Clare’s Law is only part of the answer

CLARE’S LAW was one of the most supported pieces of legislation introduced at Holyrood. Government, Opposition, other parties and pressure groups, all gathered in the Garden Lobby at the Scottish Parliament after its passage to say it was a grand idea.

We joined in, along with the rest of the media. The Herald backed the concept of a Clare’s Law in Scotland, on the grounds that victims ought to be kept in the loop in all areas of the justice process.

But, remember, this legislation asked us to accept powers over something not normally granted in a democracy under the rule of law: the communication of information about an individual’s criminal history, not just convictions but mere suspicions shelved by police or prosecutors.

We always accepted it was a difficult area. Someone might have a person in their background or even a stalker who made wrongful allegations. These were dismissed. But they were investigated. Under Clare’s Law this worrying confirmation of suspicions might be fed back to the requester.

The Herald, with much reservation, has backed the application of Clare’s Law, but we cannot pretend to see it as a panacea. It rides a coach and horses through concepts of innocent until guilty and of quality of evidence.

But we backed it because we adjudged it to to be, on balance, something to combat a greater evil, which is the prevalence in our society of domestic violence. This, by definition happening behind closed doors, is difficult to charge, prosecute or convict.

Clare Wood, whose family was from Aberdeenshire, lived in Salford, Manchester, with her son when she met George Appleton on a dating website. He raped and strangled her, setting her body on fire. He had a string of previous convictions for sex offences and was part of a live investigation when he hanged himself.

But this was probably the wrong kind of case to use as the basis of new legislation, an extreme caricature of male violence that might tell us little of the complexities of the daily reality of abusive relationships. In short, this law had to be used with care, and the figures revealed today are encouraging.

To date, there have been 33 requests for information from individuals in relationships, or their relatives and friends, about partners suspected of being abusive.

Of these, 22 have been through the decision-making process and six have been given information about whether their partners have a history of domestic violence.

That all sounds like a system that has moved promptly from the swirl of legislation into a logical and constructive way of functioning, and it has been given a cautious welcome by Rape Crisis Scotland.

However, we agree with that organisation that this step can never represent a “be-all and end-all” and the key is support for those, primarily women, who find themselves trapped in the hell of domestic abuse.

It matters little whether Clare’s Law is in existence if those affected by domestic violence then have nowhere to turn to, no possibility of escape or assistance.

There is the rub: the unimaginable cruelty for someone trapped in a domestic relationship who is given the information under Clare’s Law that their partner is indeed a monster, but has nowhere to run, nobody to turn to because social services have been pared back amid austerity cuts.