Courts and Tribunals Bill (First sitting)
(1 day, 10 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Before we begin, I ask Members to switch electronic devices to silent. Tea, coffee, soft drinks and sandwiches are not allowed, although water is permitted. There are a couple of procedural things to do before we hear from our witnesses. We will first consider the programme motion on the amendment paper, and then consider a motion to enable the reporting and publication of written evidence to the Committee. There is also a motion to allow us to deliberate in private before the oral evidence session begins, to talk about how we are going to handle the session. Date Time Witness Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 9.55 am Rt Hon Sir Brian Leveson Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 10.35 am Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales; Professor Katrin Hohl, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, City St George’s, University of London; Dame Vera Baird KC Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 11.25 am Women’s Aid Federation of England; Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott; Charlotte Meijer; Morwenna Loughman Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 2.30 pm The Bar Council; Criminal Bar Association Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 3.00 pm Claire Davies KC, Leader of the South Eastern Circuit; Samantha Hillas KC, Leader of the Northern Circuit; Caroline Goodwin KC, Leader of the North Eastern Circuit Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 3.20 pm Claire Throssell Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 3.35 pm Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 3.50 pm HM Courts and Tribunals Service Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 4.20 pm JUSTICE; Centre for Criminal Appeals (APPEAL); Institute for Government Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 4.40 pm Hon Doug Downey KC MPP, Attorney General of Ontario Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 4.55 pm Plan B. Earth Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 5.30 pm Hon Sir Richard Henriques; His Honour Clement Goldstone KC; RT Hon Lord Burnett of Maldon Wednesday 25 March Until no later than 5.50 pm Ministry of Justice
Ordered,
That—
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25 am on Wednesday 25 March) meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Wednesday 25 March;
(b) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 14 April;
(c) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 16 April;
(d) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 21 April;
(e) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 23 April;
(f) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 28 April;
(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table:
(3) proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 4; Schedule 1; Clauses 5 to 7; Schedule 2; Clauses 8 to 18; Schedule 3; Clauses 19 and 20; new Clauses; new Schedules; Clauses 21 to 27; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(4) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Tuesday 28 April.—(Sarah Sackman.)
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Sarah Sackman.)
The Chair
Copies of written evidence the Committee receives will be made available in the Committee Room, which is very useful for the Opposition and for the Government, as I am sure you all know. I said to the Minister before we started that my view is that the Government’s job is to get legislation through and the Opposition’s job is to scrutinise it, and I will protect both in that pursuit. My job as Chairman is to help both sides to achieve those aims, and it is entirely possible to do so.
Resolved,
That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.—(Sarah Sackman.)
The Chair
We are now sitting in public and the proceedings are being broadcast. Before we start, do any Members wish to make a declaration of interest in connection with the Bill? No. If any Member has an interest that is relevant to their question or speech, they should declare it at the appropriate time.
Examination of Witness
Sir Brian Leveson gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Sir Brian Leveson. We must stick to the timings of the programme order that the Committee has agreed, so we have until 9.55 am for this panel. Will the witness please briefly introduce themselves for the record?
Sir Brian Leveson: My name is Brian Leveson. I was a practising criminal lawyer from 1970. I became a silk in 1986. I went on to the High Court bench in 2000, and the Court of Appeal in 2006. I was the senior presiding judge for England and Wales between 2007 and 2009, the inaugural chair of the Sentencing Council between 2010 and 2013, president of the Queen’s bench division from 2013, and latterly head of criminal justice. I retired at the compulsory age of 70 in 2019. I am now the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. I have spent the last 15 months seeking to review criminal justice, a subject which I rather thought I had left behind.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: No, although I recognise that, in 2015, I looked at efficiency in criminal proceedings. Everybody says that was a wonderful time—no, it was not. I published a report that dealt with efficiency. It was not to incorporate anything that involved legislative change, but in chapter 10, “Out of Scope”, I discussed what Sir Robin Auld said in 2001. Anybody looking at that material would have seen that I was seriously concerned about the way in which criminal justice was proceeding and progressing, notwithstanding the backlog then because of an absence of police officers. What I visualised has actually come to pass.
Dr Mullan
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: Well, I have been visiting Crown courts for 50 years. I personally visited Liverpool Crown court, and I am sure I went to another Crown court, but my team went a large number of Crown courts. I was assisted by three advisers: Professor David Ormerod, who is I think the foremost criminal academic lawyer in the country; Chris Mayer, a former chief executive of HM Courts Service; and Shaun McNally, a former director of crime at HMCS and a former chief executive of the Legal Aid Agency. I had plenty of expertise. I did not need to visit courts; they did. I spoke to a lot of judges, though.
Dr Mullan
I do not want to assume what you may or may not know about Liverpool, but are you aware that Liverpool does not have a backlog in its courts?
Sir Brian Leveson: I am very aware of Liverpool: I am a Liverpudlian. I practised in Liverpool. I know all the judges in Liverpool extremely well. It would be a mistake to think that Liverpool is a microcosm of the country, for lots of reasons. Liverpool has a single Crown court. There are 20-odd courts in one building. It was opened in 1984—I was present. It has its problems, but it is still a very highly functioning court. There is one Crown Prosecution Service area. There is essentially one police force, although there is a second in Cheshire. There is one chief probation officer. Much more importantly, there is a small local Bar where everybody knows everybody else and they all get on with it. That is not the case in other parts of the country.
Dr Mullan
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: Yes, and I have made recommendations. It is critical that the systems join up: the police, the CPS, the defence community, the courts, the judiciary, and the prison and probation services. They all have their own budgets, their own problems and their own priorities. One of the recommendations I made in part 2 of my review—which is not considered in the Bill, obviously—was the creation of a criminal justice adviser whose only responsibility was co-ordinating the work of each of the agencies to try to make them work together. That is where it has worked in Liverpool. But doing that on its own would not be sufficient.
Dr Mullan
Q
“I have no doubt that the MoJ will want and need to conduct more detailed modelling, including through impact assessments of any recommendations taken forward.”
It is a common theme throughout the report that you say, repeatedly, that you expect that the Ministry of Justice will want to undertake more detailed modelling than the modelling you undertook. Are you aware of what, if any, more detailed modelling the MOJ did undertake?
Sir Brian Leveson: That is not my responsibility. What I wanted to say about modelling was this: it is bordering on the speculative to think that you can model all the changes to get one set of results. I am very conscious, for example, of the modelling in relation to the time saved by a bench division. You will know, and doubtless quote it at me in a moment, that the modellers suggest 20%, which I believe is pessimistic. Let me say why I think that is so, because it is very important that the Committee understands this.
How can modelling be undertaken in relation to systems that have never operated? The first question is, “What time would be saved?” The modellers—the analysts—looked to the court service: “How many minutes would be saved by not having to do this with a jury? How many by doing that, and the other?” They also spoke to some judges. I believe they came up with a figure that is far too pessimistic, as I said.
Let me explain why. The dynamic of a criminal trial conducted with a jury is very different from the dynamic of a trial conducted without a jury. Take family work, for example. The judge gets involved. If there is a jury, he finds no facts—every fact that anybody wants to elicit or develop, unless it is inadmissible, they can—but if a judge is conducting a trial, he or she will say, “Well now, what’s the issue in this case? Let’s get down to it,” and, “I’ve got that point; what’s the next point?” That changes the dynamic of the trial entirely.
Indeed, I have spoken to district judges who try rapes in the youth court and are also sex-ticketed recorders, so are trying rapes in the Crown court, and they say to me that trials in the Crown court are twice as long as for the same sort of acquaintance-type rape in the youth court. Canadian judges talk about 50%; I am concerned to achieve fair justice, and I need to speed that up because of the backlog.
Dr Mullan
On the right to elect, your report—we are not talking about further work that you are not responsible for—says:
“It has been assumed that disposals per day in the magistrates’ court are in line with the current average.”
