Official Report 822KB pdf
Our next item of business is to begin evidence taking on the Prevention of Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Bill. We have one panel of witnesses today, for which I intend to allow up to 90 minutes. I refer members to papers 2, 3 and 4.
I welcome Debbie Jupp, operational manager at Committed to Ending Abuse; Dr Marsha Scott, chief executive of Scottish Women’s Aid; Agnes Tolmie, who joins us online and who is chair of the Scottish Women’s Convention; and Tumay Forster, operational manager with Shakti Women’s Aid. A warm welcome to you all, and thank you for your written submissions.
Before we start, I remind you all to please be as succinct as you can in your questions and answers. I will start with a broad opening question, and then I will bring in other members. I will start with Dr Marsha Scott and then bring in Tumay Forster, Agnes Tolmie and Debbie Jupp.
What are your views on the main provisions of the bill, and in particular parts 1 and 2? Which provisions do you support and which do you disagree with or have questions about?
Obviously, Scottish Women’s Aid is delighted when any MSP is willing to go to the effort of bringing a bill to the Scottish Parliament to prevent domestic abuse. We warmly welcome the intentions of the bill. Unfortunately, we are concerned that it will not necessarily have the intended results, and that some of it will not serve women and children particularly well.
We are really supportive of part 3, which is on data. We are concerned about the failure of the justice organisations to collect equalities data and to disaggregate it, despite our whining about that for a decade now. Therefore, we would welcome any kind of statutory approach to that. Although we have laws in place already with the public sector equality duty that, in essence, require the collection and disaggregation of data, to date, we have failed to see any real progress on that.
I have spent a fair amount of time talking with Pam Gosal and with colleagues in the justice organisations—the police, the Crown and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. I am concerned that the proposed measures will not make a big difference for women and children—certainly not for a significant number of them—but will lay a particularly heavy bureaucratic burden on the organisations that are being asked to engage.
On the use of the multi-agency public protection arrangements—MAPPA—structures, we are concerned that, as we see happening all the time, resources will be moved from the non-statutory infrastructure such as multi-agency risk assessment conferences, or MARACs, which are already underresourced and inconsistently supported across Scotland.
We see that with child protection. I am not saying that we should not have child protection on a statutory basis, but that, at local resource level, it trumps pretty much everything else. We are concerned about putting in place a structure that will draw away resources from MARACs and multi-agency working. That is especially the case with MAPPA, which was never designed to work for domestic abuse; it is designed for sexual offending.
Those are some of our top concerns.
Good morning. Shakti Women’s Aid, is a specialist organisation providing domestic abuse support to black and minority ethnic communities in Scotland. We feel that the bill holds a lot of opportunity, but that we need to understand better how the proposals would fit with the existing structures, such as the MARACs, the Caledonian programme and the equally safe at school programme. Obviously, it is not about reinventing the wheel; it is about making sure that the bill fits with what exists already.
However, it is very promising that the bill would put in statute measures such as those on preventative work in schools or rehabilitation programmes. Those exist at the moment, but the approach varies, so you get a varying response. For example, some schools follow the equally safe at school programme and some do not; if the approach was statute-backed, it would be a different story.
The same applies to rehabilitation programmes such as the Caledonian programme, which we know, from a BME perspective, is not very bespoke. Many of the domestic abuse behaviours in BME communities are driven by culture and tradition and we are not certain whether the programme takes that into consideration. If the bill can move towards achieving that, that would be very welcome.
We fully support the measures on data collection, because anything that supports data on BME-specific abuse is welcome. Unfortunately, we do not hold such data, which makes it extremely difficult for any organisation, whether it be a public, statutory or third sector organisation, to say, “This is the problem at hand.” We do not have a data set that we can start from and build on. That is the case even for statutory bodies such as Police Scotland. For example, although the data can provide a figure for the number of cases under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, when you ask for a breakdown, the data is not there.
We would welcome it if Police Scotland could tell us the number of cases of honour-based abuse, forced marriage or transnational abandonment. That would be amazing. If we are aiming for a fully diverse and welcoming Scotland, we need to start at the level of statutory bodies being able to give us that data, but it simply is not there at the moment. Therefore, we fully support the provisions on data collection.
The only other point that I have not mentioned is about the requirements for a register. We see potential for that proposal, but we need to understand it better. From what we understand, it would cover only a small proportion of cases, because it would apply mainly to those heard under solemn procedure, which is a relatively small percentage, rather than summary procedure. However, as far as we understand how it would work, we would want those convicted of the most serious offences to be on the register.
BME women in particular face a lot of barriers when navigating the legal process. What tends to happen is that they find themselves at the other end of it—they are the ones who are alleged to have committed abuse. That is not because they are abusers but because they could not navigate the process, were given the wrong advice or there had been a situational abuse incident, which is almost like what you would call a defensive response to an abusive situation. We would not want those women to be caught in such a register. We also need to understand the register’s timeframes and how it would work with the existing structures.
Thank you very much. That is a really helpful opening comment.
Good morning. The Scottish Women’s Convention welcomes the bill’s preventative intent, but we have a number of concerns. When we spoke to women about the bill, they raised a number of issues, including that the data in Scotland is not of the standard that it should be in this day and age, as has already been said. Through the bill, attention has been drawn to that issue yet again. Based on their lived experience, the women we speak to still report a fear of reporting due to inadequate protection. A number of incidents involve repeat perpetrators, which means that it is the same man committing them.
We also have an issue with the idea of self-reporting. To be honest, I do not know why on earth we think that if we ask men to put their hands up and say, “Yes I did this,” or, “I am here,” or whatever the reporting structure demands of them, that will happen because, in the main, they deny responsibility for the crime from the beginning, and yet the bill would ask them to self-report.
We agree—and this has been a long time coming—that we need to educate our young people about violence against women and girls across the spectrum, but particularly in relation to so-called domestic abuse. I wish that there was another name for it, because there is nothing domestic about it. That is a big area that we should focus on. When people—including me—ask what kind of Scotland we want to live in, the answer must be, “One where women are free from the fear of violence,” so we need to talk to our young people as early as possible about how to respect each other. In Finland, youngsters at school learn how not to bully and so on. That is an area of the bill that we identify as something that we can work with.
Regarding the mechanisms in the bill and how we make it happen, it asks a lot of the agencies that currently exist and of individuals, so the Scottish Women’s Convention is inclined to say that it needs a lot more work.
