Criminal Justice Bill (First sitting)

Laura Farris Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Apologies to Vicky: I understand that you could not hear me, down at the bottom. If any Members cannot hear, please raise your hand to let me know and I will endeavour to speak up.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Laura Farris)]

Q I have just one question for you, Mr Biggar. You were talking about child sex abuse material. I want to ask specifically about border services. At the NCA, have you encountered as a limiting factor the fact that border services cannot search electronic devices such as laptops and iPads for potential child sex abuse material, even when they have intelligence or evidence to suggest that a person entering or leaving the United Kingdom may be an offender in that way? Are you aware of that? If so, can you comment on it? Do not worry if the answer is no.

Graeme Biggar: No, but let me write to you and the Committee about that.

[Vicky Ford]

Q May I ask the question I put to the previous witness about spiking? It comes up from time to time in the night-time economy in my constituency. If there were a modernisation of the law that made it very clear that spiking is a legal offence, could that act as a deterrent?

Baljit Ubhey: I think it could be helpful in communicating very specifically. At the moment, there is a specific offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. In addition, there is the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which is old legislation although we still use it for a wide variety of criminality. I take the point, however, that the language of some of the offences under that Act may not be as explicit. We can prosecute spiking, whether it is related to sexual offences or otherwise, but modernising may be helpful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laura Farris]

Q I will start with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. First, I want to provide some reassurance; statutory instruments are being used to implement more of Clare Wade’s recommendations, including both the mitigating and aggravating nature of the coercive control, depending on whether it is victim or perpetrator. On that note, could you comment specifically on the section 30 provisions that deal with the MAPPA management of someone who has a serious conviction of coercive control, so a sentence of longer than 12 months? Could you explain how you think that multi-agency arrangement will improve public protection on this issue?

Nicole Jacobs: Because it is a multi-agency arrangement and intelligence is brought into that process, it is extremely important that you have monitoring and supervision of an offender. The nature of that is much more active because you have prison parole and the police working together. We have a long-standing view that more offenders of domestic abuse should be monitored and overseen in that way. The last report from His Majesty’s inspectorate of probation showed that about 75,000 people who have committed domestic abuse are supervised in that way, and it probably could be more, considering our numbers.

As I commented earlier, because conviction rates of coercion and controlling behaviour are relatively low, the provisions are welcome and will add people to that list, but it is not the only way in which we are monitoring and overseeing perpetrators in the community. It is very important, but I suppose it is not everything. If it is in legislation, there is a real case to be made for more consistency force by force about arrangements where people are not meeting thresholds of MAPPA, but equally are posing risk to victims who would not be meeting those thresholds or levels. That needs a lot more focus and attention.

Some forces use something called MATAC—multi-agency tasking and co-ordination—where they bring information in not just from the police but all sorts of places. It was pioneered in Northumbria, and several forces’ areas have adopted that. Other force areas will implement something called the Drive Project, which is quite similar. It is essentially recognising that so many perpetrators of domestic abuse will not have even touched the criminal justice system. Only one in five victims will ever even disclose to the police, yet there are people who cause quite high harm.

Those arrangements are taking in wider information from a variety of sources and deciding their resourcing and tasking. Whether or not that is addressed in legislation, we have a real need in general in England and Wales to have a much more uniform and clear approach as to how that is addressed. We often hear people say, “I want to see a perpetrator register.” Well, what people mean by that is this aim to have proper oversight of perpetrators, and it is not quite as simple as putting someone on a list; it really means undertaking these more meaningful multi-agency exercises. We do not have a very consistent approach just yet. There is obviously excellent practice, but we need to see a more comprehensive practice.

[Laura Farris]

Q On that, the principal conclusion of Clare Wade’s report was that coercive control underpins most domestic abuse. Do you think that if there were consistency in the application of that, the MAPPA arrangements would ultimately catch the most serious domestic abuse offenders?

Nicole Jacobs: To some degree—they certainly would catch the ones who are known to the system. We need to do more to ensure that police are confident in the way that they are investigating coercion and controlling behaviour, and we would want to see that. The Government have certainly made efforts to train police forces. I would think most people would agree that that offence is fairly underutilised at the current time. As that grows, and as improvements are made, you will find more people subject to MAPPA.

The more comprehensive win will be having a consistent approach across all forces so that there are other multi-agency arrangements in place for people who have not had convictions and are not subject to MAPPA but represent a huge risk for victims of domestic abuse. We should distinguish between perpetrators who are well known to the system, in relation to conviction, against whom the powers of MAPPA can be used, and people who are lesser known, for whom there are other ways to mitigate risk. For example, Northumbria has MATAC—multi-agency tasking and co-ordination—and it has said that the majority of the people it is tasking and putting resource into do not have convictions and yet are understood by multi-agency partners to pose high risk. That perhaps just means that they are so good at their perpetration and the fear they impose that there has not been support for prosecution and other things. I suppose what I am trying to get across is that conviction is not the only risk factor to keep in mind; there are many, many more.