So if we change the system, disposals will remain at the current rate. If we are trying more complex, more serious cases, is it reasonable to assume that the disposal time will be the same as for those currently seen for less serious cases?
Sir Brian Leveson: Why do you say they are more complex? They are not necessarily more complex at all.
Dr Mullan
If they are being given sentences of potentially up three years versus, for example, six months, you do not think that will have any impact on the time, complexity or seriousness of the cases?
Sir Brian Leveson: I am not suggesting it will not have any impact; I am suggesting that the time cases take is not necessarily governed by the nature of the charge or, indeed, the eventual sentence. In the 1970s, I could conduct two trials in a day; nobody ever conducts a trial in a day these days.
Dr Mullan
The most specific element of modelling that the MOJ undertook was something called a structured elicitation workshop, which found that the time saved would be between 10% and 30%. At the lower the end, that is half of the 20% estimate that you put forward. Would you accept that?
Sir Brian Leveson: No. I think that is wrong. As far as I am concerned, there will be a considerable time saving and, much more importantly, there will be a cultural shift. At the moment, if you can put your trial off until 2028, what is not to like?
Dr Mullan
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: I do not accept that characterisation at all. I believe that savings in a Crown court will be dramatic, for cultural and involvement reasons, in the same way that family judges get through cases more quickly. If you ask those who are opposed to any change what they think will happen as a result of change, they are going to be—
The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: Yes. At the moment, there are undeniably defendants who are gaming the system. They are charged with a crime, they are told their trial will not be until 2028 or 2029, and they are happy to put it off.
I gave an example in a debate on this subject. I said that in 1970 I would say to defendants in around November, “Well, this is a very strong case. If you are guilty, you are much better admitting it. You get a discount for pleading guilty and you can explain it, which will contain litigation.” More than once defendants would say, “Well, Mr Leveson, I am guilty, and I will plead guilty, but I want to spend Christmas with my kids, so I will plead guilty in January.” Now they can say, “I would like to spend Christmas 2028 with my children.” That was an anecdote from me, but after the debate a defence solicitor from London came up to me and said, “That example you gave—I am having that conversation every day of the week.”
We need people to confront what they have done. I do not want anybody to plead guilty who is not guilty and has seen the evidence. I am not asking to change the guilty plea rate, but in the early days, you pleaded guilty on the first or the second occasion you appeared at the Crown court—now there are many examples of that happening on the fifth or the sixth occasion you are in the Crown court. Each one of those takes a considerable amount of time. That is what is sucking up part of the time.
There are lots of other challenges to the system, which if you have had what I do not say is the benefit or privilege of reading both parts 1 and 2 of my review, you will see that I try to elaborate on there. I am concerned that we need to change the dynamic so that people address allegations that are made against them at the first opportunity, rather than hoping that the victim will withdraw, the witnesses will forget or the case will just fade away. That is the point I am talking about with cultural change.
Sarah Sackman
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: No, I do not. I have spent my life trying to improve the efficiency of criminal courts, from the time that I was senior presiding judge in 2007. I have spent a lot of time trying to improve efficiency. It has deteriorated for all sorts of reasons, which I elaborate on in my review. It will be difficult to get that moving. It can be done. The money going into the system has been dramatically reduced over the years. The MOJ was not a protected Department, and has really suffered as a consequence. Do I believe that money and efficiency will do it? No, I do not, because that will not change the cultural dynamic.
Sarah Sackman
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: The reason why I started to think about that was that I have long been of the view that it would be valuable, as technology has improved, to record magistrates court proceedings—in other words, to have a record of what is said in the magistrates courts. Once one is doing that, there is no reason why one should not introduce the same sort of approach to appeals as the one used in the Crown court and the Court of Appeal criminal division.
I was particularly impressed—I use the word impressed, but I was concerned—by an argument that I heard that many minor sexual assaults that were dealt with in the magistrates courts or the youth courts, which could include rape, almost automatically went to appeal to the Crown court, on the basis that the victim would not turn up the second time and be prepared to go through the whole process again. That is a serious problem. To require victims to go through the experience of giving evidence and being cross-examined twice is unfair on them. Everybody needs to be able to move on with their lives, and that is victims and defendants as well.
Although I have talked about defendants gaming the system, I do not ignore defendants who are determined to pursue a not guilty plea because they do not feel they have done anything wrong, but whose lives are on hold for years until their trials happen. I had an example of a young man who was at university and charged with rape. His university career is long since gone, and he could not get a job because he had to tell potential employers, “I’m due to be tried for rape.” The system has to change. That is what I believe, but of course it is for you to decide whether it does.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: That is easily answered: there are just too many of them. My view is that nobody should be a circuit judge unless they are capable of trying serious sexual crime—nobody. The empathy required to deal with victims is not just restricted to rape and serious sexual crimes. The make-up of cases going to the Crown court has changed over the last 10 years, so what might have been a good idea 10 or 15 years ago when there were fewer such cases does not cut it now. There are just too many cases, and that is why I did not recommend a specialist rape court.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: That is an interesting question. I have long since believed that there needed to be radical change. The fact is that the backlog went up in the 12 months since I was appointed in December 2024—sorry, this will be a longish answer. You would have thought that everybody would be working like mad to demonstrate that efficiency could bring the backlog down over the year following my appointment. Not only did the backlog not go down, but it went up higher than the highest projection that the Ministry had.
I have always been of the view that efficiency alone would not do it, and you were going to have to look at legislative change. If you were going to look at legislative change, it was important that you all had the chance to consider that as soon as possible, so I was perfectly content to deal with policy first and efficiency afterwards, on the basis that by the time you got around to dealing with it, you would have both reports anyway and you could look at everything together; I hope you have.
The Chair
I want to get three more people in, so pithy questions and pithy answers, please.
Sir Brian Leveson: I am sorry.
Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)
Q
On 17 March, we heard evidence on the Justice Committee from Tom Guest, the director of policy at the Crown Prosecution Service. He talked about the CPS being supportive of the structural reform that is proposed in the Bill. He said that we were “at a critical juncture” and that this is
“a generational opportunity for end-to-end reform. Our view is that we have gone far beyond the point where piecemeal or non-legislative solutions will suffice. They are definitely part of the solution, but they will not solve the problem. The status quo is failing victims, witnesses and defendants.”
Do you recognise that sentiment, and do you have any comments in relation to the view of the Crown Prosecution Service and its role to play in this structural reform?
Sir Brian Leveson: I do recognise the sentiment: it is exactly my own. I think the CPS has an enormous role to play. You will know from the report that I wrote that there are lots of areas in which improvement and co-ordination of activity is critical. IT changes have to made: there are 43 forces with 43 different IT systems, each of which the CPS have to negotiate with. Redaction is an enormous problem, as is file build. The relationship between the police and the CPS, and the inability of police defence lawyers to speak to CPS lawyers—all that needs to change, and that is why I suggested the adviser.
Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: There are lots of reasons.
Joe Robertson
But jury trials are not the principal reason.
Sir Brian Leveson: No, no, I do not and have never blamed jury trials at all. The reason is that the complexity has changed. Pace, disclosure of unused material, special measures, bad character, hearsay and data—cell site data, which is now critical to almost every single prosecution, and data taken from phones—have all added to the complexity and length of trials. I am not criticising juries at all, and I welcome jury trials, but the threshold must now be adjusted if we are to get justice for everybody in good time.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of the time allocated for the Committee to ask questions during this panel. Thank you very much for coming to give evidence, Sir Brian. We would have liked to have longer with you, but we have many witnesses to question. On behalf of the Committee, I thank you for coming and for giving evidence.
Sir Brian Leveson: You are very welcome, Sir John. If I can help in any other way, I will. I am happy to meet parliamentarians: I have offered to meet the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats, and I am happy to meet anybody to talk about this on a cross-party basis.