Thank you very much, Agnes.
09:45
I have prepared what I have to say in a bit of a different way—I have written things down, so I will read out what our organisation thought. We looked at the proposal as a team, so these are my team’s views.
We thought that introducing the notification requirements would close an important gap in public safety. At the moment, domestic abuse offenders are not monitored in the same way as registered sex offenders, which does not make any sense to us. We get that it is different and that there would be some work around that.
We believe that there is an epidemic and that deterrents need to be put in place, because, at the moment, there are none. Time and again, we see repeat offenders going through the court process and getting a slap on the wrist, which does not act as a deterrent. A requirement to inform the police of details such as address and passport might improve safety—we do not know, because, as everybody else has said, quite a bit of work still needs to be done on how that would happen and whether and how it would help agencies to manage risk more effectively. Would it help agencies to do that? We do not know, but, at the moment, anything is worth trying.
Knowing where perpetrators are living could help how victims feel, because, too often, perpetrators are housed very close to their victims, which causes a lot of trauma—it enables them to carry on controlling and traumatising their victims.
We felt that the definition of “domestic abuse offender” in the bill was right, but that consideration needs to be given to counter-allegations, which is something that came up time and again with us— namely what would happen if a victim was charged with domestic abuse, once they felt safe enough to disclose the abuse to the people supporting them. Where it was recognised that someone was the survivor and it was a case of retaliation, would it be possible for them to be removed from the register? There are concerns about the repercussions of what is proposed and how it would affect the victim. How would it work with regard to repeat offenders who are not convicted of lower levels of domestic abuse? We know that that behaviour can escalate. Some perpetrators have learning disabilities. All that needs to be taken into account, too. We feel that what is proposed would help, but, as others have said, more work is needed.
I will pause you there, Debbie, if you do not mind, because I am keen to let members come in with questions.
I will turn to Tumay Forster first. It is proposed that the bill would apply to offenders who are convicted on indictment of an offence involving domestic abuse. My understanding is that the majority of cases go through the summary court system. If that is right, does such a distinction risk sending a message that there are two tiers of domestic abuse, rather than saying, “All domestic abuse is wrong”?
My take on the message that we are trying to send out is that, at the moment, there is no message. Again, I am answering from a BME domestic abuse perspective. With regard to the BME community, where there is a lot of honour-based abuse and forced marriage, the community’s general understanding is: “There is nothing out there that will hold me accountable for what I have done”, so we welcome anything that gives the message that the abuse is not right. I agree that quite a large percentage of cases will not be part of this system. Then again, even if the process holds only the most serious offenders to account, it might act as a deterrent by sending the message that the abuse is not okay.
If the idea is to stop domestic abuse completely, we know that that is not likely to happen, but if the idea is that the register will be a deterrent and will stop people from repeat offending, it might achieve that outcome. However, I am not certain because more work needs to be done on that.
From a BME perspective, and as I understand it, part of the aim is to address the most serious cases and the management of those individuals who are the most dangerous and cause the most harm to society. That is my take on it. If that is the case, we have to look at risk assessment, which BME communities do not have at the moment, although we hope that the bill could help that. For example, MARACs look at risk assessments, but MARAC responses for BME individuals around Scotland today vary greatly. I can tell you that you could not bring an HBA case to an Edinburgh MARAC because it would not be heard. However, we have a separate forum for the HBA cases, where we are part of it—
When you say HBA, I take it that you are referring to honour-based abuse.
Yes, I am.
There is supposed to be a risk assessment for all those women, but even cases of BME women who suffer HBA from their ex-partners—we are talking about intimate partnerships—might not be heard in the main MARAC sittings. In those cases we would need to go to the separate risk assessment forum. Most of the time we find that, with all the MARACs around the country, the risk assessment falls onto the third sector. That is the problem.
If there was a statute that said that there should be risk assessments for everybody, even if it is a small percentage or the most serious offences, that would be welcome. We just need to understand how it fits with the existing structures, because we want to protect the existing structures and the statute to fit in and work in conjunction with it.
Eighty-five per cent of domestic abuse cases go through summary court. The measure is a focused one. I have to say that, for many years, we have resisted the notion that we can somehow say that a case on indictment is more serious. That is because the data shows that the single biggest indicator of lethality in a domestic abuse case is coercive and controlling behaviours, and those are pretty much present in every one of the 85 per cent of cases that go through the summary court.
At the moment, the general message is that we do not take domestic abuse that seriously—apart from the fact that we say that we do—partly because so many sentences do not involve serious GPS monitoring or custody. Across the piece, they involve community disposals, and I am sure that there is a whole other meeting and discussion to be had on that.
I am less worried about the message that is sent to the public and more about what the provisions say to the legal community about such cases being serious but the rest really not being so.
Dr Scott, I will stay with you for a follow-up question but I will pose the same question to Debbie Jupp straight afterwards. In your opening remarks, you talked about whether the measures that are set out in the bill will help to reduce domestic violence. In our papers, the argument is made that much of the point of having a register is deterrence, such that perpetrators might think twice because they might end up on a register. If someone is a perpetrator of domestic violence and know that they could face the full force of law and be convicted for it, and yet they still do it despite the risk of criminalisation, will a register really deter them?
I highly doubt it. I have not seen any evidence, and there is not much evidence out there, about significantly effective deterrent measures, so I cannot imagine that a register would be a deterrent.
I have lots of sympathy with my sister organisations saying that, given that there is currently nothing, why not at least try this? However, deterrence is the wrong way to go in this area. What increases the safety of victims? There is really no evidence that a register will do that significantly, especially for this quite small pool of offenders. We need to look at things such as investing in legal services for victims, and making our legal system work appropriately, so that they have access to justice. If victims have appropriate legal representation at the beginning of the process, that will be a deterrent to offenders. That is the kind of thing, along with investing in MARAC structures and challenging the use of risk assessments such as the domestic abuse, stalking and honour-based violence—DASH—tool, that will minimise the impact of coercive and controlling behaviours, which is the single biggest thing that we have to worry about in terms of lethality.
There are lots of things that we can do that will increase safety. For instance, if we are talking about data, I would really like us to collect data on perpetrators. Trust me, that is a far more important gap in the system than anything else. However, what we should be talking about here is investing in things such as MARACs and legal services, which we know are inadequate but are critical pillars in safety.
