Violence Against Women and Girls: Police Response Debate
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Huw Merriman
Main Page: Huw Merriman (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)Department Debates - View all Huw Merriman's debates with the Home Office
Violence Against Women and Girls: Police Response
Huw Merriman Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Rachel Maclean
I am grateful for the opportunity to answer the hon. and learned Lady. I am acutely aware of the issues that she raises. It is frankly a disgrace that women cannot go about their important work and express their opinions freely without the kind of harassment and intimidation that she refers to. This is a very wide societal issue. I would like to see the Labour party taking more active steps to protect its own members so that they can go to conference without fear of being attacked or abused, but these are matters for wider Government; I am very happy to meet the hon. and learned Lady and discuss them in more detail in due course.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Two years ago, when my constituent lived in a flat in London, she had to barricade herself in, while for two hours, on eight occasions, her neighbour, who had known mental health issues, tried to get in. When she called the police and they turned up, she begged them to look at the CCTV. They refused and left her and the individual still in those flats. When she—not the police, but she herself—looked at the CCTV evidence seven days later, the man was found to have been naked and holding an implement. Only then did the police take the matter seriously.
Will the Minister meet me and my constituent to discuss these issues? Does she agree that if I write to the Met commissioner, I would be a lot more assured that she was taking it seriously if she wrote back herself rather than palming it on to the local force who were responsible for the failure in the first place?
Rachel Maclean
My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important constituency case. It is shocking to hear the experiences of his constituent. I am very happy to meet him and I fully agree that this is exactly why we have published the strategy: to make sure that all police forces across the country are responding appropriately to crimes in these horrific circumstances.