Domestic Abuse Bill

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Ind)]

It is always a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). She and I do not always agree on things, but I absolutely concur with her final comments to the Minister about this being a gendered crime. Of course it happens to men as well as women, but we have to look at the reality of the statistics.

I welcome the opportunity this afternoon to get this Bill out of the blocks and use this unexpected week wisely. I must also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) for her moving contribution. I wish, in a limited period of time, to concentrate on one element alone. Some may look at me with some surprise when I do this, and fear I find myself in the role of gamekeeper turned poacher, rather than the other way round. I am sure the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), does not need reminding of the meeting that she and I attended in May, alongside the Minister for countering extremism and my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), then an Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Justice. I was pleased to see him on the Treasury Bench for the opening of this debate. He made the point during that meeting that when considering domestic abuse it is imperative that we consider people as victims first, rather than alongside any other considerations that the Government might have. That meeting was attended by Southall Black Sisters, Imkaan and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who has not yet spoken in this debate but who has such a wealth of experience and expertise on these issues.

I was pleased to hear my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor talk about the need for a cross-Government approach. The meeting that I chaired and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle, attended was a cross-Government one, but, as I said to those agencies represented, it was not sufficiently cross-Government. There was no representation from the Department for Work and Pensions or the Department of Health and Social Care. If we are going to address domestic abuse in all its forms, we must have all bodies around the table.

[Chris Bryant]

I just wonder whether we should be looking at one other Department, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, because in my constituency and in the south Wales valleys the worst spikes, when there are so many instances of domestic violence that the police are simply not able to cope, occur when there is a big rugby or football match. I simply do not understand why all the sporting bodies cannot come together to run a major publicity campaign to try to tackle this.

[Caroline Nokes]

I welcome the comments that the hon. Gentleman makes and those that my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), a former Culture Secretary, made when she said that she was trying to do what he suggests. Of course the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government must also be involved. We have heard much about health, relationships and sexual education in schools, so the Department for Education also of course has a role to play.

I urge the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend Member for Louth and Horncastle to do what she can to make sure that we are doing more for migrant women, bearing in mind that the destitute domestic violence concession is currently available only to those who come here on a family visa. We must consider those who are here as partners of refugees, those who are here en route to settlement but who have not yet got their protected status, and those who are here on tier 4 visas. We have heard much about older victims, but younger people, those who might be here as students, can also suffer from domestic abuse.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a valid point about the breadth of this issue and the need for Departments to co-operate. One of the most disturbing cases ever brought to my surgery—we all know how disturbing surgery cases can be—was that of a disabled man whom I had known in a different context as a cheerful, light-hearted person but who had been abused for years by his wife, who was of course much stronger and more powerful than him. Disabled people and other vulnerable people need to be taken into account here, which is one reason why we need to work across Government.

[Caroline Nokes]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right; we must work across Government and we must consider all vulnerabilities.

We have heard this afternoon about the varied forms that domestic abuse takes. It might be physical, financial, emotional. We have heard about coercive control. However, there is also the controlling behaviour that relates to immigration status. A victim is a victim first, and the law and agencies must recognise that.

The role of the Minister is not simply to speak—it is to listen; it is to understand. Earlier, I mentioned the cross-Government meeting held back in May. As I said, it was not cross-Government enough, but I certainly listened very carefully that afternoon to the voices of Southall Black Sisters, the End Violence Against Women coalition, and Imkaan, and their message was that we had to extend the domestic violence concession and must not allow immigration status to be weaponised—as we know that, by perpetrators, it very much is weaponised. That can be physical, in the sense of a passport being withdrawn, but it can also take the form of the simple threat that a victim is in this country only because of the status of the perpetrator, and that if they were to approach an agency they would do so at their peril, and might then be excluded from this country.

The hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who is no longer in her place—I venture into this space with some trepidation—spoke of the EU settled status scheme and EU citizens. I urge hon. Members to make contact with Home Office officials and talk to them about the amazing amount of work that has gone into the resolution centre in Liverpool. When I was a Minister, I visited the centre and spoke to a wide range of brilliant caseworkers there. I hesitate to name her, but the awesome Gabi, who was passionate about helping those in the most vulnerable situations, spoke about recognising that there will be people who apply to that scheme who no longer have their passport, and who have no paperwork evidencing their stay in the United Kingdom, because their controlling partner has seized that from them and prevented them from having access to it.