The Chair
There we go: that is a very generous offer. For hon. Members who signalled that they wanted to ask questions, my apologies, but from what Sir Brian just said, he will make himself available to meet you at will.
Sir Brian Leveson: I do not know about “at will”.
The Chair
Thank you very much, Sir Brian.
Examination of Witnesses
Claire Waxman, Professor Katrin Hohl and Dame Vera Baird gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Claire Waxman, Professor Katrin Hohl and Dame Vera Baird. It is good to see you and to have you back here, Vera, albeit in a different guise.
I will follow the same procedure as I did in the previous panel, but I want to get more Committee members in, as I know that Members on both sides of the Committee missed out. I ask Dr Mullan and the Minister to try to keep the Front-Bench questions tighter, so that we can get more participation from all parts of the Committee.
Dr Mullan
Q
Claire Waxman: Of course. My role is very much focused on listening directly to victim survivors and families bereaved by homicide, so any changes in legislation and proposals are sense-checked with them. I have been listening to victims since 2020, when the pandemic hit, and have seen the direct impact of the long delays, with cases now going well into 2030. There is a human cost to that. We often say, “Justice delayed is justice denied,” but justice is not abstract for victims. When we delay justice, what it really means for victims is a lack of security and safety, and an inability to process what has happened, to get closure and to move on with their lives; all those are denied. We trap victims in prolonged years of uncertainty, which compounds and prolongs their trauma. I have spoken at length publicly about what that looks like for victims.
You will hear from victims shortly, and a letter signed by 18 victims who have actually been in the criminal justice system and sustained long waits for justice was sent last week. I have spoken to victims, and they want this to end: they want a way out, and they are desperate. They are saying that if having a judge-only trial in a case will mean that they will come out of the system more quickly, they want to see timely justice. Without that, we are seeing a reduction in access to justice, an increase in victim attrition—and not just post-charge, as we have seen an increase of more than 5% in the last five years—and a third of trials breaking down because victims have withdrawn as they cannot sustain staying in the system.
We are also seeing it impact the pre-charge phase. Last year, as London’s Victims’ Commissioner, I published the London victim attrition review, finding that on average 40% of victims withdraw from the system, and that delays are playing a part in that—not just delays in investigation, but the thought of having to wait years to get into court.
Dr Mullan
Q
Claire Waxman: Yes, I am absolutely aware of it.
Dr Mullan
Q
Claire Waxman: That letter was actually around victims who have been criminalised, so it is a different issue; they are dealing with victims who are defendants in the system, not victims who are complainants.
Dr Mullan
Q
Claire Waxman: In that letter, the focus is on the criminalisation of victims, which is awful. The overlap of criminalisation and victimisation needs to be dealt with way earlier on in the system.
The Chair
Kieran, can we just ask a question and get the answer?
Claire Waxman: You would need to ask Welsh Women’s Aid. They have signed up to a slightly different tone of a letter, which is around the criminalisation of victims coming into the system as defendants. It is very different to the victims I listen to—
Sarah Sackman
Q
Professor Hohl: The measures in the Bill that address sexual offences broadly fall into two groups. The first group clarifies and tightens admissibility rules around sexual history evidence and previous reports of sexual violence that may be portrayed as so-called “victim bad character”, tightening that threshold to better protect victims from unnecessary, intrusive and unfounded lines of questioning. We very much welcome those.
There is also a set around special measures, which effectively clarify how they should apply. Those are also very welcome, and my understanding is that they are largely uncontroversial; they seem to be welcomed across the board.
Sarah Sackman
Q
Claire Waxman: Thank you. First of all, victims are not a homogeneous group, and they do not always agree on everything, but the majority of victims, who are so desperate to get out of these long waits, are looking to you—to Government and to parliamentarians—to provide that reassurance that hope is on the horizon. As Sir Brian laid out this morning, and in all his analysis work, we need some structural reform in order to take the pressure off the overburdened court system. That is what we need to be looking at to alleviate what victims have to experience.
That sector letter is talking about a really serious failing of our criminal justice system, but it is about the criminalisation of victims. They should not even be coming into court. We need to be dealing with that way earlier in the process. We need to be looking at diversion, better identification of victims and pushing them into trauma-informed responses and support.
I do not want to see victims coming into the system as defendants, but we cannot ignore the many victims I speak to—and there are victims who will speak to you directly today—who are in as complainants rather than as defendants. They are waiting years to give evidence. We know that when they wait years, there is a chance that they will withdraw; if they do not, the wait impacts the quality of their evidence. The impact of delays on memory will understandably affect their evidence. Inconsistencies naturally arise and that becomes very challenging for victims giving evidence years after the offence.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
“also stress important safeguards: tackling the lack of diversity on the bench, and ensuring judges are robustly trained in the dynamics of abuse and trauma.”
You know that over many years many different parliamentarians have tried to legislate to ensure that everyone in the judiciary has mandatory training on those important safeguards. You also know that we are always told that, because the judiciary is independent, we cannot legislate to mandate that training. What would you like to see in the Bill to ensure the important safeguards that victims have reflected to you?
Claire Waxman: I have made that point for years, regardless of these reforms. We have to improve and get reassurance around judicial training, including training on cultural competency, on understanding bias and prejudice and on the dynamics of abuse. We still see issues around coercive control, post-separation abuse and stalking. I need to be reassured that judges are being trained to the level that will give assurances to victims and to myself that they understand what is coming in front of them. We need reassurance from Government on that. I would suggest more investment in judicial training. We saw, over years—Vera will remember more than me when it happened—that the training on rape went down from three days to two days for judges. That was meant to be a temporary measure; I do not think it has gone back up. We need to make sure that we have good, robust training for judiciary and magistrates.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
Claire Waxman: People in the criminal justice system need to move ahead with the efficiency measures. We need to move ahead with that so that we can start to see some of the adjournments not happening, better listing and so on. Of course, it is a desperate state. Just yesterday I spoke to a male victim of child sex abuse. He has been in the system since 2021 and in the court system for two years. He thought that he was giving evidence in the coming weeks. That has been adjourned and he has been asked his availability for 2027, 2028 and 2029. He is going to withdraw. I think Sir Brian said it—looking at structural reform came first because we know that the efficiency measures are not going to bring the backlog down quickly enough. We need to do everything together as a package of measures and we need to move ahead.
Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)
Good morning, all. I welcome your work and the support that you offer victims—all of you, in what you have been doing. I am sure there is cross-party support for that in the room this morning. Do you think the changes in the Bill will improve the confidence of victims that, when they report crimes, they will receive justice more swiftly than they currently do and, more importantly, that the changes will also encourage more brave victims to come forward and report crimes?
Claire Waxman: There are a lot of good measures in the Bill that, if delivered and implemented well and with important safeguards, should have positive impacts for victims. We are removing appropriate cases from the Crown court, easing the burden there, and limiting the right to elect for a Crown court trial. By the way, victims view that right as an injustice. They feel that power and control is being given to the defendant, knowing full well that there is a chance they will come out of the process or that their evidence will be impacted over the years. That is something that victims regularly talk to me about. The measures around the automatic right to appeal and to make the magistrates a court of record will open up transparency in the courts and hopefully stop victims having to be called back in for a rehearing. That has devastating impacts; you cannot overestimate what it does to a victim when they think that they have gone through the process of giving evidence, and then they have to come in again.
If all those things ease the pressure and burden on the Crown court, that will give reassurance and confidence to victims who are thinking about whether to stay in the process currently. The measures Katrin talked about—putting in important safeguards around the cross-examination of rape victims—are so important. Vera and I have worked on this since 2019, because of section 41, past sexual history, and issues around cross-examination and compensation claims. That is a financial motive used to undermine the credibility of victims. Victims come out of the system and often say, “I will never report again,” but they tell their friends and families about their experiences, and that deters people and erodes public trust and confidence.
Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)
Q
Claire Waxman: That is impossible to answer. We need to see it happen. You need to come back to me and say if it is not going to reduce—
Rebecca Paul
Q
Claire Waxman: It is the case. The Crown court is overburdened. You have heard Sir Brian Leveson’s analysis; it cannot continue in the state it is in. If we do not take appropriate cases out of the Crown court, then what is the answer?
Rebecca Paul
Q
Claire Waxman: But I cannot imagine it. If you are taking cases out of the Crown court that cannot deal with the pressure, that will save time.
Rebecca Paul
That is what we will be analysing over the next few weeks—whether it will or not.
The Chair
We will limit ourselves to one question each at this stage so that everyone can get in. If there is more time, I will call people again.
Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham Erdington) (Lab)
Q
Dame Vera Baird: It is absolutely imperative. There is no way of stopping the problems that my colleague Claire has so well expressed without stopping smaller cases going into the jury list. The state has not said that they need to be tried by jury. As you know, the state says all summary offences go to the magistrates court, as do all indictable offences where it is imperative to have a jury trial—they are very important; the public needs transparency. That is what has been fixed.
It is the cases in the middle, which are at a relatively lower level of crime, where there is a right that the guy charged with rape or murder does not have to pick where he is tried. There is a right to do that for relatively small cases, which is exercised sometimes —you have heard from Sir Brian—in a very self-interested way, which doesn’t surprise you, does it, really? If you can put the case off for three years, the witnesses might never come.
All of that is a problem, and it should be dealt with by bringing in a perfectly fair method of trial: a skilled judge, with or without two magistrates. Make no mistake about judges, there is a need to keep them well trained, of course there is. However, judges now do a lot of fact-finding, not only in criminal cases. Look at the case of Charlotte Nichols, who waited 1,088 days to get to court. She told the most convincing story—what a woman; she is brilliant—to the House of Commons about what happened to her. After 1,088 days, the man was acquitted of raping her. She then had the resource to sue, and she sued in the civil court. A judge believed her and awarded compensation, which she felt was redeeming. There are many cases now where jury trials fail complainants and, if they have the resource, they go to the civil courts, and the judges there are more amenable.
We must not muddle jury trial and fair trial. In many cases—in Australia, all over New Zealand and in most of Canada—there is a right for a jury trial-allocated defendant to opt out. More opt out of jury trials than remain in. Do you know why that is? It is because the acquittal rate is higher in judge-alone trials universally. A judge reasoning a case cannot just say, “Well, I don’t really believe that Baird woman—I didn’t like the look of her. I’m not going to follow what she says,” as juries can. You have to sit down and reason out why it is so. Are you being rational or not? That will be a great asset to fair trial in the middle tier where Sir Brian is going to allocate the most serious of cases, which, frankly, the state has never said need to go to jury. It is about having a punt on a jury trial.
Joe Robertson
Q
Dame Vera Baird: Is it your only point? The answer would be that judges are not as diverse as juries.
Joe Robertson
Q
Dame Vera Baird: Not in the slightest. I assume you know that 73% of people who are entitled to a jury trial do not elect it and choose to stay in the magistrates court. That is men, women and black people. Black people and women disproportionately elect trial because they clearly feel that they will get a fairer trial with a diverse jury, but who says that is right? On the day, if you were a sex offender with some nasty allegations, for instance, you would have a better chance of acquittal in front of a judge than you ever would in front of a jury. It is just an opportunity to try to pick the best trial for yourself, but it is a punt in the dark. It is a go on the wheel of fortune. Sometimes it will work and sometimes it will not.
Joe Robertson
Q
Dame Vera Baird: Seventy-three per cent of people offered jury trials do not take the offer up. Are you sure that the term “elect” is correct? Is it not “demand”?
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
Q
Dame Vera Baird: Is that not part of why this is very odd? We do not give a person alleged to have committed a very serious crime and whose life will be utterly transformed by what happens in the jury a right not to have a jury trial or to pick where he goes at all—and why would we?—but we do give that right to a small cohort of people on relatively small trials. Some of the trials are big, but the bigger ones will go into the judge court, not stay in the magistrates court. Why, when we have legislated for where these cases should be tried, do we allow that relatively small cohort to pick, in addition to the legislation the state has set out? The difference is between a magistrates court case coming in six months and a Crown court case coming in three or four years. That is the impact on the victim. For what?
As I have already said, the majority—73%—of people offered a jury trial do not take it up. There is no understanding anywhere—not at the Bar, I can tell you—that it is fairer than a judge-alone or magistrates trial would be. Everybody at the Bar has had cases where they were absolutely shocked when a conviction happened because they never thought it possible and cases where they have got people off when they never thought it possible—of course, they are very chipper about that. Ask them when they come later. There is absolutely no hallmark anywhere that says jury trial is the only fair way.
Judges find facts in all kinds of cases outside the criminal courts. Of course, they also do so in trials; they have to decide, “Is there enough factual evidence here even for a case that a jury can answer?” They are a pretty good substitute for a jury—if that is how you want to look at it—to deliver fair trial.
Dr Mullan
Q
“The Government’s proposed reforms will likely create significant operational disruption and practical challenges that pull resources from more effective measures to reduce the backlog. This would prolong the uncertainty that leads many survivors to withdraw support for the prosecution of their abuser.”
Do you accept that the letter does, in fact, also talk about the impact on victims of the jury trial changes?
Claire Waxman: If you read the letter, it focuses on the victim coming in as a defendant, but it is also—
Dr Mullan
Q
Claire Waxman: You have to read the whole context of the letter—you have pulled out one bit. The whole context of that letter really focuses on listening to women who are wrongly being criminalised, as opposed to victims.
Dr Mullan
Q
Dame Vera Baird: Yes, but she is on her own—
Dr Mullan
Oh dear!
Dame Vera Baird: Kieran, you are not listening to what Claire says—she is right. The women’s movement is very disappointed with the Bill because it does not tackle the issue of criminalisation of women. They think that dealing with delays in the list is a very poor substitute, and they will not have it. They want to stand up at last for a proper defence of coercively controlled women who are put into crime—goodness knows it has been long enough coming—but that does not appear in the Bill. The women’s movement is very upset about that, and in my view that has driven this. I do not doubt—
The Chair
Order.
Dame Vera Baird: No, it is not at all disrespectful. Natalie Fleet, who has also been abused, takes the opposite view. She does not want to be weaponised, Kieran, and that is a very sound point. None the less, her example is appalling, and nobody could doubt her. The man was acquitted, but a judge believed her, so what is your argument now? Judges are not fair.
Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)
Q
To bring it back to victims—you referred to this, Claire—the Bill makes changes to the bad character evidence. Can you go into a bit more detail on what that is like from a victim’s perspective to have to go through a line of questioning about bad character evidence? Why is it so important that we are changing it?
Claire Waxman: These are important safeguards that need come in to better protect victims during the cross-examination process. I have to say that most victims I speak to who have gone through the cross-examination process—and this is not just rape victims—describe it as “brutal”. That is their word, not mine. They feel that it is often an experience to try to undermine their credibility at every point.
We have seen the use of past sexual behaviour or past sexual allegations to somehow undermine credibility. We have also seen it with compensation: as I said, it is a right under the victims code to be told about compensation, yet victims trying to access compensation is being weaponised and used as a way to undermine credibility. Many victims feel like they are the ones on trial, and they are being scrutinised. Putting in these important safeguards will help to improve that experience, so that they do not feel like they are under attack.
As I say, you are going to hear from victims shortly, one of whom has gone through that very experience, and I urge you all to listen to them. That is really important, because they are the ones with lived experience—they are living and breathing this delayed criminal justice system. Delays are not the only issue for victims; it is also about the treatment that they experience throughout the criminal justice system. Both need to be dealt with to really reduce victim attrition and improve victim satisfaction.
