Domestic Abuse Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Harriet Ruth Harman (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton). I absolutely agree with everything she said. I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), because what she said will save lives. We are incredibly proud of her, and she should be incredibly proud of herself There is so much hope and expectation surrounding this Bill. Every woman who has suffered from domestic violence and every child who has lived in a house subjected to the terror of domestic violence will be watching what we are doing today and wishing us forward. All those who work in the charitable sector and in refuges will be watching what we are doing and supporting it, as will all those who work in the police services. Up and down the country there are police officers who want to do more about domestic violence and are dismayed at how little they are able to do. The Bill will strengthen their elbow in their own police forces, and the same applies to the Crown Prosecution Service and the court services. The Bill will be a focus, not just as a piece of legislation, but in the context of a determination to provide more support, including proper financial support—proper funding for services—and to see the whole issue in the round I pay tribute to every Member who is present to support the Bill, and to all the organisations that have given their support. I pay particular tribute to the Minister for Women, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who has doggedly pressed forward with the Bill. Let me also point out, however, that we would not have a Bill to provide this focus had not the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) made it a priority. It is our Bill, but it is also her Bill, that we are discussing today Men used routinely to get away with murder and be charged only with manslaughter, because a man could say that, although he had killed the woman, it was not his fault but hers, as she had provoked him. That was the provocation defence, which led to a charge being reduced from murder to manslaughter. A man would say, "It was only because I loved her: I killed her because I loved her, and she was having an affair", or "She drove me to it, because she nagged me and wore me down, so she provoked me into killing her." I am afraid that it used to be called, at the Bar, the "nagging and shagging" defence, while in Scotland it was called the infidelity defence It was as recently as 2009 that the provocation defence, used in that way, was put a stop to. Now, however, another version of "She drove me to kill her—I killed her, yes, but it was her fault" has reared its ugly head. Men are now, literally, getting away with murder by using the "rough sex" defence. Although the man has to admit that he caused injuries which led to the woman’s death, he claims that it was not his fault, as it was a "sex game gone wrong". She, of course, is not there to say otherwise. In the witness box, he gives lurid, unchallengeable accounts of her addiction to violent sex, and explains that the bruises that cover her body were what she wanted. The grieving relatives have to listen to his version of her sexual proclivities, and see them splashed all over social media and the newspapers. He has killed her, and then he defines her. She is dead, so only he gets to tell the story. I will just say a few words about the case of the constituent of the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier)—the case of the young woman Natalie Connolly. I know that the hon. Gentleman will be talking about it in due course, but this is why we want to change the law to prevent men from being able to argue that "the injuries that she died by, she consented to."