[Laura Farris]

Q You have already answered the question about domestic homicide at the end of a relationship. On a point of clarification, may I ask you about the right of the chief constable to appeal a subordinate’s disciplinary outcome? That is a highly irregular employment law arrangement. Can I clarify that I understood your answer correctly? I think you welcomed that right, but you said that PCC should have an ultimate oversight role in the event that there is deficiency down the chain. First, do you support that external right of appeal in principle? I cannot think of any other model whereby somebody else can appeal against your disciplinary. Secondly, can I clarify that you were saying that there should be an extra buffer?

Nicole Jacobs: In cases where the chief constable overrules something, the important thing for me is that provision is in place to ensure it is independent. I understand that it would be irregular, but you must consider the background and history of how police misconduct has been mishandled. The Home Affairs Committee, the Casey review and many other people have laid that out; I am obviously not the only one saying that.

There is a lot of evidence that the way these things have been handled over time, including through the vetting of the misconduct itself, has been far from ideal, and has been deprioritised to the point where many victims of domestic abuse are starting to lose faith in the criminal justice system. I find that very troubling. The police should be the first port of call, and yet the fact that there are so many instances of misconduct leads to a deterioration of our confidence in policing. Certainly, that is the case for victims.

Anything you can do to strengthen that would be helpful. Considering the removal of warrant cards is really important. We can see from many sources that that would be effective. Refuge did a freedom of information request that showed that that happens only about 25% of the time in police forces. There should also be suspension from duties for domestic abuse and sexual violence-related offences. One of the most common reasons for police officers to be called to the attention of the Independent Office for Police Conduct is that it has used its powers to pursue sexual misconduct and sexual violence. There are chronic problems, and we have to be more assertive in this Bill about warrant cards and in specifying offences that constitute gross misconduct if there is a conviction. That seems quite reasonable to me.

The vetting needs so much more care and attention. I think right now it is at 10 years; I would say that it needs to be five years, and certainly it should be every time a police officer changes forces. There are things that we can do that we know will fix the chronic problems. I am less comfortable with the idea of a police and crime commissioner getting involved, in relation to a chief constable. I think it should be a more independent body, such as the IOPC, or the inspectorate, just because police and crime commissioners are elected. That was the discomfort I talked about earlier.

[Laura Farris]

Q Baroness Newlove, on the antisocial behaviour suite of legislative measures, I wanted to ask you about the clause 71 provisions:

“Reviews of responses to complaints about anti-social behaviour”.

It is that package of measures. Given your work on that, what could you say about that providing adequate coverage of some of the issues that victims have reported to you in the past?

Baroness Newlove: In an antisocial behaviour case review, first and foremost, we have to ensure the victim understands what an antisocial behaviour case review is. However, for those who sit forward to do the review and appeal through the PCC, there should ideally be a chair who is independent. If the notion now is that the review is merely a tick-box exercise and it feels to that victim that they are not involved—as I just said, there is no victim impact statement—an independent person should look at the overall evidence to come to a better conclusion.

It feels like there is an incestuous ring of people making a decision, who, in the first place, do not get the impact of antisocial behaviour. That is the problem with antisocial behaviour; nobody really gets the impact. I welcome anything that makes victims’ lives better, but you can have as many powers as you want, yet if you do not understand the impact on that victim and on that community, they really do not help the victim get through better in life. It ends up being them investigating their own powers.

[Laura Farris]

Q Do you think the review-type arrangement—the engagement by the local policing body and more widely—is better at addressing, for the victim, that sense of their voice not being heard?

Baroness Newlove: I think it is better, but again, it has to be shown that it is independent. More importantly, it has to have the victim’s voice in there. If you do not listen, you do not have that victim’s voice right through the file, or whatever they call it. It ends up being that you really do not understand the impact on the victim. How can you make a decision when you do not have the victim’s voice in there? That feels very much like you are looking at legislation, how you can tick a box or how the powers that be are using the powers. Most importantly, however, you have to bring the victim along and have that voice in there. Then, you really can make a true decision on how you can absolutely solve the problem.

[Laura Farris]

Q My final question is about the minimum age provisions in that. I know that the age of criminal responsibility begins at 10, but based on your work, was that an area where you found that antisocial behaviour was perpetrated a lot by youngsters in their teens?

Baroness Newlove: I have not specifically looked at that. Looking at all the reviews I have done, I have said outside this role that parenting is the most difficult job anybody can do, but you have to be accountable for the actions.

I have concerns: yes, the age is 10, but there could be other areas in which that person is suffering, such as dyslexia or autism. Also, the parents could be suffering domestic abuse. How do you make them pay that fine, at the end of the day? If you go back to that, we had that kind of language in the riots, where we were going to get the parents and take them out of their homes. For me, there has to be accountability, but how would you get that parent, who is probably suffering from domestic abuse or may have mental health and addiction issues, to fully understand the impact that their child is having? They may need support to rectify that. Also, that child could have other issues.

I can see where you are going from that. I welcome anything, but I am just stepping back a little to consider how that would have an impact on the rest of the family to make sure we can get a better solution.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Nicole, give the Committee an idea of the number of domestic abuse incidents a year.

Nicole Jacobs: Well, according to the Office for National Statistics, it is 2.3 million.