My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for putting down and so persuasively opening
this debate on Amendment 44, to which I will speak and have added my name. In Committee, we discussed judicial training at some length. It was interesting that there was general agreement that the amendment on judicial training was by far the most important of all the amendments in a raft of suggested measures seeking reform to procedure in the family courts.
I agree with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that the Judicial College provides first-class training for judges and magistrates, with its induction courses for those newly appointed or newly authorised to hear family cases and through continuing education, practical workshops and training materials, appraisal and mentoring. Nothing I say should be taken as a criticism of the quality of the work done by that college. However, one thread that ran through the debate in Committee was that, time and again, victims of domestic violence found their experiences of bringing cases in family courts to be somewhere between daunting and terrifying, They often found the courts and judges profoundly out of sympathy with the suffering of abuse victims.
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We have improved training for judges and magistrates in recent years but there is no room for complacency. Victims’ experiences have not reflected that improvement. So bad is it that, for many, the lack of sympathy which they learn from others to expect from courts puts them off bringing cases at all. Others go to court once and come out saying “never again”.
Part of the problem stems from the divergence, long recognised, between judges’ life experiences and those of victims and parties who come before them. In Committee, I said that
“we must recognise that most judges and legal professionals come from a world that differs dramatically from the world that is home to many … litigants who come before them: victims, abusers, witnesses and others.”—[Official Report, 3/2/21; col. 2240.]
Of course, that is a generalisation. In spite of the obvious handicap of a continuing and depressing lack of racial, social and gender diversity among the judiciary at all levels, many judges have the capacity, empathy, wisdom, experience and training to understand the suffering that they try to relieve with the decisions that they make, but many do not, hence the disappointment and concern.
Much of this comes as no surprise to government. The MoJ’s report on assessing harm was published as recently as June 2020. Unsurprisingly, it found substantial crossover between children’s and domestic abuse cases. I cite only a few of its findings; they chime with what we have heard from the many briefings that we have received from victims’ groups, the London Victims’ Commissioner, Women’s Aid and many others. The report said:
“Submissions highlighted a feeling that abuse is systematically minimised, ranging from children’s voices not being heard, allegations being ignored, dismissed or disbelieved, to inadequate assessment of risk, traumatic court processes, perceived unsafe child arrangements, and abusers exercising continued control through repeat litigation and the threat of repeat litigation.”
A little later, it said:
“There are particular barriers for victims of BAME backgrounds in raising domestic abuse; victims and the professionals supporting them perceived these barriers as involving racism, in addition to
sexism and class prejudice. Male victims also face particular barriers, with some respondents highlighting that stereotypes about ‘real’ victims present an obstacle to being believed.”
We have made much progress in this Bill, with provisions now proposed and more accepted for special measures for witnesses and parties, and to prohibit direct cross-examination. But there is far more to be done and we should not leave it to the Judicial College exclusively. The role of the college is hugely important and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, pointed out, it has a major role in our amendment. Were it to be underpinned by a statutory duty, we might make quicker progress in improving victims’ confidence in the family courts.
That is why we need a strategy and timetable for specialist training for family court judges and magistrates in cases involving rape, sexual and domestic abuse, and coercive control. We need to ensure continuing professional development, because the learning and understanding of these issues is always moving forward. Training must cover the impact of trauma, the risks and difficulties of giving evidence and of taking part in proceedings. Developing the strategy and timetable should involve the Judicial College, but also the President of the Family Division, the Magistrates’ Association and the domestic abuse commissioner. We should be working towards a requirement that every judge or magistrate sitting in a family court must have completed the mandatory training.
For my part, I have reconsidered my hesitation about imposing a statutory duty on the Secretary of State, and I do not share the opposition of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss—with whom I very rarely disagree—to so doing. We need a strategy and timetable for delivering this training, with a focus on trauma and on making courts into sympathetic and positive environments for victims, a strong commitment to continuing development and a requirement that no one sits on family cases without such training. Those commitments should be on the face of this landmark Bill. We cannot continue letting victims down by a combination of underpreparing our judiciary and complacently relying on a belief in complete judicial expertise, which is, sadly, often misplaced.