We heard this afternoon about Government data sharing. Again I hesitate to go there, but there are occasions when data sharing can actually be a force for good. I would highlight the EU settled status scheme, which can combine evidence from the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC in order to draw a picture of someone’s life in the UK that enables those who are vulnerable, who have been victims, to pull together sufficient information. There is a call centre. I sat in on some of the calls, which were handled in the most compassionate and understanding way so that victims were not put through a gruelling process but were helped to obtain their status. When I left office, there were in the region of 1,500 people working on the scheme. I hope to goodness that there remain 1,500 people working on it today, because it is absolutely imperative that we get that right for all EU citizens who are in this country.

I know that the Minister takes this matter very seriously and I am delighted that she has seized the opportunity provided by a day that we were not expecting to be in Parliament to give the Bill a Second Reading and allow us to make progress. I urge her to continue listening to the words of current and former Ministers. I know that the current Chancellor of the Exchequer was very passionate about ensuring that the review on migrant women enabled the Bill to cover more ground and enabled us to consider the domestic violence concession and do more.

I hope that the Minister heeds that, and that when the Bill moves into Committee we can all play an active part to ensure that we make it every bit as good as it can be, embracing as many individuals in this country who have been subjected to domestic abuse as possible, to give them the help that they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), chair of the all-party group on perpetrators of domestic abuse. I am sure that her work is extraordinary and really important.

I also follow the speech a little earlier of the Mother of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who talked about my constituent Natalie Connolly. Natalie Connolly, as she so rightly said, would be 28 years old now. She has a young daughter and she comes from a family of loving parents, loving grandparents, a loving sister and, of course, a loving daughter.

Natalie Connolly fell into a relationship with John Broadhurst in 2016. She was, I guess, impressed with him. He was a millionaire and she came from a relatively normal background. One Saturday afternoon, they went off to a rather extensive party. That evening, they were driven home by his driver. They went back to their house, which they were renting while their main one was being renovated, and indulged in intimate activities of an aggressive nature, which were allegedly consensual—I believe were consensual.

When John Broadhurst went to bed that night, he stepped over the bleeding, unconscious body of Natalie Connolly on the steps of their house and went upstairs, leaving her there. He came down the next morning, stepped across her now lifeless body, went and had breakfast, washed the car and called the emergency services, telling the police and paramedics that she was “dead as a doughnut”—which seems extraordinary.

Broadhurst was obviously charged with murder—the Crown Prosecution Service was going to maintain a murder case. The trial happened at the end of last year and was quite high profile at the time. The injuries that Natalie suffered were unbelievably extensive, extraordinarily intimate and, frankly, utterly, utterly brutal. She had lost a lot of blood from her injuries. But the problem was—this is where the law comes in—she bled into a carpet, so it was impossible to measure the extent of her blood loss. As a result, whether she died as a direct result of the injuries, or as a result of overuse of alcohol and possibly narcotics, could not be absolutely confirmed. The charges were therefore dropped from murder to manslaughter by neglect, owing to the fact that Broadhurst had left her behind to bleed to death overnight.

The problem was that to get this change of charge, someone had to sit down and talk to the family. I have met the family—an immensely kind and loving group of people. I sat down with them and we had a conversation about their daughter, who had been besmirched by this vile man. Their last memories of her will be of the court case—people discussing what he alleged about her and her hideous, unbelievable injuries. As I sat with this family, I looked at a group of people whose memories of Natalie should be of buying her first Snow White costume or Barbie doll when she was a child—all the stuff we want to do as parents who love our families. Being asked to understand the risk-balances of complicated legal issues put this family in an intolerable position, as they had to work out the right way forward to get a prosecution.

One of the unbelievably brilliant things about this House is that we are actually not divided when it comes to this sort of thing. The Mother of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham, reached out to me before Christmas and said, “Are you aware of this case?”, so the two of us worked together. I am not a lawyer, so I do not particularly understand these legal issues, but she does; this illustrates how good we can be as a House. We visited the Attorney General to see whether there could be a retrial, but he said, “Actually, no. In this particular case, the sentence was right because of the reduction of the charge.” So together—actually, me being led by her and learning from her—we want to table a couple of amendments.