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
Q
Dame Vera Baird: No, it is not. It has been, I am afraid, ramped up outside these rooms, with all these Churchillian speeches suggesting that jury trial is being taken away, full stop. That is completely untrue, as you rightly say.
Siân Berry
Q
Professor Hohl: One thing to remember here is that over 90% of domestic abuse cases are already heard in the magistrates court. VAWG comprises not just sexual violence; it includes domestic abuse, sexual violence and sexual offences. There are some that will be in the either-way category.
We have had a really emotive conversation this morning. One of the issues is judge-alone versus jury trials, and there is a lot of emotion on either side. When we look back at the actual research, there is mention that judges may have biases, and a judge-alone trial may disadvantage people. If that is the genuine concern, why are we happy to accept that for sentencing and admissibility? Why is it that in all the law we are making to guide admissibility of evidence, we trust a judge to separate between myth and stereotypes and facts, but not a jury? If we are genuine about it, we have to go a lot further around oversight and accountability in the judiciary. It would be odd to just worry about it on that specific issue.
I would also like the Committee to consider the evidence around juries. This is not to cast shade on juries but to pause and look at the research, which shows that juries, too, have biases, and there are worries about myths and misconceptions. The research on juries shows that these problems exist there, too. These issues exist with judges and juries. The remedy is not going to be either holding on to the status quo or not. The remedy will be something utterly outside of the discussion we are having that is about accountability and oversight.
Some of the measures in the Bill go that way—for example, recording creates transparency, and judges having to spell out the reasons for their verdict also goes towards that. The debate has moved a really long way away from what the research actually tells us, to quite an emotive batting to and fro. If there is space for the Committee to consider that wider evidence, I would recommend it is looked at.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Q
Professor Hohl: This is an unanswerable question. What is fairness? [Interruption.] Well, it is an answerable question, but not a black and white one. We have heard this morning about a separation between the speediness of justice and the fairness of justice, as if they were two different things, when all the research shows that, for both defendants and victims, the time taken is part of justice. To artificially separate them does not work.
The way we measure the fairness of the system is about due process, not about outcomes. We cannot measure fairness through conviction and acquittal rates. The way our system is set up is about due process. Due process is not taking place when the system is on its knees, so getting the system to function better, so that due process can take place, should lead to a fairer system—provided that the Bill functions as intended.
Joe Robertson
Q
Dame Vera Baird: Of course not, and I did not intend to say that. I have been trying to think, since we discussed it, about how I would feel if my experience were being used for a political cause, and it had been a very nasty experience. I might feel the same sort of—I do not know whether it is resentment or disappointment, or whether it is that it was inappropriate. I can well understand that, but many other victims do not agree that this will not help.
Women are waking up every morning, for three or four years, dreading the day when they will have to relive what happened to them in rape cases, or a man who has been very badly beaten up might wake every morning, worrying that he will have to relive it. It goes on and on like that, because there is a right to demand—as, I am afraid, I would phrase it—a trial for relatively small offences. I do not make little of them, but those will be in the queue. If Charlotte’s case is coming up next Monday, all the cases that have elected for trial before hers will be in the queue in front of it.
Dr Mullan
indicated dissent.
Dame Vera Baird: I see Kieran shaking his head, but there is no other way. There is a limited opportunity to give priority to cases. Obviously a very important point is whether the defendant is in custody. Most rape defendants are not in custody, because it is a “one word against the other” case, so they cannot be given any real priority for that reason. We end up very regularly with cases that took as long as Charlotte’s. That is really awful for a large number of victims. It also gives very little to the people who want this right: 64% of people who elect for trial plead guilty before they get to trial. You have to ask why they are electing for trial if they are going to plead guilty, but they have blocked up the jury list all of that time. This is about freeing up the jury list.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
The Chair
Can you respond briefly, please? I want to get Paulette in.
Claire Waxman: I can answer very quickly. It is a very good question, but unfortunately I think we have moved past the point at which we can pilot, because of where we are heading with the trajectory of the Crown court—the increase in the wait lists and how long victims are waiting. Modelling is very difficult, but we should not get stuck on percentages. The Government are saying around 20%, and the Institute for Government has now corrected its figures from 2% up to, I think, 9% or higher—to 15%. It is around the direction of travel and recognising that we have an overburdened Crown court. We need to move things out of the process.
Paulette Hamilton
Q
The Chair
We need two clear reasons in less than a minute, so fire away.
Professor Hohl: One is that the world is changed and the justice system has not updated when the size, nature and volume of cases has changed. Getting the system to cope with today’s demands would be one reason. The other reason is not addressed by the Bill and keeps being surfaced by the discussion: oversight, accountability, transparency and assurance to the public. We are in a space where the public do not trust authority that much any more, so we need more transparency. Things such as recording and reasoned verdicts would help with that. Those would be the reasons for reform—if you allow me to speak only on reasons for, not those against.
The Chair
Wonderful. That was remarkably brief and most welcome. Thank you so much for your participation. We have greatly benefited from your presence, so thank you for answering all our questions. We are very pleased to let you go and move on.
Dame Vera Baird: Thank you for the opportunity.
Examination of Witnesses
Farah Nazeer, Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott, Charlotte Meijer and Morwenna Loughman gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Women’s Aid, Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott, Charlotte Meijer and Morwenna Loughman. Once again, we must stick to the timings of the programme order. The Committee has agreed that this session will end at 11.25 am. I will ask the witnesses to introduce themselves briefly; I did not do so with the last panel for reasons of speed.
Farah Nazeer: Good morning. I am Farah Nazeer, chief executive officer of Women’s Aid.
Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott: Morning, I am Jade Blue. I am a victim of rape.
Charlotte Meijer: Hello, I am Charlotte. I am a victim of rape and coercive control, and I was seen in a magistrates court.
Morwenna Loughman: I am Morwenna Loughman. I am a victim of rape and actual bodily harm, and I was seen in a Crown court with a jury.
The Chair
Impressively brief. If we can have those kind of pithy answers—and pithy questions, by the way—we can get through our questions and cover as much ground as possible.
Dr Mullan
Q
Farah Nazeer: I am conscious that there are victim-survivors here as well, so I will be brief. In the Bill, we are pleased to see the repeal of the presumption of parental involvement. That is absolutely critical. We know that the vast majority of survivors of domestic abuse do not go into the criminal justice system. Only one in five women will ever report to the police, so they find themselves in the family courts. The repeal will make a huge difference to them.
We now need to see the culture around that change. We have had a pro-contact culture in the family courts for a very long time. We can see through our experience working with vast numbers of survivors every day that the vast majority of judges are not as aware as they should be of domestic abuse and coercive control—they are not trauma-informed. We need to see judges trained to be able to apply this effectively.
We also see that, across all those other safeguarding contexts for children, such as health and safety, police and schools, there is mandatory training required, and a framework and infrastructure. Strangely, there is not the same infrastructure here, where you are actually talking about children’s lives and wellbeing. I previously heard a comment about how we cannot mandate judges to have training, but perhaps you should be mandating, because you do so in every other safeguarding context.
For further context, the majority of people affected by domestic abuse are children; we have more children in our refuges across the country than we do adults. It is a huge safeguarding matter, and I would encourage the Committee to think about mandatory training for judges.
Dr Mullan
Q
Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott: I come from an angle of delay being a key factor. While my case was dropped 13 days before trial, from report to court it would have been 1,317 days, which is now becoming quite the norm. I regularly hear fellow victims advising on very similar situations, and how they feel about that and how it changes their perspective on wanting to navigate the justice process. If people are telling us that they would not necessarily come back into the system, for me, that is the clearest possible signal that change is not optional but very much overdue.
We published a letter last week in response to the Bar Council’s letter, just to try to centre lived experience in this conversation and debate, which felt like it had been predominantly missing. In statements of support, a couple of victims have described the process of waiting for court and the delays as “extreme harm”—that was from Victoria. Sarah advised that she felt “suffering, gaslighting and anxiety”.