Debbie Jupp, do you have anything to add?
No, I do not. Marsha Scott covered it all.
Good morning. My question was kind of answered in Dr Scott’s introductory comments, so I will ask it in a much shorter form. I would like to go around everybody and clarify whether you think that the bill would add anything to the current multi-agency approach. I do not need a long answer because I have another question. Do you think that the bill is necessary and would it fit into the current structure?
Yes, I think that it would help in tracking perpetrators. We have them going from one end of the country to the other, so collecting data on things such as addresses would perhaps help to track where they are, and perhaps they would not constantly move next to where their victims are. The part about collecting data and information will really help the victims of domestic abuse who we work with. On the part about schools, I think that all children should be educated and given information to help them to know what a healthy relationship is and what domestic abuse is. I think that the bill will help, but I feel that parts of it need to be looked at in more depth than is the case at the moment.
Do you feel that the good parts outweigh the parts that are cause for concern?
Yes, I do. In the written submission from our team at CEA, we agreed with most of the bill, but we noted the parts of it that need to be looked at.
As I said before, we would warmly welcome improved practice. I am not sure what would deliver it, because, when it comes to collecting data, that is already in law, yet some data is not even on the radar. I wish that I could say different, but I think that the other three parts of the bill, although well intentioned, are unlikely to make women and children safer or to hold perpetrators accountable and, in fact, they might get in the way of current good practice, much as it needs to still be improved.
We feel that the bill holds a lot of potential, but as I said earlier, further work needs to be done to see how it would fit with existing structures so that it can provide safety. For example, we make the comparison between the register and forced marriage protection orders, which the committee will be familiar with. When the orders were brought in, they held a lot of promise. We thought that the BME community would be quite keen to utilise those orders, and it was not. Some people were interested, but, ultimately, the issue was that communities wanted the abuse to go away but they did not necessarily want to see people having a criminal record, for example.
10:00However, we know for a fact that the orders keep people safe, so now the issue is not so much the order itself—because the order provides protection. In this case, the bill would have the same effect. The bill would provide safety, but we need to educate the women and the people who come to us to tell them how it can keep them safe. What needs to happen is for security and safety to be provided for those women. It is all very well putting somebody on the register, but, unless you can keep the women and children safe with separate measures, it will never be a complete picture. Therefore, the register will act as somewhat of a deterrent. I can assure you that it will send a message to BME communities, because, at the moment, they feel that there is not much.
If the register is going to be similar to the disclosure scheme, how will it work differently? Will it be utilised and used just by Police Scotland? If that is the case, what use will it be to the support organisations? Will support organisations have the ability to access the register? If so, that would be quite welcome. All these things need to be considered.
That is a very interesting point, thank you.
One of the aspects that the bill lacks is direct support measures for victims, survivors and their families. In Scotland, we are trying to encourage women to report offences—this criminal behaviour and violence that is perpetrated against them—but we need to do something after that. The bill refers to different things, such as education in schools, which is really important, and data collection and reporting—my colleagues on the witness panel have been much more eloquent than me about that—but we need provisions for safe housing pathways and trauma-informed mental health approaches and legal advocacy services, which Marsha Scott referred to.
We need legal advocacy and resources that women can use. Specialist third sector organisations, such as Women’s Aid need a specialist fund. They need to be sustainable in delivering services to women. The bill does not provide that. If women do not have a safe route out of domestic abuse, how on earth are we going to get them to report the abuse?
Everyone in this room knows how underreported these offences are, and to enable women to report the abuse, we need to say to them, “We believe you, and you are going to be housed.” Why is it nearly always the women who have to leave the house with the children? More of an onus is needed on Police Scotland to start recording and taking seriously such cases of violence against women, rather than using this cosy word, “domestic” when we talk about abuse.
I listened to Eilish Angiolini talking about her report yesterday, she spoke about how we have to move these offences against women further up the agenda so that they are taken more seriously and not just slotted in somewhere. The bill is well intentioned, and the women who we spoke to agree that every little helps, but, when they talk about their personal circumstances, they do not see how the bill will move things along.
Thank you, Agnes. You led me beautifully to my next question, which is about resources and rehabilitation for women and whether the bill addresses that. I will move on, because I understand what you have said and you have made some really good points.
Debbie Jupp, does the bill address the question of whether the resources will be there for adequate follow-up and rehabilitation?
Do you mean for men—for the perpetrators?
No, for domestic abuse victims.
Not particularly, no. A lot of funding needs to be put into the victims. Our service has a waiting list of 106 people. Domestic abuse victims should not have a waiting list; they should be able to access support straight away. More and more referrals are coming through our service constantly, and we have the equivalent of three full-time staff to deal with the massive influx of clients.
There needs to be more rehabilitation and psychological support for women. General practitioners and other members of the health service are referring to our small charity to get support for clients who are psychologically traumatised. There is not enough support for them.
More money definitely needs put into domestic abuse. It is supposed to be a priority. Through the bill, we are looking at how we can track perpetrators, collect data and things like that, but I agree with Marsha Scott that we also need to look at the other side and how we can put more funding into working with the survivors or the victims, whatever you want to call them.
There need to be more groups available. We are always being told there are no pots of money. Third sector charities have to spend half their time applying for funding and getting knocked back instead of putting the work into what they need to be doing. So, yes, that funding is probably not in the bill.
I will just touch on the two areas that I have not talked a lot about. On rehabilitation, it is important to remind ourselves that, even in the best possible world, where every court and every community has access to a perpetrator programme, we would still see a minority of good outcomes. We still should run those programmes—I am not saying that we should not—but I think that people want them to be a quick fix, and they are not.
Years and years of research and work was done to develop the Caledonian programme. Again—with my caveat—that is the system that we should be supporting and investing in. It is available in two-thirds of the communities or local authorities in Scotland. If we want to invest in rehabilitation, we should make sure that funding is available to extend it everywhere and to fund it appropriately. The support programmes for partners and ex-partners are critical, because they give the data feedback loop to show whether perpetrators are changing. That is my response on that one.
The equally safe in schools programme is strongly evaluated. However, we all know that the prevention of domestic abuse cannot be put on the shoulders of 14-year-olds. It needs to be delivered by older people—although most of them might be younger than me.
