My Lords, this afternoon, many noble Lords have described misogyny outside the scenario of domestic abuse—such as elite athletes training in the street, as the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, just said. I hope to explain that, while I agree that the recording of misogyny as a hate crime is a good thing, it may confuse things when it comes to domestic abuse.
As has been explained, Clause 70 requires the Secretary of State to
“issue guidance to chief officers of police about the disclosure of police information by police forces for the purposes of preventing domestic abuse.”
This amendment is about including in that guidance that the police should record any crimes where the offender demonstrated hostility or prejudice based on sex, or where it is perceived that the crime was motivated by hostility or prejudice towards persons who are of a particular sex. This, in effect, would require police officers to record misogyny as a hate crime, although
as it is worded in gender-neutral terms it would also require them to record misandry as a hate crime. I am confused about why misandry would be a hate crime, but we will move on. It then tries to bring this within the scope of Clause 70, which is about preventing domestic abuse, by mentioning taking account of evidence about the relationship between domestic abuse and misogyny and recording misogynistic crimes that, in the opinion of the police, have also involved domestic abuse.
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As my noble friend Lady Burt said, the amendment defines “sex” as having the same meaning as in Section 11 of the Equality Act 2010.
The noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, referred to a tragic case of repeat domestic abuse that resulted in murder. The failure to identify repeat domestic abuse perpetrators, as we will hear on a later group, is believed to be the result of a failure to include serial domestic abuse perpetrators in multiagency public protection arrangements, not a result of failing to record misogyny as a hate crime.
This amendment presents a series of challenges. It appears to extend the definition of hate crime beyond what currently exists. The CPS describe a hate crime as when someone is hostile to another person because of their disability, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity. Section 28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, as amended, which deals with hate crime offences, talks about the offender demonstrating hostility or being motivated by hostility. It makes no mention, as this amendment does, of demonstrating prejudice. I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, can explain how prejudice can be demonstrated in a way that does not involve hostility. This amendment also makes no change to the penalty for an offence motivated by misogyny in the way that existing hate crimes create aggravated offences. As such, the amendment simply requires the police to differentiate and record crimes motivated by misogyny to plug a gap in the intelligence picture of offender behaviour.
Misogyny has been described as rewarding women who uphold the status quo but punishing those who reject the subordinate status of women in a patriarchal, male-dominated society; the noble Baronesses, Lady Bull and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, alluded to that. Misogynists effectively differentiate between “good women” who accept a subordinate role to men, who they are loving towards and admiring of, and “bad women” who challenge the status quo or otherwise fail to comply with misogynists’ distorted expectations of how women should look or behave. I wonder whether that reminds noble Lords of any former Presidents.
In my personal and professional experience, this failure to accept domination—to accept a subordinate role—is the essence of domestic abuse, but it is equally true whatever the sex of the perpetrator or the victim. My abusive male partner was loving towards me when I complied, and violent when I stood up for myself. This is typical of a misogynist’s behaviour towards a woman. In my personal experience of domestic abuse, it was motivated by neither misogyny nor misandry
but was typical of coercive and controlling behaviour. There is a real danger of confusing misogyny with other forms of domestic abuse that are not motivated by hatred of women. I welcome the cautious approach recommended by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham.
However, there is merit in collecting intelligence to identify patterns of criminal behaviour, by individuals or within communities, or within society as a whole. That is why intelligence is already kept and shared about those who perpetrate domestic abuse. It would therefore be helpful were the police to collect information on crimes that were likely to be motivated by misogyny outside the domestic abuse arena but beyond the scope of the Bill. Intelligence to protect victims from serial perpetrators of domestic abuse is already collected, although imperfectly, as we will hear on a later group.
What would the purpose of this amendment be? As the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, said, it would be to identify assailants committing crimes motivated by hostility towards women, or that society or a section of society is demonstrating hostility by committing crimes against women. This is something the police, politicians and wider society need to be aware of. I have no problem with the Home Office issuing instructions to the police service requiring it to record such intelligence, but I am not sure that this needs to be in primary legislation, and I have doubts, for the reasons I have explained, that it needs to be in this primary legislation.
Again, on a later group we will debate whether, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell, claimed, domestic abuse is a gendered environment. There is also a danger of confusing the recording of domestic abuse. Currently domestic abuse is not recorded as racial domestic abuse, homophobic domestic abuse, or any other type of intersectionality. I therefore ask why domestic abuse should be characterised as misogynistic domestic abuse. To clarify, I say that my understanding is that only four police forces currently record misogyny as a hate crime, but they also record misandry as a hate crime, and that seven other police forces are piloting or considering doing so.
Finally, I am concerned that we do not get embroiled in the debates between those with entrenched views in relation to trans women. In spite of my noble friend Lady Burt’s concerns, and despite what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, we clearly do not need to go there in relation to this amendment. Existing hate crime legislation is quite clear, as is this amendment, that a relevant crime means a reported crime in which the victim or any other person perceived the alleged offender to demonstrate hostility or prejudice based on sex, or to be motivated by it. In other words, if the victim or anyone else believes it is misogyny, it should be recorded as such. Furthermore, Section 28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 talks about,
“hostility based on the victim’s membership (or presumed membership) of a racial group”,
where “presumed” means presumed by the offender. If the offender presumed the victim to be a woman, it is, and should be, recorded as misogyny.
We support misogyny being recorded by the police to fill a gap in the intelligence picture outside the domestic abuse setting, but we are not convinced that it should be an amendment to this Bill.