Charlotte said that report to court was “total agony” and that we need to reduce the suffering. Jane advised that it felt like years on “eggshells, in limbo”. She said:
“Waiting years with no guarantee of getting justice is like torture.”
Charlotte—another Charlotte—advised of the delays that:
“They shape our lives, our ability to move forward, and our trust in justice itself.”
Those are important and strong statements from women describing that process. That is the angle that I come from.
Charlotte Meijer: We have also handed the letter over to one of your colleagues, so that the Committee can read it. I was seen in a magistrates court, so having the recording of magistrates courts that is in the Bill is incredibly important. That transparency, which I did not have, will really change victims’ lives, whether that is just to understand what happened in their trial or to hold people to account.
I did not have a good experience with my judge, but I am still pro my case being seen by a judge. I am so glad that my perpetrator chose that—although there is an issue with that in itself, as they should not be able to choose, and I am glad to see that being taken away. I am so glad I was seen in front of a judge, because to me a judge is educated in all aspects—or should be, as there is a definite need of training, as has been said—while 12 strangers off the street all have their own biases. We know that one in four men are generally perpetrators, so that could be three on the panel that is judging you and your case.
For me, having transparency really changes things. We talk about justice and the system being closed, so if we have more recording and transcripts, it will really help people. There is something that is not in the Bill that I would love to see; I have fought for the last three years for sentencing remarks to be made free, which we did earlier this year, but I believe that is not going to extend to magistrates courts. If they are now being recorded, my belief is that they should also be free in that way.
One thing that I think is also really important in this discussion, where there is so much pushback against more cases going to magistrates courts, is that coercive control essentially involves rape—it involves coercive sex—and yet it is seen in a magistrates court. When we talk about how only the worst crimes are being seen by juries, and they need to be seen by juries, what does that mean about all the other crimes, including domestic abuse and coercive control, that are being seen in magistrates courts? Are we saying that they are not getting fair trials as it is? We believe that they are, so why is there such pushback at the moment about more cases going to magistrates courts? Magistrates are laypeople as well, so there is still that accountability from the general public.
Dr Mullan
Q
Morwenna Loughman: Thank you for having us all here. I waited two and a half years for my rape trial to go ahead. It was delayed twice—each time, the day before we were due in court. The second time it was delayed, it was actually confirmed, and then five hours later, on email, we were told that it was not going ahead. He had lied his way out on bail and breached his bail conditions 23 times. During those two and a half years, I lost my job, I lost my home and I developed acute PTSD, a side effect of which was a repeated vomiting syndrome, which meant that I had to go to hospital to have my oesophagus repaired.
I am also here to speak about juries not being bastions of infallibility. The treatment of the jury that I experienced was one of attrition. In particular, the foreman came out at one point and asked the judge, “If she’d been raped so many times, why did she not leave earlier?”
I would also like to talk about the treatment of victims while they are on the stand. During cross-examination, I experienced pervasive and repeated use of rape myths and stereotypes in a way to deliberately mislead the jury against me.
Dr Mullan
I am really sorry for the experiences that you have had, and certainly for any role that we played in government in not better addressing these delays and the challenges that you faced. The consequences of that are really powerfully illustrated by the things that you have talked about, so thank you for sharing that. I really hear all the evidence that you have given.
Sarah Sackman
Q
Charlotte, I wanted to pick up on something that you said. You talked about transparency and about the benefit that the recording of proceedings in the magistrates court would have. We are committed, as part of these reforms, to recording all proceedings in the magistrates court. Can you describe and explain what difference you think that might have made in cases like yours?
Charlotte Meijer: Definitely. After I gave my evidence in my trial, I left. The gallery was not somewhere I could sit safely. It was a tiny bench. His best mate and his sister were sat there, so I could not really go and sit between them.
I had said to the CPS and the police that I might want to come and hear the verdict. I was not given that opportunity, unfortunately. I got a call from my independent sexual violence adviser to say that the verdict had been made and that he was found not guilty. From that day, I really wanted to understand what had happened. For me, it was a very clearcut case of coercive control. I cannot go into too much detail, because he was found not guilty, but there was a huge age difference and there was a power imbalance and so forth, so I never understood how he was found not guilty.
The judge also made some comments. She said that, because I waited eight months to report, I was unreliable, and that I had clearly spoken to other victims of domestic abuse, so I knew what to say. Those comments really stuck by me. For my healing, and for me to be able to move on, I just needed to understand what was said in court, so I went to ask for the transcripts, of which of course in the magistrates courts there are none. It is definitely twofold: I wanted to understand what happened for my healing, but I also still want to hold that judge to account, because the things she said are not true and should not be said by someone who should be in a position of power and education.
I also think there is an important argument to be made around transparency, because people do not feel that the system is transparent—and to be fair, if it is not recorded, it is not. If you cannot sit in the gallery, if no one can watch and if there are no transcripts, then it is not. It is important to have the ability to record everything so that people can listen back, whether that is for their healing or for their understanding, or to hold people to account. We need to be able to hold people who are in power to account.
Sarah Sackman
Q
As you have heard from previous witnesses, the primary thrust behind the Government’s measures in the Bill is to address the unacceptable delays that you have all described. However, we also have a responsibility to build back a better system. One choice that the Government made was to remove the right to elect, so that it is the court that allocates cases to the appropriate venue. We think that that makes things quicker and more efficient, but there is also a normative idea behind it that it is the court that should triage cases; you mentioned that in your remarks, Charlotte. What is your view on that reform? From a victim’s perspective, do you see sense in it, or not?
Charlotte Meijer: Definitely. Throughout the system, the victim is always on the back foot. You get told a day later—or, depending on the service that you receive, two days, three days, four days or a month later—what has gone on, but the perpetrator always knows exactly what goes on, because they have to be present and able to make decisions. Why is the perpetrator the one who can make these decisions? It makes it feel like they are in control, and that, as a victim, you are running behind to catch up.
That was exactly the case for me when I found out that he had selected a court. All of a sudden, I got a call to say, “Your perpetrator has picked a magistrates court, so that is now what will happen.” I had no choice in it. I had already had no choice for three years when he was controlling me; I had no choice for three years when he was raping me; and now I had no choice for two and a half or three years when I was in the system.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
Farah Nazeer: Thank you for the question. There are a few things around presumption that could make a big difference. One is training for the entirety of the court staff, because the stories that we hear and the experiences that we support women and children through are frankly appalling. The staff are not trauma-informed and there is no understanding of what a victim is going through. The courts are weaponised and survivors are brought back to the courts repeatedly. It is an appalling process. No policy area that you work on at Women’s Aid is a picnic, but this is the worst. People describe the trauma that they go through in the family courts as worse than the trauma that they endured through the abuse that they experienced.
One thing is for the court system to understand domestic abuse, understand sexual violence, understand coercive control and be trauma-informed. That means having processes in which a survivor knows what is happening, understands what the next steps are and is supported through the system, and having separate places where a survivor can be. Some of it is quite basic, but it is really important to improving the survivor experience.
Another thing is the regulation of experts. We often have unregulated experts coming into the family courts to provide expertise and advice to the judge on what is happening in a relationship. You would not have unregulated experts in any safeguarding context; it is absolutely wild that you would have that. One thing we really want to see is regulated experts: psychiatrists and psychologists who are regulated by the appropriate body, rather than, seemingly, people who are just not.
The last thing that I want to focus on is the concept of parental alienation, which is often invoked in family courts. It is a concept that is not evidenced and is not recognised in psychiatric or medical practice, but it is often invoked as a concept to defend against claims of domestic abuse. What needs to happen is a child’s safety being put at the heart of the decision by a regulated expert, by a trained judge. If you get that right, you immediately improve the experience for survivors and children, and you improve the safeguarding around survivors and children. Those three things are absolutely critical to changing the culture and the experience and to ensuring safety.
Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)
Q
Morwenna Loughman: Absolutely. One thing that kept me going—I was so close to pulling out multiple times—was that I had this sense that he had done it before. In fact, what I was later told—it was not admissible, but under the Bill it would become admissible—was that he had broken his ex-partner’s leg repeatedly and raped her as well. His defence barrister stood in front of the judge, the jury and me, and said, “This man has never hurt a woman.” Given that this man was out on bail and repeatedly breaching his bail conditions, brutal is the word. I cannot overstate the impact that that has on victims. It was devastating. I did not look people in the eye for two years. I wore a hat everywhere I went so I could hide my face, because he could have been anywhere. I had to move out of my home. My home became a crime scene. I lost my job. It was daily torture. I echo what Natalie Fleet said the other week in the House of Commons: that the one thing worse than being raped is waiting four years or more to hear if people actually believe you.
Rebecca Paul
Q
We have focused a lot on jury trials, but there is a real opportunity here to think about what we need to deliver improvements in our judicial system, because the thing we all agree on here is that it is not working as it should. We might disagree on the best way to address that, but we do agree on the fact that change is needed in some form. What would you like to see in this Bill that is not there? What is needed to address some of the issues? Any of you who want to answer, please feel free to take the question.
Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott: It is a very big question. It is tricky, because I do not think that we can really ask for perfection; we are very much asking for a system that is bearable and has a bit of credibility about it. That just has to be centred, with lived experience at the forefront. So often, many victims, myself included, have said that it feels like it has gone so far to the defence side that it is no longer a justice balance. It has flipped so much on that side that I really want to urge you to consider that aspect: that it feels like the balance has gone in favour of the defence, essentially. In any decisions that you make about the Bill, just consider rebalancing that and ensuring that victims’ voices are centred in the decision-making process. If increasing magistrates to the three-year limit reduces the delays by even a small percentage, that can only be a positive thing. All those smaller elements will eventually snowball into more meaningful change across the entire sector. I could ramble on, so I will let someone else have a go.
Charlotte Meijer: I guess the other thing to add, which has been discussed a few times already, is the training of judges and magistrates. We have to find a way to do that—you would not let an untrained teacher into a school—because they are making decisions that mean life or death. After my not guilty verdict, I tried to kill myself, because nobody believed me, clearly. There is a huge impact. Things do need to change.
As I mentioned, I was a victim of rape. The rape did not go to court, because of many mistakes. The police offered to reinvestigate and I declined, because I knew what I would be going into and I did not want to go into that again, as it stands. A lot of that is about not just the courts, but the process leading up to it: the police and the CPS, and making sure that the police, the CPS and the courts are working together, which at the moment they are not. I am going through a three-year complaints process with the police, and they just blame each other. There needs to be accountability from start to end, because, while the Government have many different institutions that you deal with as a victim, you do not always understand it. You should not have to. I should not have to know that the CPS needs to do this and the police need to do that. It should be me coming in and other people understanding that journey for me and holding them to account.
There are no consequences if the victims’ rights we have at the moment are not adhered to. I was failed on at least seven points of the victims’ rights, but there is nothing that anyone can do. It has gone up to the ombudsman, and they said, “Yes, they failed”—great.
Matt Bishop
Q
Morwenna Loughman: I did not actually know that it was the defendant’s right to elect where their trial was heard, and that was a real shock to me. I echo what these extraordinary women on my right have said: it feels like a system that has been weighted against you, and there is no doubt that defendants are gaming the system. As it stands, I would absolutely not recommend this system to someone who finds themselves in my position.
I also agree with what Sir Brian Leveson said. A cultural reform needs to take place, because we are way past the mark of funding being enough. It needs a systemic, systematic, fundamental paradigm shift in how the system is run.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
There is an amendment that is going to the House of Commons today that is specifically about bail decisions and the route to verdict that juries are presented with before they go away to deliberate. Do you agree that sentencing remarks are only part of the journey that we need to be on, and that we need to be quite ambitious in ensuring victims have all the evidence in their own case, so they can start to move on and process?
Charlotte Meijer: Yes, absolutely. My campaign for all transcripts to be made available very quickly was shut down, so I have gone for little bits at a time. Sentencing remarks are an amazing change. At first, that was just for rape victims; now it is for all victims, which is great. However, if we look at RASSO cases, only 2% get a guilty verdict, so only 2% will get the free sentencing remarks. There needs to be something for the 98%.
The next thing that I have been campaigning for is the judge’s summing up, now the route to verdict, which is incredibly important. I am a not guilty verdict case, so I would not get my sentencing remarks either. It is about being able to understand. If we take that further, I believe the whole case should be available free, as it is in many other countries, or for a couple of pounds in administration costs. If we are taking it a bit at a time, the next bit would be, as you say, bail conditions and the route to verdict, to understand how someone got to that decision. That is all to aid people to understand what happened and process it a little better.
Amanda Hack
Q
Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott: I guess there is the hope of fewer adjournments and fewer last-minute changes, which we hear about quite a lot. Any measure that could increase capacity for these kinds of cases is a measure we could get behind. Just having that—being able to plan your life and have reassurances that it will be going ahead—is important.
In the past, one of us mentioned floating trials for rape cases, which is, quite frankly, just absurd. Being able to have dedicated time to ensure that these cases do not become floating trials and that there is capacity for them to be seen in a prompt and timely manner would be welcome.
Morwenna Loughman: The first time my trial was listed, unbeknown to me and the rest of my family, it was listed as a floating trial, which means that two or more cases—in this instance, rape cases—are scheduled for the same time, on the same date and in the same court, on the assumption that at least two of you will drop over the course because it is so harrowing and re-traumatising. That is why mine got delayed right at the last minute.
We have talked a lot about the education of judges, which is absolutely essential, but we must also consider the education of juries. As I have said, they are not bastions of infallibility. The man who raped me was convicted. He was found guilty, but not unanimously. He was sentenced to 15 years, which gives an indication as to the level of injury that I sustained.
Two members of the jury found him not guilty and acquitted him of all charges. It was a majority vote; there was no unanimity, and it took them three and a half days to deliberate, even though I had received 48 injuries and he was arrested on the scene. I could go on about the extenuating circumstances. In every sense, how did it take them three and a half days to not even conclusively decide that this man had raped me?
Charlotte Meijer: I will add to that. The removal in the Bill of the defendant’s right to elect will make the victim feel empowered, knowing that the perpetrator is not in control. As I have said, there is the recording of magistrates courts, and the Bill is our hope that the waiting time will go down. That is the core reason why we are doing this. The system cannot get any worse than it is, so the waiting going down will be a significant change.
Joe Robertson
Q
I turn specifically to the removal of the presumption that a child should have involvement from both parents. What do you say to the overwhelming body of evidence that for most children—not all, but most—it is in their best interests to have some contact with both parents?
Farah Nazeer: The point is about abusive relationships. If the court is set up to look at the welfare of the child primarily, if there is not a history of abuse or domestic abuse in that setting, that will invariably be the outcome. This is to protect those cases where there is abuse within the context of the relationship, so it is not a case of one thing or another thing; it clears the path so a court can look objectively at whether or not there is a safeguarding issue there for the child without the burden of the presumption of contact. You start with the welfare of the child.
Joe Robertson
Q
“the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration.”
That is already there. Section 1(3)(e) says that the court must have regard to harm that a child
“has suffered or is at risk of suffering”.
Those two provisions will instantly knock out any presumption that it is in the child’s best interest to have some involvement—that does not even mean contact—of both parents. I am just trying to understand why you think this change is needed, given that those provisions are already in the law.
Farah Nazeer: Primarily because those provisions have not saved the lives of the 63 children who have died since Women’s Aid has been working on this. In spite of known abuse, the court has granted unsafe contact, primarily to abusive fathers, and those children have died as a result.
