Contribution
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to reflect that, as part of the Government’s commitment to halving violence against women and girls, we need a multi-agency approach to tackling the root causes of coercive control. The Liberal Democrats also believe that the Government should review, as part of the update, how sentence reductions apply specifically in cases of controlling and coercive behaviour, so that perpetrators cannot use legal proceedings maliciously to continue their abuse.
Beyond that, the Government must go further to support victims of coercive control and domestic abuse across the entire court system. The Liberal Democrats tabled multiple amendments to the Courts and Tribunals Bill that aimed to improve the experience of victims in the criminal courts. We often hear from legal experts and victims about a lack of understanding of these issues in the courts in general. One of our amendments would have required judicial staff to receive mandatory training on domestic abuse and violence against women and girls, and all court staff to receive trauma-informed training to ensure that victims receive the best possible support from the moment they arrive at court. On multiple occasions, the Government have argued that such mandatory training would not be possible, especially when it comes to the judiciary. However, similar provisions are included in the Government’s plans for rape and serious sexual offence courts. I struggle to understand how they can commit to having trauma-informed members of the judiciary for RASSO courts but not across the entire court estate.
At the heart of this issue are the delays. The Crown court backlog now exceeds 80,000 cases, and victims are waiting longer than ever to see justice. The Government must take real action to address the inefficiencies at the heart of the failing system, rather than pursuing the unevidenced structural changes we have seen in recent months. Real change can be achieved through targeted listing, the better use of court time by holding more sittings in a day and reforming prisoner escort contracts.
We believe that failings in the family courts allow abusers to continue abusing victims, and that they too often fail to recognise domestic abuse, despite its presence in over 70% of hearings. Once again, training must be extended to cover these issues and protect individuals who are victims of domestic abuse and coercive control. We must provide sustainable funding for support services for survivors of violence against women and girls and domestic abuse, and expand the provision of high-quality perpetrator programmes in domestic abuse cases, with the aim of preventing further abuse. We want to establish specialist VAWG taskforces in every police force, bringing together officers and specialists with the training, resources and capacity to effectively support survivors, including by working in partnership with frontline women’s services.
As my hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) said in his excellent speech, we believe that special measures should be the standard, with victims having the opportunity to opt out of special measures, because so often, and especially for those who do not have access to legal aid, they have no idea what is available to them when it comes to special measures. If they were a standard principle across all courtrooms and a victim could then say, “No, actually, I don’t want the special measures. I want to be able to face the accused in court,” that would be very different from their getting to court and finding out that nothing is in place for them.
If we can take one thing from this debate, it is that victims continue to go unheard in our criminal justice system. We must listen to those who have spoken up in support of the petition and ensure that they have their concerns addressed, so that other victims of these horrendous crimes do not suffer in the same way.