According to Scottish policy of the past 25 years, the prevention of domestic abuse is about addressing inequality so that women are not disproportionately poor, children do not lack access to their human rights, and women do not have to be the ones who leave. There is a whole set of things that we know that we should be doing, and those are the things that will best prevent domestic abuse.
I will get off my soapbox now.
Just for clarification, are you referring to resourcing in general in all four parts of the bill?
Yes, I am asking about resourcing in general.
That aspect for us is what I was referring to when I talked about how the bill will fit with the existing structures, because we do not want to reinvent the wheel because it all comes down to resourcing and budgeting. That part is not fully clear in the bill.
There is some suggestion of reliance on the third sector. From the third sector’s perspective, given what we do, I must ask how much extra work is expected from third sector organisations. As a specialist organisation, Shakti Women’s Aid has knowledge and understanding of cultural and tradition-driven behaviours and issues, and we would, of course, be very happy to share that knowledge, but the reality is that we have funding and resourcing issues. There are only so many of us, so, realistically, what can be expected from us and what can we deliver?
There probably needs to be more work on the resourcing aspect of the bill. Similarly, budgeting will need to be considered. It is not 100 per cent clear how the resourcing will fit in with existing structures to help to alleviate some of the resourcing issues. As Marsha Scott said, the Caledonian programme is trusted, so that should be used, but how will the bill fit in with that? What is it proposing to change or add? Having something in statute is brilliant, because it ensures that there is accountability for everyone in Scotland and that, if we want to be fully diverse, we must consider all stages of the process, but how will that work? The resourcing aspect is not very clear.
We are trying to establish how effective the bill could be and what practical changes it could make, so all those comments are really helpful.
Good morning. My questions are predicated on the written submissions that we have received, so they will probably be quite specific to individuals.
My first question relates to notification requirements and monitoring. I was struck by what Scottish Women’s Aid said in setting out its view on those proposals. Its submission states:
“after consultation with colleagues across the system, we are not confident that this element of the proposal would actually make engagement with the justice system safer, and we see significant unintended negative consequences.”
That is pretty stark. On the specific question about safety, the Scottish Women’s Convention submission states:
“protective orders which are imposed without requiring victim-survivors to initiate legal action can reduce safety.”
Again, that is a pretty stark thing to hear. I ask Marsha Scott and Agnes Tolmie to expand on the specific points that their organisations have made.
I think that our submission pretty much covers it. We have concerns, despite the proposal being well intended. I do not want anybody to think that we would not like the system—the police and the courts—to be able to identify where a perpetrator was at any given moment, but I do not think that the bill will allow that to happen. We would like there to be consideration of the use of technology such as global positioning system monitoring, which is used in other countries, so that we build women’s confidence that they are safe and that we make it clear to people who are monitored that their behaviour will be responded to if they break the protective orders or whatever measures are in place.
In general, quite a small number of perpetrators would be affected by the proposal. We know from lots of evidence over decades that the perpetrators or convicted offenders who abide by the rules of a protective order are the ones who, in general, are fairly compliant with the law. There is a whole set of very scary offenders who do not comply, so it is unlikely that the requirement to disclose their previous records or be on a register would change their behaviour in relation to whether they were putting victims at risk.
10:15
I get the sense that there is a strong view on the efficacy of the proposals. Could you say a bit more about that? It is pretty stark to say that there will be “significant unintended negative consequences”.
That is related to the fact that we are talking about a system that does not work very well as it is, and to what the bill would impose. We have had multiple conversations with colleagues in the public sector, and they are concerned that the bill would require them to go through bureaucratic processes that would not really deliver for victims or survivors and that might draw resources away from other areas that do.
Agnes Tolmie, will you comment on your point about a reduction in safety?
We have to remember the nature of these abusers, particularly controlling men. Women say to us that, when the process becomes bureaucratic, they think, “It’ll only make him madder.” That is one thing that women worry about, and that is the kind of expression that we hear—if you impose a thing that does not work on the abusers, you are just making them madder. Women just want out and away or the whole problem to stop. We fear that some of the proposals in the bill would “make him madder”. Women do not want that; they just want the abuse to stop.
To go back to what Marsha Scott said, there are men whose controlling behaviour is so bad that it takes women years and years to even report any abuse in the first place. To then start going through a bureaucratic process rather than dealing with the perpetrator in the way that they should be dealt with would have an impact on the women. Women tell us that targeted prevention—saying to these men, “This is a programme that you’re going to go through as part of the rehabilitation”—is a much better way to go than saying “You’re going to have to report to us and wear an ankle bracelet,” which women fear would have an impact on them.
Is that drawn from specific conversations that your organisation has had with victims?
Oh, absolutely—yes.
I have questions on domestic abuse education in schools. We all understand that it is broadly a good idea to put that in place. However, again, Scottish Women’s Aid had some pretty stark comments on the specific propositions in the bill. The written response says:
“The proposal as stands raises some alarms for us—the implications for children and parents who choose to withdraw their child, for children in the class who disclose abuse in a setting not properly trained to respond safely for the child are two scenarios we worry about.”
That speaks to the point that, sadly, given the prevalence of abuse, there will be kids in the classroom who have witnessed and experienced it, so there is clearly an inherent danger of retraumatisation. How do we deal with that in the school environment?
Maybe Marsha Scott can go first, given that I cited her submission, and then others can comment.
Allowing parents to pull their children out of those classes raises all kinds of questions and issues in a school system. Either we think that children need something or we do not. We do not ask whether people want to pull their child out of English—do you know what I mean?
Having said that, it is a difficult issue. I have to say that I have this conversation in many places many times a month. People’s idea of prevention often involves doing a school programme, and that always makes me think of a piece of research by the Young Women’s Movement into young women’s experiences of sexism in schools. It asked whether we should do curriculum-based interventions on how wrong sexism is, gender rights and so on, and one of the young women said, “Well, until I walk out of that class into the hallway and do not get sexually assaulted, it’s kind of hard for me to take that seriously.”
When women all around Scotland live in a world where domestic abuse is rife and where one in five children grows up with it, doing an intervention in schools that says that you should be nice is worthy, but it is highly unlikely to prevent domestic abuse. What will prevent domestic abuse is the creation of a culture in which, when the kids walk out of that classroom, the women are not more poor and the girls are not being sexually assaulted in school.