Last year we published a report called “Nineteen More Child Homicides”. Those child homicides were as a result of known perpetrators having unsafe child contact in spite of the court hearing about abuse by those fathers, predominantly—18 were fathers, one was a mother—who then murdered their children. The previous report some four years before also saw 19 children murdered in exactly the same set of circumstances. The report before that saw significantly more children murdered. What this does is set a very clear bar that you start with the welfare of the child. This is a response to the failure of that culture. That is why it is so important.
Joe Robertson
Q
Farah Nazeer: Absolutely. The presumption is a really important first step because without the presumption, we will automatically default to the status quo. That is where the training and an understanding of domestic abuse and coercive control come in. As you can hear, we are not in a situation where safeguarding is applied consistently or domestic abuse or sexual violence are understood consistently. That is where the mandatory training piece has to come in to accompany the change to the law.
Linsey Farnsworth
Q
As a former Crown prosecutor, one aspect of the criminal justice system that concerned me was the appeals process from the magistrates court to the Crown court. As you all know, if somebody is convicted in the magistrates court, they have an automatic right to a retrial at the Crown court without having to give any reasons, regardless of whether there was a fair trial in the magistrates court or otherwise. If the victims and witnesses want to continue the process, they have to give evidence all over again through that appeal, otherwise the appeal is successful.
The Bill seeks to get rid of that automatic right and put the process more in line with the Crown court appeals process. There will have to be grounds to suggest that the original trial was unfair. As victims and survivors who have had access to the criminal justice system, what is your view on the current system of retrials and appeals from the magistrates court in terms of fairness to victims and the likelihood of victims attending to give evidence and being re-traumatised? I am also interested in whether the automatic right to appeal and have a retrial is used as coercive control in the current justice system. There is a lot to unpack there, I grant you.
Charlotte Meijer: There are a lot of questions there. From my experience, we will never know whether my perpetrator picked a magistrates court because he knew that, if he was found guilty, he could have then dragged me on to a Crown court case—we do not know.
It is absolutely terrifying because, as we all know, going through a trial for the first time is horrific—it is something that I never want to do in my life again. I had the ability to go to court again for rape, and I declined it; if there had been an appeal and I had to go again to a Crown court, I probably would have dropped out. It is not something that I would want to experience twice.
There is also a really interesting thing there. What does that say about our magistrates courts? Are we basically saying that they cannot do what they should be doing? I think that changing the system strengthens the trials and credibility of magistrates courts—they should be credible, given that 90% of cases go there. It also shows that it is the final choice; the decision will be made there, unless more evidence comes forward.
On what you said about fairness to the victim, there is obviously no right to appeal for a victim if there is a not guilty verdict. I know there is a tiny bit of legislation to say that, if there is a huge amount of new evidence, they could reopen a case. However, that barely happens. You are basically told no, so how come a perpetrator can just appeal without any reason? From victims’ perspectives, and from my perspective, it is an absolute no-brainer.
Paulette Hamilton
Q
Farah Nazeer: I think the repeal of the presumption is the cornerstone, because that gives the foundation on which the other measures rest. I think the first thing is mandatory training so that there is real understanding of coercive control and domestic abuse. I still speak to survivors daily who tell us that judges are saying, “Well, why didn’t you leave earlier? If it was that bad, why are you still there?” There is a real lack of understanding of coercive control, economic abuse and how coercive control can manifest in multiple different ways—the isolation, the withdrawal of technology and all the many things that make it impossible to leave. I think that mandatory training is really important.
The training also has to include a real understanding of the barriers that survivors face, particularly those with minoritised backgrounds, such as black women, women from minority backgrounds, deaf and disabled women and LGBTQ+ constituents. They face additional barriers and challenges in accessing justice, as well as in accessing empathy and understanding of their particular situations, which might have cultural implications, or mean different things in the domestic abuse context. We need really comprehensive training and understanding.
We also need unevidenced concepts like parental alienation to be banned from family courts, and we need actual regulated professionals—if they need to be brought in—to advise courts and judges in a way that the system and survivors can have confidence in. Right now, this is inconsistent and, in some cases, outright dangerous, as we can see from the many reports we have produced at Women’s Aid. I would say that those are the three most important things to ensure that we have a safe system.
The other piece that perhaps sits outside the provisions of the Bill is the specialist domestic abuse and sexual violence services that need to be there to support survivors through either the family court processes or the criminal court processes. Unless you have someone supporting survivors through those processes, they can be brutal. It is very hard to sustain the energy and commitment to return to those settings, time after time.
You build yourself up, as my fellow panellists have said, and then you are let down again. The experiences themselves are also deeply distressing. Without those specialist services there to support survivors, justice will not happen either way. It is really important that there is a recognition that specialist services are pivotal to ensuring that justice happens.
The Chair
I know that Kieran and Jess wanted to come back in. Kieran Mullan first—briefly, please.
Dr Mullan
Q
Morwenna Loughman: I was aware of it. He is actually appealing the length of sentence at the moment, but has not yet been granted leave to do so.
Dr Mullan
Q
Obviously, an increased sentencing length means that someone could be sentenced for three years in a magistrates court, without a right to appeal that sentence. This question is to all three of you. Do you think it is important to ensure that, even if we increase sentence lengths in the magistrates court, victims have the opportunity, in certain circumstances, to appeal sentences that they think are unduly lenient?
Charlotte Meijer: Yes.
Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott: Straight and to the point: yes.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
Morwenna Loughman: Yes.
Jess Brown-Fuller
You also spoke about the concept of floating cases. Were you told beforehand that your case had been listed as a floating case? The reason I ask is that the legislation does not address how many adjournments we have. There is no mechanism in the legislation—I am happy to be corrected by the Minister—to address how often cases are adjourned. Listing officers will continue to list floating cases because they know that so many victims drop out of the process, or the CPS comes back and says that it does not have enough evidence to convict, and so on.
Did you have an ISVA supporting you through the process? Were you communicated with well enough? Did you know that your case could fall at that final hurdle? The most important thing is what victims such as yourselves would like to see from that process to understand that your cases could get adjourned, were they listed as floating cases.
Morwenna Loughman: I was never told that that was a possibility. Again, that fundamental lack of understanding points to a system weighted against the victim and against the complainant. You are hermetically sealed off from a system that has been designed to dismiss and re-silence you because there is this sense that you need help, or might seek help, and to be told what to say on the stand. I would not have been there for any reason other than that I had been raped, but there was this sense that I needed to be kept at arm’s length from the system. If this Bill can change how the whole justice process is seen, that is absolutely what we should be fighting for.
Sarah Sackman
Q
Alex McIntyre
Q
As victim-survivors, how would you feel if the Government adopted the Opposition’s proposal, which is to only do two of those three things and leave one on the table that might speed up the delays in the criminal justice system? Do you think the Government would be going far enough if they left options on the table?
The Chair
Last word, witnesses—over to you.
Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott: I think we need to go full force. Now is the time for change. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to—I am not going to swear—get stuff done. If we do not do it now, it would be a missed opportunity. It is about centring lived experience: all these rippling changes being put forward will have trickling effects on the wider justice system, including support services. Centring victims’ voices in that is pivotal.
Charlotte Meijer: Agreed.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of our session. My task is a very pleasant one: to thank you. Thank you so much for coming. Your evidence has been invaluable to this Committee and really worth while. I will just add this. As Members of Parliament, we meet all kinds of constituents with the most life-changing challenges who face up to the most dreadful and awful things. Sometimes those people turn that to something positive, and that is what you have done. Thank you so much for coming today.
That brings us to the end of our morning session—
Several hon. Members rose—
The Chair
Hang on a minute! The Opposition are getting on the wrong side of me; that is very dangerous. That brings us to the end of our session. We will meet again at 2 pm this afternoon here in the Boothroyd Room.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned.—(Stephen Morgan.)