his 67-year-old wife, Ruth, to death. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and was acquitted of murder. His defence argued that his actions were due to his mental state, which had worsened due to the covid-19 pandemic. This lesser charge and the sentence of five years’ imprisonment was strongly criticised by politicians from all parties and anti-domestic abuse activists. The Joanna Simpson Foundation, among others, argued that diminished responsibility and loss of control are overused defences for men in domestic homicides; that the defences are used in circumstances that they were not designed for; and that their use risked downgrading and normalising domestic abuse, which should not be tolerated. The “Women Who Kill” report, published by the Centre for Women’s Justice, found that, by contrast, women who kill their partners largely do so having been subjected to abuse from the men they kill. In 77% of the cases covered in that research, there is evidence to suggest that women had experienced violence or abuse from the deceased. Despite that, they are unlikely to be acquitted on grounds of self-defence.

Finally, I will mention one more case. Sophie Moss was choked to death during sex by Sam Pybus. He applied prolonged pressure to her neck and admitted to manslaughter; however, he literally claimed that she asked for it, as part of a consensual rough sex game. The judge accepted that, and he was jailed for four years and eight months—the same length of time that he might have received for a driving offence. An appeal to increase his sentence was rejected. It is clear even from this cursory summary, which in no way covers all the victims to whom I could have referred, that some of the sentences received by men who kill their female partners or ex-partners do not reflect the seriousness of domestic abuse, or the fact that these homicides often follow a period of prolonged abuse. On the other hand, sentences received by women who kill their partners in self-defence could appear disproportionate, particularly in cases in which they used a weapon. The issue of the knife coming from inside the home, as it is much more likely to have done when a woman is killed in a domestic homicide, adds another dimension.

It is an unfortunate fact that a woman who kills her male partner in self-defence is, due to her lesser physical strength, more likely to have needed to use a weapon of some type. That attracts a more serious sentence than would be received by a male such as Sam Pybus who kills a female partner by strangulation. We have seen that he was able to claim that he strangled her as part of a consensual sex activity that tragically went wrong. Strangulation does not always leave a mark, which compounds the difficulties for the police investigation and prosecution.

In response to all these cases and many more, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and Victims’ Commissioner wrote to the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland), calling for a review of domestic homicide sentencing, due to their concerns that the sentencing for these homicides did not match the impact and severity of the crime. In March 2021, the domestic homicide sentencing review was announced, and in September 2021 Clare Wade KC, Sally Challen’s appeal barrister, was appointed to conduct the review. In welcoming the review, Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, said:

“Crucially, the Wade Review will also shed some much-needed light on how victims of domestic abuse who kill their abusers are treated by the criminal Justice system. Victims of domestic abuse…must receive a trauma-informed response from the criminal Justice system.”

I come to the central purpose of the debate, which is to ask the Government to publish the review as soon as possible and come forward with their response. I will ask detailed questions later, but first I wish to put on the record my thanks to all the campaign groups and people who spoke to me in the course of my research; I pay tribute to them for all the determined work that they have done on behalf of the victims, who, of course, cannot speak for themselves. I was fortunate to be able to speak to Clare Wade KC ahead of the debate. The content of the report will be familiar to the Minister, as it was to me when I briefly had the privilege of serving in the Ministry of Justice as the Minister of State for Victims and Vulnerability. It is a detailed, extensive, substantive, compelling and well-researched piece of work that makes for harrowing reading. I thank Clare Wade for the thoughtfulness that she has brought to the commission. She tells me that she set out a suite of recommendations that, taken together, constitute a coherent policy response. If implemented, they would tackle the gaps in sentencing options. She believes that the only way forward is to properly recognise the impact of domestic abuse, violence and coercive control in all its forms, and that the criminal justice process needs to take account of the harms to the victim, their family and wider society, so that justice can be done, and be seen to be done.

Another group I have spoken to, Refuge, states that one of the key problems is that the nature of coercive control is still poorly understood. More work needs to be done to educate people about the fact that it is not solely about physical violence. Frontline practitioners need to understand and act on the knowledge that the trigger point for danger is when a woman tries to leave or has left a relationship. The cases need to be dealt with by specialists, and more can be done to build on existing practices to ensure that courts, juries and judges understand and incorporate that knowledge. I recently tabled a written question to the Ministry of Justice and the response stated:

“The independent reviewer required more time than anticipated to complete the review and it was delivered to the department in June this year. The Review examines a number of important and complex issues… the government is carefully considering its recommendations and next steps.”

Let us return for a moment to Carole Gould and Julie Devey. They believe that one of the key problems with the law is on the issue of premeditation. They state that it may never be known whether the perpetrator planned to commit the murder in the home, knowing that weapons were there. Remember, that planning would attract a higher tariff, in that taking the knife to the scene indicates an element of premeditation. They state that using hands as weapons for strangulation has never been acknowledged as part of premeditated murder. They also believe that sentences do not reflect the fact that these are dangerous perpetrators. The fact that they could strangle or stab someone with whom they have been in an intimate relationship surely means that they are a danger to the public, so there is a public protection issue that is not being picked up in sentencing.

I ask Members to cast their mind back to the case of Sophie Moss, which I mentioned. The Minister will be aware of the outstanding work of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris). As part of a group of MPs, she was successful in removing the rough sex defence to killing. She now has a private Member’s Bill that seeks to amend the sentencing code to provide for a minimum sentence of 12 years for cases of manslaughter that are sexually motivated. It is right to consider her ask in this debate.

I have questions for the Minister. Has he read the Clare Wade review, and what does he think of the recommendations? When will he publish the review? When will he come forward with the Government’s response? What is his response to my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill? Will he ensure that the measures he brings forward in response to the Wade review tackle the sentencing injustices relating to victims killed as part of so-called rough sex? How will he ensure that any recommendations flowing from the Wade review include training for courts, juries, judges, prosecutors and police in fully recognising the wider harms of domestic abuse, abusive relationships and the origins of violence against women? Will he bring forward the new measures that are required if we are to level up sentencing in the victims Bill? If he is unable to commit to that, what legislative vehicle does he foresee as being suitable?

Her Royal Highness the Queen Consort said,

“These women, tragically, can no longer speak for themselves. But we listen to those who can. I have learnt from my conversations with these brave survivors that what they want, above all, is to be listened to and believed, to prevent the same thing happening to others. They know there is power in their stories and that, in the telling, they move from being the victims of their histories to the authors of their own futures.”

We must and will do more. I finish with the words of Julie and Carole:

“Public perception needs to be changed and the correct sentencing can lead the way to show that these Domestic Homicides will not be seen as lesser crimes.”

I look forward to the Minister’s response. I want to place on the record my thanks to everybody who spoke to me before the debate, whether they are from a campaign group that assisted me with research, or whether they are the families.