There is absolutely a place for curriculum-based work about the history of oppression that women and other very marginalised groups experience and how unproductive, inefficient and harmful it all is. We want to create a different world, but, although putting in place a specific domestic abuse curriculum makes people feel good, it does not do much to prevent domestic abuse unless you do all the rest of the work, too.
The general question to you all is on the issue of the potential traumatisation or retraumatisation of children. How would that be dealt with?
Kids are traumatised by watching stuff on TikTok—do you know what I mean? We really like awareness raising in schools for one reason, which is that young people do not see themselves as victims of domestic abuse when they are living with it in a family or in their own relationships. It is good to let them know that there are services such as the folks here today provide and we oversee that are designed for children and young people and are available to them for free. They should see themselves as being in the constituency of people who have a right to that kind of support.
I do not think that talking to them about domestic abuse will retraumatise them, depending on how it is done, of course, but I also do not think that it will help them particularly, unless you link it up to information about what the local support services are.
That is a useful perspective. Do others have anything to say on that?
At CEA, we have a team of children’s workers that go into schools and work one to one with children. They have also done projects with whole classes, and we have had really positive feedback from that. Obviously, if a child is experiencing domestic abuse, that work needs to be done in the right way for their age and stage. All the services, including social work, constantly refer people to us, because we provide such good help to children—we work with more children on the child protection register than any other service, and we have to run a waiting list. We do safety planning and make sure that children are aware of what to do if there is a domestic abuse incident in the home.
We think that rolling out that approach to classes in schools would help a lot more children than we can by doing it on a one-to-one basis. However, we need to take account of issues such as the fact that there will be children in those classes who are experiencing domestic abuse, so we would have to look at how we deal with that.
At the minute, there is a big requirement for those children to get help and support. We have a play therapist. We have filial therapists working with families. A lot of good work is already going on, but, again, there is a lack of funding.
That sounds more like direct support for those who are experiencing it as opposed to general education.
Yes, that is what I am saying. We are already doing some of that work and rolling that out into schools. As you say, how do we not traumatise children who are not coming forward but are experiencing domestic abuse in the home?
I see what you are saying on that point, Marsha, but at the minute, we do that work on a one-to-one basis. We have done work with whole classes, and the feedback has been that that was really helpful.
Agnes would like to come in.
Education is important, and young people would benefit from it—not only when it comes to domestic abuse issues, but also in learning to respect, appreciate and not harm one another. If nothing else, we have to do something to combat the online rubbish that our young people are engaged in. We recently had a conference on misogyny in education, and a number of young girls in third, fourth or fifth year or whatever shared examples of being hurt or injured at school.
Thankfully, an outcome of that is that many schools now have processes for reporting such issues, but that does not take away from the fact that we need to get into young people’s heads very early about what is right and wrong, how we should treat each other and the fact that women are not “baddies”, as we are portrayed on social media. One young girl told us that she was pushed down the stairs by a boy, who told her that the reason that he did it was because, “I don’t like women. I don’t like girls.” That is a problem that we need to address.
I was quite saddened that the misogyny bill that we were promised never came to fruition, because that would have helped to sharpen the minds of a few people about what is right and wrong.
I have a couple more questions, but I am conscious of the time. Can I come back in later if there is time?
I will bring you back in if there is time at the end.
You covered some of this in your responses to Rona Mackay, but do you have any comments on the financial and resource aspects of the bill that you have not already raised?
On 25 June, we heard from Pam Gosal MSP that the “maximum cost” of the bill would be £23 million but that the investment would be worth making because it would achieve an estimated £7 billion in savings by reducing domestic abuse offending costs. Is £23 million a realistic figure? Should other things be considered in the financial memorandum? Do you have any other comments?
It is very difficult to say. As I said earlier, will the provisions be factored into the existing systems and structures or will there be a considerable increase in resourcing? For example, will the register be Police Scotland’s responsibility? What resourcing do we need? Will it sit on top of what we have in the disclosure scheme, will it be in conjunction with that or will it be rolled out to other women’s groups? Who will have access? Those questions raise further issues around the resourcing side of things. For us, it is very difficult to say what the resourcing implications will be, based on what we have seen in the bill.
I do not really have anything to add to what I have said.
I have nothing to add.
I could not put a figure on it either, but if there is £23 million lying about in Holyrood, I am sure that Women’s Aid would make good use of it.
I am sure that a lot of organisations would make good use of it. However, comments were made about whether a specialist person coming in and delivering education rather than a schoolteacher would be preferable. Are such costs addressed? Do we need to put more funding in, given the potential savings? We heard that the bill’s provisions would cost £23 million but that £7 billion would be saved by reducing domestic abuse reoffending.
From my perspective, what is being proposed is that we do curriculum-based interventions, which is often the case elsewhere. You would have to develop and test the curriculum and you would have to train your teachers to deliver it if you were actually serious about it. I have no idea what that would cost, but if you want to do a curriculum-based intervention, you should do it in partnership with your local services to ensure that you are hooking kids up appropriately. However, we should not be asking voluntary sector organisations with waiting lists to be doing curriculum-based interventions.
My feeling about the £23 million and the however many billions is that there is not an awful lot of evidence that many cases will be prevented, although every case is worth preventing. The figures are difficult to grapple with, given the amount of uncertainty in all of this.
10:30
I have one final question. Earlier, you said that colleagues in the public sector had concerns about the amount of bureaucracy involved. Could that be addressed by extra funding? Could you tell us concisely what the public sector concerns were and who they came from?
I do not want to speak for our partners. I am sure that the committee is well aware of the failure to implement elements of the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021 such as the domestic abuse protection orders and the domestic abuse protection notices. We already know that the police have significant resource issues and if we expect them to do the things that they have not done, partly because of resourcing, while laying something else on them, we are highly unlikely to see a positive outcome.
I will start by asking Tumay Forster to elaborate on the evidence that she gave about women who might be convicted because they have retaliated in self-defence. I was not really aware of that until Pam Gosal mentioned it to me as being a big issue. It would be helpful to understand that.
It is a big issue, particularly for BME women, who find it incredibly difficult to navigate the legal system. They do not have much understanding at all, even about what it means to plead guilty or not guilty. In many women’s cases, especially if they also have children, all they want is for the abuse to stop and for them to keep their children. We have had cases of women being led to believe that, if they plead guilty, they will be able to take their children back.
