Serial domestic abusers ‘to escape unless law changes’
REPEAT domestic abusers will slip through the net unless laws are tightened, a criminal behaviour expert has claimed.
Laura Richards said stalkers and men who are violent to partners will be “invisible” if the police focus on sexual offences.
She said investigations “should be proactively identifying serial perpetrators”.The former Scotland Yard specialist wants changes to the Domestic Abuse Bill, which goes to its Lords report stage today.
Baroness Royall is backing an amendment to the proposed legislation to cover such offenders.
She said: “This is the last piece of the jigsaw. It talks about the need for a perpetrator strategy.”
She wants easier sharing of information about attackers, with better data links between police, probation and prison staff.
The peer added: “Perpetrators travel but the information about them does not. It’s not difficult to share data. You can press a button.
Perpetrators would be stopped in their tracks so they do not injure, abuse and kill.”
The Daily Express End This Injustice crusade successfully campaigned for crimes of non-fatal strangulation, threats to share intimate images and post-separation abuse to be included in the Bill.
It has also achieved an overhaul of the Family Court system to protect abuse victims.
Laura Richards said that MultiAgency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) – where justice agencies combine to manage violent and sexual offenders – should cover domestic abuse. But crimes that happen behind closed doors are often ignored.
She believes the requirement for domestic violence MAPPAs must be re-stated in the new law “if the Government is serious about protecting women and children.
“This legislation won’t be pioneering if it doesn’t have anything about perpetrators in it. It’s not going to create the cultural shift that is needed, where we focus on the perpetrator...to prevent them from offending again.
“We are still in the culture not just of victim blame and victim shame, but it’s ‘Why did she do X?’ and ‘Why didn’t she do Y?’.
“And if there is a restraining order, ‘Why did she go outside the house?’ rather than ‘How do we stop him?’ We must make these violent men visible. The police should be proactively identifying serial perpetrators. MAPPA was meant to be for the violent and sexual offenders but it tends to be just for the sexual offenders – they routinely screen out domestic violence, coercive controlling and stalking.”
The Government said it put an “unprecedented” £15million in the Budget into catching serial offenders.
Safeguarding Minister Victoria Atkins said: “The Domestic Abuse Bill is a game-changing piece of legislation. Serial perpetrators must be stopped.”