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly important point, and I think it is imperative that he is allowed the time in which to achieve that.

[Mark Garnier]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend.

There are two points. The first is that “she was asking for it” cannot possibly be a defence when somebody dies. Apart from anything else, the individual does not have the ability to defend themselves, and their reputation is being destroyed in front of the people they loved, the people who care for them and their friends. That is absolutely wrong. The “Fifty Shades of Grey” defence cannot be allowed.

The second point is that victims’ families are not qualified to make the decision about changing the charge so that there can be a better chance of a conviction. We need people who are brilliantly clever at this—brilliant barristers who are brave enough to fight these cases on behalf of the victims. But what we can do is ensure that the decision is made by somebody who really understands the process, so that the Director of Public Prosecutions is the one who is consulted if a change is going to be made in a case pertaining to this type of injury and homicide in a domestic abuse setting. In that way, these families will get the support they need.

Natalie Connolly would have been 28 now, with a young daughter growing up in a warm family, but she is no longer with us. If there is any way in which we can remember her, we have to do something to make sure that this can never happen to anybody ever again.

Women and the Vote

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right; we need to take every opportunity we can to promote the fantastic work of those who came before us and those who fought and died before us to secure the privileges that we enjoy today.

I am delighted that Parliament commissioned the new permanent work of art to commemorate women’s suffrage. I know that the hon. Member for Wirral South was on the Committee led by my hon. Friend—and real life friend—the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes). I pay tribute to the Committee for its work.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I could not resist intervening. The hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) made a really serious point. The thing that strikes me is that we have a parliamentary art collection of 8,000 works of art, fewer than 200 of which represent women in any shape or form. Although my Committee works hard to improve on that, we are sometimes stymied by the media. I was struck by the article in “The Sun” online that criticised the new artwork. Is it not incumbent on all of us to try in some small way to make this place feel more relevant and warmer for women?

[Mr Speaker]

I suppose that even newspapers have the right, now and again, to be stupid.

Transpeople (Prisons)

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am keen to accommodate the interests of colleagues, but we do not want the exchanges to be unnaturally prolonged, as we need to return to other important business. Short questions and short answers would help.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

LGBT prisoners are among the most vulnerable in the prison population. One of the biggest challenges of the review is how to overcome ignorance. Will my hon. Friend reassure me that he will implement in full any recommendations of the review that seek to tackle and raise awareness and understanding of transgender issues?

[Andrew Selous]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I hope that she took heart from what I said at the end of the statement about dealing with the cultural attitudes that can cause problems in this area. I have also had discussions with my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) in her capacity as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.

Immigration Statistics

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Friday 28th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I will be perfectly honest: I do not know why those questions were not answered. I will find out and the Immigration Minister will write to the hon. Lady.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree with my constituents who believe that restricting the benefits going to the children of foreign migrants who are not in this country is not a nasty thing to do but a fair thing to do?

[Mike Penning]

It is absolutely fair, especially given the limited funds available because of the austerity measures we have had to introduce, because the previous Government left us with such a mess. The welfare system has to be fair. If people are working here in this country, getting in-work benefits and sending those back to their families abroad, I do not think that is fair and I do not think my constituents think it is fair.

Cyber-bullying and Digital Anonymity

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I wish to raise the matter of cyber-bullying and the abuse of online anonymity. I know that there are hon. Members for whom this is of deep concern, so I am happy to take interventions, and, if there is time, for colleagues to make short speeches, if that would be in order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Hate-tweeting trolls make people’s lives hell. They have got out of hand on social media, and we need to tackle them, but to paraphrase Tony Blair, we cannot just be tough on hate tweeting; we must be tough on the causes of hate tweeting. I suggest that we consider targeting the anonymity that hate tweeters use to harass people online. It is all too easy to set up a bogus account online and viciously stab at people from behind the curtain; ensuring that people could not set up anonymous accounts at will would force hate tweeters to be responsible for the hate they spew. They would be identifiable.