Many women do not understand the abuse that is happening to them and they will accept anything and they will plead anything if they think that that will mean that they are going to get their children back. They do not understand what a guilty plea means for them now or in the future. We have had cases like that, especially because legal protections are not quite there and legal aid is difficult to come by—those women are left in the hands of solicitors and other people who want to expedite the process because there are long waiting times in the courts and people want quick outcomes, which are not necessarily good outcomes that keep the women and children safe.
Are we talking about cases in which a woman has been charged with assault, for example?
I do not want to call it retaliatory action, because it is not. It is a defence mechanism or something that is situational. The woman is resisting the abuse and trying to keep herself and her child safe. Resisting does not necessarily mean that she is an abuser—she is defending herself and trying to keep her child safe.
Could self-defence not be argued in court in such cases?
No, because there could be a counter-allegation from the partners. BME women often rely on the husband financially. Many of them are first-generation migrants who have come to this country and they do not know how the system works. All they know is that they were brought here by their husbands so they have to rely on them 100 per cent.
We often hear men saying, “She has done this, this and this,” but he is saying all those things because he knows how the system works and she has no idea, so she would not even be able to say that she was acting in self-defence. She would not be able to explain that.
I am glad that Tumay Forster raised this issue—I think that Debbie Jupp did, too. Counter-allegations are a big problem in the system. If we wonder why women do not want to report, we should note the number of women who are victims yet are invoked as being perpetrator, rather than victim, by the perpetrator’s, or the perpetrator’s lawyer’s, use of the system.
We are involved with the Scottish Women’s Rights Centre in doing a study on dual and malicious reporting, which is an issue in every system that responds robustly to domestic abuse. We find that the police are required to identify the primary aggressor in a case. We used to have lots of cases in which both partners would be reported as being violent, with the courts then being asked to sort it out. We had a new protocol some years ago that worked quite well at reducing those dual reports. However, unfortunately, the unintended negative consequence is that we still see a significant number of malicious reports, whereby somebody is treated as a perpetrator, instead of as a victim, even if she understands the legal system.
Is your concern about the register, Tumay, that those women would be on the register?
Yes, absolutely.
I want to explore what Agnes Tolmie said about angry men, which really struck me. First, Agnes, can I just check whether your concern is that the notification requirement for those men to be on the list would almost be a provocation, so it would not keep women safe? Did you mean that it would be provocative and that it might lead to more violence?
Yes. Women talk to us about examples of anything that can cause fractious behaviour. It is like poking a guy with a stick—you just make them more angry. The kind of examples that have been given to us include, “I don’t want to annoy him, because he’ll start messing me about with the kids or he’ll not give me money,” and various things like that—if the woman has managed to escape but still has to let him see the children, for example. By putting the men on a register, you would make them angrier and so on.
That is what I thought you said. It is a striking comment. Do the other witnesses share that view about the register?
There would be a concern that it would make the men angrier. However, again, if they had committed an offence and been charged by the police, it would not be that person’s fault that they would go on the register, so I see it from two sides.
Like Agnes Tolmie, we hear such things all the time. This is about the risk assessments that victims and survivors do. If this was a response to putting somebody on a register that absolutely made women and children safer, they—and we—would not worry about him being angrier because he would not be able to get to them. However, unfortunately, our system provides access through child contact and all kinds of ways, so they would not be safer and he would be angry. Also, I note that domestic abuse is not about him being angry; it is about him having power.
I know, but I just want to understand—
It is an excuse for him to be angry.
This is a central part of the bill, and that comment is very pertinent, so I just wanted to get your reaction to that. As I understand it, the purpose of putting convicted offenders on the list would be so that the police could monitor them. I acknowledge what has been said about resources and everything else, but that would be the purpose of it, so it is quite interesting to hear that there might be an unintended consequence. Tumay, do you want to comment?
This is a difficult one to manoeuvre, but we cannot not hold people accountable because they will get mad. Domestic abuse is a crime, and when there is a crime, you cannot just not take action on it because it will make the abuser angry. It undoubtedly will, and I can guarantee that it will make families very mad in honour-based abuse cases. If you put the man on the register, the rest of the family will be quite mad as well, because of the multiple perpetrator concept.
In the eyes of the law, we cannot just let someone get away with it because they will get upset, because if that was the case, we would have to review the whole system. My view is that we have to take action on it. Will it make some people very angry? I am sure that it will.
Thank you. Lastly, if I may ask—
I think that Agnes Tolmie wants to come in before you move on.
My point is that we are telling you what women are telling us. It is not about these men not being on a register; it is about women’s fear of being the ones who put them there. It has to be done differently.
The bill does not address that. It says, “Right, there will be a register and you will be on this register for four times the length of your sentence,” and so on. However, women tell us that, if they can escape the abuse, that is preferable to having to deal with an angry man. Depending on the abuse that the women face, the reaction will be different. We want justice to take place, but it has to land on the shoulders of the men. I totally agree that they should be put on a register or behind bars—it does not matter to me where they are put, but what does matter is the unintended consequences for women. We just need to be careful about how we do it.
Thank you very much.
I have a special interest in the whole curriculum issue that you mentioned. My personal view—I have expressed this many times—is that we need to work with everyone, but we need to work with boys in particular. Some notable figures—such as David Gandy, who spoke out this week—have talked about boys not having the role models in society that they need. Do you agree that some of the work that we need to do needs to be targeted at boys and needs to talk to them? If we do not tackle the root of the problem, we will not tackle domestic abuse. What are your thoughts on working with boys at any age, given your experiences and expertise?
We already work with boys. As I said when discussing children in school, we work with boys and men. We are one of the only domestic abuse agencies in Scotland that does so, and we get lots of calls from men all around the country. It is done over the phone because they will not come to the office, but we agree that boys should be educated, as well as women, because it affects them.
Last week, I was at a college doing an open day, and three teenage boys came up to us and asked, “Would somebody be able to come to college and talk to the boys about domestic abuse?” They see it and hear about it. I thought that that was quite interesting, because it is normally girls who ask. Boys would not normally come up to a domestic abuse stall in a college and do that. We should definitely work with boys.
