My Lords, I should remind the Committee that I was a police officer for more than 30 years. Picking up the theme from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, of a change in culture, there has clearly been a change of culture in the police service towards domestic abuse, but it needs to go further. There needs to be a cultural change in attitudes, particularly those of men towards women and towards domestic abuse in wider society.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for so clearly and comprehensively introducing this amendment. He clearly demonstrated that the approach to perpetrators is, at best, inconsistent. The examples he shared with the Committee showed that existing legislative and procedural provisions are insufficient or are not being complied with adequately. I have received more emails on this amendment than any others during this Committee.
Section 325 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 requires the responsible authority for each area to
“establish arrangements for the purpose of assessing and managing the risks posed in that area by … relevant sexual and violent offenders,”—
and other offenders which the responsible authority considers
“may cause serious harm to the public.”
These are the Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements, MAPPA.
Section 327 of the 2003 Act defines “relevant sexual or violent offender”, and Amendment 164 would add
“relevant domestic abuse or stalking perpetrator”
to that definition. It goes on to define a “relevant domestic abuse or stalking perpetrator” as someone who has been convicted of a serious offence and is a “serial offender”, or that
“a risk of serious harm assessment has identified”
the person
“as presenting a high or very high risk of serious harm.”
A relevant domestic abuse or stalking offence is defined as an offence under Clause 1 of the Bill or under Section 2A or Section 4A of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
2.30 pm
I have known Laura Richards, whom the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned, since we were both in the Metropolitan Police Service. She has been a tenacious campaigner to improve the identification, assessment and management of serial stalkers and perpetrators of domestic abuse. Although many of them are captured by the existing definition of who can be managed through MAPPA, her long and extensive involvement in these issues suggests to her that this is not happening in practice, with sometimes fatal consequences. As we have heard from other noble Lords, serial perpetrators who could have been identified, and the risk they presented managed, have gone on to commit murder. Laura Richards’ belief is that there has been an albeit understandable focus on supporting victims but that this has detracted from managing the perpetrator. She provides some tragic examples and statistics that show that one in four perpetrators of these offences are serial offenders.
I will be interested to hear from the Minister whether a change in approach needs to be forced on relevant authorities by means of primary legislation, as suggested by the amendment, or by mandating the relevant authorities to undertake assessment and management of high-risk perpetrators of domestic abuse and stalking through an enhanced MAPPA process that involves specialist services relating to domestic abuse, honour-based abuse and stalking. The evidence presented suggests that something needs to change.
Amendment 167 similarly calls for a strategic plan to improve the identification and assessment of domestic abuse perpetrators, including increasing the number of rehabilitation programmes and the work done to tackle abusive attitudes and behaviour. The noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, has just given examples of how effective such programmes can be. Amendment 177B also calls for a domestic abuse national perpetrator strategy.
Clearly, it is far better for domestic abuse to be prevented from happening in the first place than to have to support the victims and survivors after the event, and effective perpetrator strategies are an important part of this. This must go beyond simply identifying and managing high-risk individuals. As the noble Baroness alluded to, it must start in schools and young offender institutions, with comprehensive personal, social, health and economic education that includes teaching students what healthy relationships look and feel like, as opposed to what many children, sadly, experience in their own homes.
I look forward to participating in a later group on the impact of the internet on perpetuating misogynistic attitudes. But, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, said, it is time that the perpetrator, not the victim, was expected to change their behaviour.