There is a deeper point. We need to promote kindness, courtesy and being yourself. When we bump into somebody on the street, we exchange pleasantries; when we engage in banter down the local pub, we have a fun time, generally; what we do not do is pretend to be someone else or hurl abuse and make threats without consequence. Why, then, does anyone think that that is okay on the internet?

I am particularly concerned for our young people, for whom cyber-bullying is a rising issue. According to ChildLine, 4,500 young people talked to the charity about online bullying last year, representing an 87% rise on the year before. The anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label surveyed more than 10,000 young people aged 13 to 22 as part of its annual cyber-bullying report in 2013 and found that 69% had experienced cyber-bullying at some point and that 37% had experienced it frequently. Most dishearteningly, 20% had experienced extreme cyber-bullying on a daily basis. Young people are twice as likely to be cyber-bullied on Facebook as on any other social network, with 54% of young people using Facebook reporting that they had experienced cyber-bullying. Facebook, Twitter and Ask.fm are the most likely places for cyber-bullying.

It is not just about the high-profile cases involving celebrities, people who have suffered great tragedy, such as the McCanns, or Members of Parliament who have been attacked. Well-known people are more likely to be reported on, but the problem is much more widespread than just a few famous people, and sometimes it ends in tragedy. In some cases, people have been so harassed online that they have been driven to take their own lives: Callum Moody-Chapman, in Cumbria; “Nadia”—the name given by the Italian media—in Italy; Erin Gallagher, in the Republic of Ireland; and Ciara Pugsley, also in the Republic of Ireland. It is important to make it clear that suicide often has many complicating factors, but we ignore these trends at our peril.

I have referred to well-known cases in the media of adults being cyber-bullied. There was the case of J. K. Rowling during the Scottish referendum; Emma Watson just for making a speech to the UN on feminism; and of course Judy Finnigan and Chloe Madeley. It is simply unacceptable. There are three pieces of relevant legislation: the Malicious Communications Act 1988, the Communications Act 2003 and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The legislation focuses on dealing with trolls when they have done damage, but we need to prevent that damage in the first place. Another problem is that the international reach of the internet makes it hard to tackle criminal acts in our justice system. The police need to be more proactive and effective in tackling the problem in a more organised fashion.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

Is it not true, however, that even when the police are proactive and organised they are often met with the obstacle of large corporations, frequently based in the States, reluctant to hand over the information that would enable the police to identify and prosecute these trolls?

[Charlie Elphicke]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. That is one barrier; the other one, of course, is that people can just set up new accounts at will. They can do that through the dark net, and they can hide their IP addresses to make it harder to locate who they are. That is why I am coming to the point of saying that perhaps we should think about making people identify themselves if they want to set up an account, just as we have to do in so many other walks of life.

I recognise that the international nature of the internet makes it hard to tackle the criminality in this country, but I suggest that the police should make much more use of the Harassment Act 1997 rather than view this as a separate online problem. The behaviour is what they should go after. If behaviour is criminal, we cannot allow more latitude for it on the internet. There is not. Such behaviour should be subject to the same tests as if someone is confronted on the street with nasty face-to-face remarks.

I welcome the fact that the Justice Secretary has set out plans for serious cases of cyber-bullying to go to the Crown court and be subject to a sentence of up to two years. That is a welcome and encouraging start—a step in the right direction, saying that cyber-bullying is unacceptable. Nevertheless, let me set out three areas where we could go further.

First and most fundamentally, people need to take responsibility for their actions and not have the option of anonymity. We have cracked down on poison pen letters. Some of us may remember the problem of deep breathers—those who would pick up the phone and start calling random numbers and deep breathing at people to terrorise them down the line. Call logging put a stop to all that stuff, but now we need to deal with trouble caused when characters use anonymity to spout vitriol online. Anonymity, then, is the first issue.

Evidence suggests that people’s behaviour becomes worse when they are given anonymity, which is why it needs to end. Social media providers should ensure that they know people’s identity to discourage hate-filled attacks. If it is known who they are, people will not go around doing this sort of thing and neither will they be able to create multiple social media accounts to further their hate campaigns.