I will not be helpful here, Pauline. There really is not any convincing evidence that male role models are important elements when it comes to changing harmful behaviours. Children need good adult role models. We need to work with boys, but it needs to be within the context of the fact that a significant percentage of them grew up with domestic abuse. We know that domestic abuse is not about them repeating that behaviour. It is not a learned behaviour, despite what the cycle of abuse people say.
10:45We need to change a system that rewards men for being harmful and abusive by investing in systems that allow things such as parental leave, for example, which is a cultural issue—this is a whole other discussion. If men have equal access to the things that support them to be the kind of parents that we all want them to be, it will make a big difference. However, as designed in many places, not just in the bill, education needs to think about what needs to change around boys to help them to think about women differently. I am as worried about toxic media as anybody else, but let us do something that works.
We strongly advocate working with boys. Especially in the BME communities, a lot of abuse is based on male power and even females in BME communities will try to honour the male, in a way.
Unfortunately, the only opportunity for most young BME girls and boys to understand what is a healthy relationship might be in school. While they are in their own communities and their own homes, they are still very much around culturally driven and traditional role models. The school is a controlled and structured way of delivering the idea of what a healthy relationship looks like, how boys should treat girls and how girls should interact with boys. They will not get that opportunity in their own homes.
The education aspect of the bill is important to us, and we welcome it. It should be mandatory, because it will be the only opportunity for a BME boy or girl to get such information in a controlled and structured way. Honour-based abuse dynamics are very much driven by male honour, so it would be helpful to work with boys, as well as working with boys and girls together, so that they understand each other. If we are talking about a truly diverse and inclusive Scotland, every boy should understand a girl’s perspective and every girl should understand a boy’s perspective, and people coming from different ethnicities should understand those dynamics, so that young people will grow up to be the adults of tomorrow.
I will pause you there and bring in Katy Clark. There are also one or two follow-up questions, including questions from Pam Gosal.
Some elements of the bill would require further legislation to bring them into effect, including part 1—we have heard your evidence that that part might have unintended consequences and might not fit in well with existing systems. However, other aspects of the bill would not need further legislation.
From sitting on the committee, I know that quite a lot of the legislation that was passed in the previous parliamentary session still has not been implemented—for example, the Parliament focused yesterday on female genital mutilation legislation that has not been implemented. Even if we managed to pass the bill, it might be a long time before work was done on implementation.
Work is going on now on school education. We know that about one third of schools are signed up for the equally safe at school programme, but it looks as though that will mean different things in different parts of the country. I have heard the evidence about the scale of sexism, misogyny and violence in schools and how it has not been dealt with, so we cannot silo it into personal and social education and modern studies classes.
If we were to go ahead with mandatory school education on domestic abuse, would it be helpful to restrict it to domestic abuse alone, or would it need to be framed far more widely to cover sexism, misogyny and violence? We know that violence in schools—in particular against women staff and pupils—is a massive problem, against the backdrop of social media and the influence of the far right. If we were to go down the path of mandatory education, would it be helpful to frame it narrowly?
I would add in education on healthy relationships, because a lot of things can be covered in that.
Liz Kelly, who is a long-time researcher on violence against women, once pointed out that women’s lives are not divided into incidents of domestic abuse, sexual assault, straight harassment and so on, so the point is well made in that sense. If we were starting from considering what children need, we would not simply give them a domestic abuse case to look at.
If somebody gave me a magic wand, I would want to look at how we ensure that our schools, from nursery to graduation, are giving out messages about gender equality. The single biggest curriculum intervention that I think would be helpful for children and would reduce the harm that they experience is media literacy. There is good evidence for that—it is a tool and a skill that can be applied in many different ways, and it can challenge the messages that are coming from the incel movement and all the places that scare us old people so much.
However, we cannot ever get away from the fact that we need, through a whole-school approach, to deal with the sexism in the hallway. We cannot just beat teachers up for not somehow knowing about all the issues around abuse and not being able to intervene in a way that changes what happens in the hallway. However, unless what happens in the hallway changes, what happens in the classroom is not going to change.
I agree 100 per cent with Marsha Scott. Although having these issues taught about in schools through any lens would be very welcome, a wider lens would be better to enable young people to understand the problem of gender inequality, which is the major reason why such abuse is happening. A wider perspective would be welcome, but anything would be welcome to educate young minds.
I have a real passion about this subject—I think that it is really important. When boys and girls go to school, we have to teach them that each of us, male and female, has a role to play in this world, and it is not just about how men feel or what women want.
To go back to the point about role models, I think, from looking around—starting with the leader of the western world—that we are short on male role models, to be fair. It is important that we get men who the boys respect and admire to stand up and say, “That wasn’t right what he did,” or “That isn’t right what he said,” and be more vocal about that. I think that that would help.
On what happens at school, we need to learn together. When I first went to secondary school, the boys and girls were separated and all that nonsense. We need to learn together and share experiences, and we need to learn together that violence is wrong. We need to learn that women are really good people, and boys need to learn to respect that. How we do that is somebody else’s game, but Marsha Scott is right that we need to stop discrimination from an early age.
The violence really has to stop. I cannot believe that, in a small country such as Scotland, we have more than 8,000 sex offenders on a register. That is ludicrous. The earlier we start with interventions and have honest conversations about who we are and about what we are or are not entitled to from life, the better it will be for our children.
We are about five minutes out from our scheduled finishing time, but—with the agreement of the next panel of witnesses in the public gallery—I will extend the session for another five minutes to allow for some supplementary questions.
I have a quick question that goes back to the notification requirements in part 1 of the bill. Marsha Scott touched on the fact that MAPPA was not really designed for domestic abuse; I am interested in that. Sticking with you, Dr Scott, do you have any additional views on the provision to make all domestic abuse offenders—as they are defined in the bill—subject to MAPPA? As you touched on that earlier, perhaps you can give a fairly brief response.
Brevity is not my strength, as you know. Back when I worked in a local authority, I was excited when I heard that MAPPA was going to be extended from sexual offences to cover violent offences. I thought, “There we go—we’ll have a system that we can use to protect women and children living with domestic abuse”. However, it immediately became clear to me—and I have heard this from our partners in the police and in community justice—that, while MAPPA works very well for sexual offenders, as it was designed to do, the design is very different from what we would need to monitor and scrutinise the behaviour of domestic abuse offenders. The system as it is currently designed would not work for that.
Thank you—that is helpful.
