My Lords, in moving Amendment 164 on behalf of my noble friend Lady Royall, I will also speak to my Amendment 177B. My noble friend is extremely sorry that she is not able to speak today due to a long-standing and immovable commitment. My remarks very much reflect her views and passion to see strong action in relation to serial and serious domestic abuse perpetrators and stalkers. I am grateful also to the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Brinton, for putting their names to the amendment.
This amendment follows many years of advocacy, during which my noble friend Lady Royall has sought to reflect the views of families of victims and many organisations, including John and Penny Clough; Paladin; Aurora New Dawn; Women’s Aid; the Hampton Trust; the Alice Ruggles Trust; the Centre for Women’s Justice; the London Assembly and the Mayor of London; the domestic abuse commissioner, Nicole Jacobs; the
Victims’ Commissioner, Dame Vera Baird QC; Napo; magistrates; police officers; countless survivors, including Zoe Dronfield, Georgia Hooper, Rachel Williams, Charlotte Kneer and Celia Peachey; and the 217,000 people who have signed the petition in support of the need for action.
My noble friend’s amendment seeks to ensure a co-ordinated, consistent and mandatory approach throughout the country to the flagging and targeting of perpetrators, without which, more women and children will be terrorised, and some will die. It would place a statutory obligation on police, prison and probation officers to identify, assess and manage serial and serious domestic abuse perpetrators and stalkers. This would change the culture and ensure that questions are asked of the perpetrator and not the victim. It would ensure a multiagency problem-solving approach by the statutory agencies charged with a responsibility for public protection.
So far, the Government have resisted this in the belief that current arrangements are adequate. They are not. There are pockets of good practice, but it is not national and there is no co-ordinated approach led by statutory agencies. There is no legal framework or national process in England and Wales by which serial perpetrators are routinely identified, monitored and managed. These serial perpetrators and stalkers are simply not visible or held to account, even though past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour. We know that they are transient: they seek to control the most vulnerable women and children, and if that includes moving across borders to meet their needs, they often will do so. They travel and start new relationships, but the history is not recorded, so vital information does not travel with them. We have to change this by ensuring that there is a legislative duty to proactively identify, assess and manage these men using MAPPA-plus, an enhanced version of MAPPA, to include domestic abuse specialist services, honour-based abuse services and stalking services that understand coercive control and stalking, and ensure that the intelligence is collected and put into the national system, ViSOR.
The enhanced system would of course require multiagency training, complemented by clear guidance ahead of implementation. Without MAPPA-plus, Clare’s law will never work effectively, because there is no duty on the police to add any information or intelligence about a perpetrator’s previous offending to a local or national system. If information is put on a local system, it lacks the detail required. The burden is placed on the victim, and too often the perpetrator’s narrative is believed rather than the victim’s.
When my noble friend Lady Royall met the Minister, she was asked for evidence of such a system, and she forwarded a report by Laura Richards, a global expert and founder of Paladin. Her report focused on 28 men who had murdered 31 women and eight children, and who had significantly harmed more women and children. There will undoubtedly be more. In addition, there are family members who are terrorised and threatened by serial abusers, and the impact on others when a loved one is killed. The report makes for distressing reading.
It is utterly compelling in its conclusion that there have been too many reviews and that the time for action is now.
I will cite just two cases in the report. The first is that of Alfie Gildea:
“Four-month-old Alfie Gildea was killed by violent Sam Gildea, who had been previously convicted of manslaughter by violent shaking. This is how he killed Alfie.”
His mother, Caitlin McMichael, learned about Sam Gildea’s history after Alfie had been murdered. Why was she not told before about his previous conviction?
“This is the police force that failed Clare Wood, and the reason Clare’s Law came in because of their failures. Greater Manchester Police knew that he was a serial perpetrator and they did not act. Why not?”
Last November, the coroner, Alison Mutch, said that Gildea was a
“serious and serial domestic abuse perpetrator”
who was well known to Greater Manchester Police. They failed to recognise coercive control. Why was his case not heard at MAPPA, when his history of violence was known to Greater Manchester Police?
I now come to the case of two unnamed women, in 2020:
“Stephen Williams was sentenced to two years in prison on May 29 2020, for a horrific campaign of mental and physical abuse on his 18 year old girlfriend. She is 10 years younger than him. He held a knife to her throat, punched in the face, poured corrosive cleaner over her head and threatened to kill her. He coercively controlled her and made her give up her job as a hairdresser & her family and friends … made her travel with him in his HGV lorry cab to make sure she didn’t talk to anyone … punched her in the face, bit the back of her neck and said he would ‘break every bone in her body.’ He pulled her finger back causing ligament damage and fractured her rib. Her sister called the police and she was taken to hospital.”
Williams was arrested and pleaded guilty to controlling and coercive behaviour, assault by beating, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, causing an unauthorised transmission from prison, and witness intimidation.
“A former partner gave evidence at court about his abuse. Williams pressured her to retract her statement and threatened her by saying ‘I will get out of her one day and you will regret it.’ The judge described him as a controlling and manipulative bully and said ‘I have come to the view that you pose a significant risk of harm to your female partners.’ Williams was sentenced to just two years in prison and made the subject of a restraining order, forbidding him to see or contact his ex-partner for two years.”
Upon his release, Williams will not be identified as a serial perpetrator and a risk to other women. Under the new system, he would be categorised as category 4, included on ViSOR and managed via MAPPA. Other relevant services would be involved as well. An order could be placed on him regarding whether he moves, starts a new relationship or changes his name, as well as attendance at an accredited perpetrator programme. But we do not have that at the moment, and
“under current guidance and practice it is unlikely that he will meet the MAPPA criteria.”
I have mentioned two cases. In her contribution the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, will bring another disturbing example to the House’s attention.
My noble friend Lady Royall is arguing that, under MAPPA-plus, a new category four,
“serial and serious harm domestic abuse and stalking perpetrators”,
should be included. Positive obligations would be placed on a perpetrator, including attending a treatment programme. They would have to notify the police if they changed their name, moved, went abroad or started a new relationship. These are critical components of the strategic plans in Amendment 167, which I also support, and my own Amendment 177B. The difference between these two amendments is the time given to the Government to come forward with a strategy. In fairness, my noble friend Lady Royall thinks that my two-year period is far too generous and that we need much quicker action. Time is of the essence. We know that at least two women a week are murdered by ex-partners, many of whom are serial offenders. This has increased to five a week during the pandemic. It is self-evident that a cohesive strategy is needed as soon as possible.
At Second Reading the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, spoke of investing more than £7 million in direct perpetrator-focused interventions through police and crime commissioners to prevent abuse. She also promised that the forthcoming domestic abuse strategy would include specific work to tackle perpetrators and prevent offending. This is welcome but not sufficient.
It is significant that, last year, 80 signatories, including charities such as Women’s Aid, Respect and Action for Children, as well as academics and individuals, called on the Government to invest in a perpetrator strategy. They called for public voluntary services to be empowered to hold perpetrators to account; best-practice perpetrator interventions to be available across England and Wales; a national quality assurance system and a sustainable, predictable source of funding; and for national and local leaders to spearhead the perpetrator strategy. Nicole Jacobs, the designate domestic abuse commissioner, supports these measures. She said
“I support the call on Government to publish a Strategy on Perpetrators of Domestic Abuse. Current prevention work is patchy and too often perpetrators go unchallenged and are not offered opportunities to change their abusive behaviour.”
I urge the Minister to accept the principles contained in Amendments 167 and 177B but, even more importantly, to accept my noble friend Lady Royall’s amendment and introduce MAPPA-plus without further delay. I beg to move.