Some say, “We cannot do this; it undermines the principle of free speech. I should be able to say what I like.” I believe they are wrong to say that because the principle of free speech was dearly bought. People can state their own views in their own name. Mrs Mopp of Acacia avenue can say, “The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are completely hopeless and not up to their job”, but the secret police will not come for them in the middle of the night. That is what free speech is about. It is not a right to go around anonymously terrorising and harassing people. That is an abuse of free speech. It is not free speech; it is pure cowardice, and it should not be tolerated. Neither should we confuse the issue of privacy to surf the internet, which we all believe in, with the idea of privacy in aid of anonymity as a means of launching attacks on people. There should be no hiding place for trolls.

Secondly, there is the issue of educating children on digital responsibilities. We cannot protect children simply by blocking access to the internet and social media. That will not work. Young people are at the forefront of technological change, so we need to educate them to understand that their online behaviour will be judged just as much as their behaviour in real life. Just as we teach citizenship and British values in our schools, so we should educate our young people about their online responsibilities and the importance of respect there, as well.

Thirdly, international action is important. The internet is international: it knows no borders and it is changing all the time. Social media has existed for barely a decade, and the law needs to keep up with this rapid change. That is why we need international co-ordinated action. An organisation such as the OECD could play a serious role in co-ordinating what we all do collectively in the global village in which we live. Rogue nations that harbour trolls and online criminals can be tackled more effectively with international co-ordination.

To conclude, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is time to strip people of their anonymity on social media.

Legal Aid Reform

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Cooper]

I am sure that is exactly what will happen and that justice will be ill served by the people who support and vote for this awful idea. Has real consideration been given to the issue of conflict? The new legal corporations will reach into every stage of the criminal justice process, motivated by profit, not justice. The removal of a client’s fundamental right to choose their representative is completely unacceptable.

These proposals will cause problems for the justice system, including concerns about the right to a fair trial under article 6 of the European convention on human rights. An individual who is involved in multiple matters might end up with numerous representatives forced to deal with separate matters. That will add to the delay and the costs as there will duplication of effort in obtaining information and instructions, to the detriment of the individual. That is if they are to get legal representation at all. In a big sign of things to come, the Bar Council has already produced a do-it-yourself guide to representing oneself in court.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady share my concern that we will see an increase in the number of litigants in person, which, far from driving down costs, will take up more time and add to costs?

[Rosie Cooper]

I absolutely agree. In fact, I think that the hon. Lady will find that that is already happening. How can that aid cost cutting or justice? It is a travesty.

Everything about the consultation strikes me as being about the easy option, not the right option for the people who sent us here or for justice. I believe that the cuts will be a false economy, as we will see increased inefficiency. One wonders how much could be saved if the Justice Secretary simply sorted out the waste in the system. For example, I know of one prisoner who was not produced in court by the Prison Service—it had nothing to do with the CPS—on three occasions, with proceedings stayed and all the associated time and costs wasted. If we tackled that waste, how much money would we save? We would still preserve justice and fairness at the heart of the system.

I wonder whether the Justice Secretary, if his family found themselves unable to afford legal representation—God forbid—would accept the crumbs that he is now throwing to everybody else. In closing, I ask the Minister, who is in his place, whether justice on the cheap is any justice at all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

The Legal Services Board reported on that only a matter of weeks ago. We are looking at its recommendations, which go much further than a ban and, in particular, deal with transparency, which was what the Select Committee on Transport focused on. We will look carefully at all these issues.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

9. What consideration he has given to those responses to his Department’s consultation on legal aid that raised concerns about his Department’s definition of domestic violence.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

13. What his policy is on the provision of legal aid support for victims of domestic violence.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)]

We published the Government’s response to the consultation on 21 June. Legal aid will remain available for applications for protective injunctions, as at present. However, for disputes about children or finance following the breakdown of a relationship, legal aid will be available for victims of domestic violence where there is objective evidence of the need for protection.

[Caroline Nokes]

Will the Minister give an assurance that, in cases where domestic violence has been a factor in family breakdown, all other associated costs incurred in bringing about a resolution will be covered by legal aid?

[Mr Djanogly]

For family matters, including disputes about finance or children arising from the breakdown of a relationship, legal aid will be available for victims of domestic violence where there is evidence of a need for protection. Of course, we will also provide civil legal aid for victims of domestic violence to apply for protective injunctions, such as non-molestation orders.