I will bring in Jamie Hepburn for a very brief, succinct question, followed by Liam Kerr and Pam Gosal. I ask you all for brief questions.
I have very specific questions for individual witnesses, convener, so I will be brief. The first question is for Agnes Tolmie. Your written evidence says that it is
“a significant oversight that the Bill does not require the collection of data on all protected characteristics as defined under the Equality Act 2010.”
You specifically cite
“sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity, and marriage or civil partnership”
as omissions. Your submission touches on this, but will you set out some of your concerns about those characteristics being omitted?
Again, this goes back to what women with lived experiences are telling us. They tell us that they can be treated differently by the police and the system if they are not part of a “normal” heterosexual couple. That puts them off making complaints and processing the harm that they have experienced. They say, “When I go to the police station, they do not treat me in the same way.” To be honest, there is still a bit of education to be done with our police around what domestic abuse is.
That is helpful.
I have one final—again, very quick—question, specifically for Debbie Jupp. In response to the question on
“concerns about the human rights or equality implications of the Bill”,
the written evidence from Committed to Ending Abuse says:
“The expansion of notifications and data processing engages privacy rights under Article 8 of ... ECHR.”
I must confess that I am not aware of that particular issue.
Can I look at that question?
I will just make sure that that is your evidence and that I have not misattributed it to you.
I do not remember saying that. What question number is it?
It is your submission, for sure—it is the response to question 7.1.
My question was whether you could expand on your written response, but perhaps I am putting you on the spot a little. You could maybe come back to the committee in writing.
Yes—can you come back to me?
If you can come back to us on that—
I think that my colleague did the last part of our written submission.
I see—right. If you could speak to your colleague and ask them what they were getting at, that would be great.
If there was an opportunity for you to share any additional information with the committee on the basis of that question, that would be helpful.
11:00
I have a question for Agnes Tolmie. I was intrigued by Pauline McNeill’s line of questioning on the unintended consequences of a register, and there is a thought in my mind that I would like you to clear up for me.
Let us say that we have a victim who is being abused and who reports that. If the partner was prosecuted, they would go on the proposed register, as would happen—as we have seen from our papers—with the sex offenders register. However, this register is different, because the victim might well take the partner back. You will tell me if I am wrong, but I think that that happens in more cases than not. The perpetrator would be on a register, and the victim would have put him there through her report. I presume that there would be a risk that the perpetrator could use that against her—“Look what you did to me.” As you said earlier, it could “make him madder”. If all that played through, would there be a risk of the victim being less likely to report the domestic abuse, as a function of the register being brought in?
No—I do not think that there is an issue with men who commit violent crimes against women and girls being on a register. The issue relates more to the terms of the bill and the length of time for which someone would be on the register and would have to be reporting or wearing some type of tracking mechanism. That is what women were worried about.
The issue is not so much about the register—the guy has committed a crime and he is entitled to be put on the register for however long. It is the additional requirements in the bill that were worrying women when we spoke to them.
Good morning. I have two questions. The first is a direct question for Marsha Scott, and I then have an open question to the other witnesses.
Marsha, I have spoken to you at three informal meetings and you have responded to two formal consultations. From my recollection—and according to the minutes that I have from our one-to-one meeting in July—you said that my bill is moving in the right direction. You had said that you would be happy to support the creation of the register with the addition of some amendments to address certain things—for example, to add that the register should include information on where the perpetrator works, because we had said that it would include the address where someone lives.
I was therefore really surprised to see your latest written response, given that I have been working with you throughout the process to ensure that we have good legislation. I used the whole summer to speak to a lot of organisations, including 22 Women’s Aid organisations, the majority of which were supportive of my bill. That was also reflected in the consultation responses, with five Women’s Aid organisations indicating their support for the bill and specifically the register—
I will have to ask for your question, please.
Sorry, convener.
As Marsha Scott knows, I have concerns that organisations that are funded by the Scottish Government may say one thing publicly and another in informal settings, as their views may lead to funding being withdrawn. What has changed from what you said previously?
Nothing has changed, really. I remember very distinctly saying to you that I would have to discuss the matter with colleagues in the police, in the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to understand the situation.
I said that the bill was moving in the right direction, as I had been concerned that a register was not going to be effective and I thought that the new version of the bill had essentially removed the idea of formal registration on a register, because the wording had changed. However, when I talked to colleagues about it, I saw that what was being proposed would operate very much like the register in the previous version of the bill.
I did mention including information on an offender’s workplace, because—as I said—we would really like police to be able to put their hands on perpetrators at any given point. However, do we think that the register would deliver that? No. It is now focused specifically on offenders who have been convicted under indictment, which is, relatively speaking, a very small number of offenders. The colleagues I spoke to had strong concerns that the bureaucratic burden would be very significant and that the amount of safety, or even accountability for perpetrators, that would be offered would be minimal.
I believed sincerely that I wanted—and I would still want—to find ways to support all the mechanisms in the bill, but I just could not.
Because of the time, I cannot come back on that, so I will just go on to my next question, if that is okay.
I ask you to select one or two of the witnesses to respond, because we are running out of time.
I thank all the witnesses for coming to discuss my bill. We are going through the 16 days of activism against sex-based violence, so it is important to raise awareness of domestic abuse. We know that, year after year, the number of cases is getting higher, and repeat offending is rising, too. Many survivors who I have spoken to have said that things have not changed. From the consultation responses, and from the evidence that we have heard today, we see that there is some support for the creation of a domestic abuse register and for the other aspects of the bill.
Some of you have indicated where amendments would be needed to improve the bill. My goal is to make good legislation so, if the bill passes stage 1, what improvements should be made at stage 2 to ensure that survivors feel safe and that the burden on public authorities is as minimal as possible?
Tumay Forster can go first.
In fairness, I think that we have covered quite a bit of where the witnesses feel that there would be scope to make changes to the bill, so I ask you all to keep your responses as brief as possible.
I can refer to the written submission, if that would help.
Would it help if I summed up what I heard today and you could all say whether you agree? I have heard from you that the issues are resources and funding, and how the bill is going to work with existing structures.
That is correct.
Yes, I agree.
Same. In addition, the focus on collecting the data is really important.
Thank you.
I apologise for the session overrunning slightly and I thank all our witnesses for an insightful opening session.
We will have a short suspension to allow for a changeover of witnesses.
11:07 Meeting suspended.