Club Advocacy lead Karen Whitworth reports on recent moves to include non-fatal strangulation within the Domestic Abuse Bill that was currently working its way through Parliament. Despite a disappointing start with our local MPs, we’ve shown that we CAN make a difference!
Back on 8th October 2020 SI Lichfield & District were asked to write to our MPs to support an amendment relating to non-fatal strangulation to the Domestic Abuse Bill that was currently working its way through Parliament.
This request was made as a result of work that Dame Vera Baird, the Victims Commissioner, was involved in with the Designate Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Nicole Jacobs and the Centre for Women’s Justice. Dame Vera is also a Soroptimist and she informed UKPAC (the UK Programme Action Committee) about this work and asked for the support of Soroptimists to advocate for non-fatal strangulation to be added as an offence in this Bill.
We wrote to MPs within our district asking for their support and to forward a separate letter to the two Government Ministers who are involved in this Bill. We were aware that the next stage of the Bill was a debate in the House of Lords in January so time was of the essence! Both local MPs responded to our request very promptly and we were given the standard Government response of ‘While I do understand the desire to create a new offence, there is a risk that this could limit the circumstances covered and create additional evidential burdens when compared with existing offences.’ So not a good start!
But the Lords debated this Bill on 5th January for 7 hours with 93 representatives from all parties speaking. They had been given only 4 minutes to make their points using the vast amount of briefing papers they had been given – including the points we had made to our MPs!
So, how did it g
o? Baroness Williams of Trafford represented the Government and gave a very good overview of the content of the Bill. 14 Baronesses and 12 Lords all supported the Non-Fatal Strangulation amendment and many mentioned information that we had included in our letters. So that was encouraging.
In addition to this clause, Soroptimists were also supporting Age UK with their petition to get the maximum age of 74 overturned for the reporting of domestic abuse incidents included in the Crime Survey. 7 speakers supported Baroness Greengross’ request for older victims of domestic abuse to be recognised.
The more recent problem of victims being threatened with intimate pictures being uploaded to the web by their perpetrators was raised by Baroness Burt of Solihull and supported by 7 other speakers. Baroness Morgan of Cotes informed the chamber that the sharing of intimate images was criminalised in the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, but not the threat of sharing images.
Speakers with other noteworthy comments include:
– Lord Blunkett who recognised that the first Domestic Violence Bill wasn’t suitable and how important it was now to get this Bill right in order to protect victims.
– Baroness Grey Thompson informed their Lordships of the ‘Rail to Refuge’ scheme where free rail tickets were given to help victims get to refuges. So far 836 people had used this facility and included 210 children.
– Baroness Benjamin reminded their Lordships of the long term effects on children who witnessed or were part of a family where domestic abuse occurred and the need to support these children.
– How to stop and reform perpetrators featured regularly in the speeches.
– Several members reminded the Government that the UK had not ratified the Istanbul Convention on Violence Against Women and urged them to do so.
At the end of the debate Baroness Wilcox of Newport (the Opposition spokeswoman) summarised their support of the Bill with particular mention of ‘non–fatal strangulation’. A good start!
Baroness Williams ended the debate and commented that ‘non-fatal strangulation’ was the biggest issue of the day. She said that whilst the Government believes there are enough existing offences to cover this area already, it will be kept under review when assessing the evidence and look at what other countries are doing. She also commented that there were already existing offences to cover the threat of posting intimate images online. However, it was recognised that they may not be as effective as needed so the Law Commission are reviewing this. A consultation process will be starting shortly and she asked their Lordships to assist in this process.
So without the research and our involvement with other interested parties in asking for non fatal strangulation to be included, this issue would not have been raised, known about or discussed by our lawmakers.
This Bill was read for the second time and will now be returned to the committee of the whole House to be reviewed.
As a final postscript the AGE UK petition that so many of us signed to have victims of domestic abuse aged 75 and over included on all statistics has been confirmed by the Office of National Statistics and they were included from December 2020.
Finally, it was reported on 15th January that Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary, is hoping to add non-fatal strangulation as a criminal offence in the Police and Sentencing Bill in February – so watch this space!
OUR VOICES CAN BE HEARD!