Isabelle Younane, Head of External Affairs at Women’s Aid, comments:  

“Children are harmed by domestic abuse whether or not they directly witness the abuse taking place, and for too long, they were not seen as victims in their own right. We welcome the introduction of a new and improved Victims’ Code, which commits to prioritising the rights and needs of children.  

“While the introduction of the new Code is welcome, it must come with significant awareness raising – victims must know that not only does it exist, but that it applies to them and will help them to safety and justice. There remains a significant gap in dedicated support for children, which can leave young people not only with nowhere to turn, but without the care they need to recover from abuse.  it is critical that investment in dedicated support delivered by specialist services, accompanies the Code, ensuring that child victims can be supported and their voices heard.” 

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Farah Nazeer, Chief Executive of Women’s Aid, comments:  

“Today, the government published Sir Brian Leveson’s Independent Review of the Criminal Courts: Part II. The Review provides a detailed examination of the causes of the growing and insurmountable backlog in the criminal courts. For too long, survivors have been denied justice – or in the case of Black and minoritised survivors – ignored and shut out, by the criminal justice system’s response to offences relating to violence against women and girls (VAWG).  

 

 

“The Review confirms the experience of survivors and VAWG organisations that chronic underfunding has been a key driver of the current crisis in the criminal courts. The Review also recognises the urgent need to address fragmented governance and siloed decision-making and calls for a single, coordinated vision and accountability across the criminal justice system – a message that strongly chimes with the scale of change needed to halve VAWG in a decade. 

 

 

“Despite some of the positive changes, we continue calling for mandatory, specialist domestic abuse training to be available for all court professionals. Coercive control is an insidious part of domestic abuse and it is vital that judges and magistrates understand its complexity, and the responsibility that they have towards survivors – women and children alike. As Leveson notes, ongoing and refresher training is critical, and we welcome the call for His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and the Judicial College to consider its current training offer. It is critical that this is extended to the justice system’s wider training offer, with the safety and wellbeing of survivors at the heart of all decision-making.” 

 

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Farah Nazeer, Chief Executive of Women’s Aid, comments: 

We welcome the government’s ambitious commitment to halving violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the next decade, as outlined in their strategy published today.  

We are pleased to see the emphasis the strategy places on long-term prevention, particularly new investment in programmes that aim to shift attitudes of children and young people, ensuring that they understand what healthy relationships must look like. Our own research tells us that children who were exposed to content like that from Andrew Tate, were five times more likely to view hurting someone physically as acceptable, if they apologised afterwards, so this intervention is absolutely vital. We also welcome much-needed plans to improve local commissioning standards which, for too long, have resulted in a postcode lottery of support for victims and survivors. Looking ahead, it is fundamental that there is a focus not just on setting national expectations – but on ensuring robust implementation and accountability on the ground, so that all women and children experiencing abuse are able to access lifesaving support when they need it most. 

This strategy is a commendable effort by government to deliver a whole system response to VAWG, including through long-awaited interventions in healthcare, which should provide additional resource to complement the vital work being delivered already by specialist services. However, we are mindful that frontline services will experience additional strain following a planned increase in referrals through the NHS, as well as via education and criminal justice systems. It is important that these services are well-equipped to respond, given that over 60% of referrals into refuge are already declined, primarily due to a lack of bedspaces. Additional funding by government into safe accommodation and other specialist services is welcome, but this needs to go much further, including through ring-fenced investment in services run by and for Black and minoritised women and dedicated support for child victims  

While we also acknowledge the government’s efforts to encourage reporting of abuse by migrant victims and survivors, significantly more remains to be done to ensure these most vulnerable victim-survivors are protected and supported, as well as specific funding commitments towards migrant survivors of domestic abuse. The Home Office Flexible Fund, administered by Women’s Aid via our network of specialist services and delivery partners, remains crucial for supporting women, such as those with no recourse to public funds, in times of crisis, and we advocate for sustainable funding for this lifeline. 

Finally, it is critical that through the delivery of this VAWG strategy, the wider expertise and fullest potential of the specialist domestic abuse sector, including the by and for sector, is recognised. Our specialist members already deliver educational work in schools, provide therapeutic services and train of professionals, amongst a myriad of expertise which compliments their role in delivering safe accommodation, as well as frontline and community-based services. We strongly urge that the sector is heavily involved in the funded delivery of these new and vital aspects of the strategy. 

We will now take time to familiarise ourselves with the strategy and consider its impact on our diverse group of member services across England. We will respond more fully in due course.

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Ellie Daniel, Head of Policy and Survivor Services at Women’s Aid, comments:  

“While we have seen positive reforms to the family justice system since the release of the Harm Panel report in 2020, the culture change in family courts has been too slow, leaving countless women and children at risk of harm, their experiences minimised and dismissed.  

“This is why we, along with our sector colleagues, are issuing a collective Statement of Intent, calling on the Judicial College to develop high quality training on domestic and sexual abuse. This should be based on key domestic abuse training principles that we, as a collective, developed alongside survivors. 

“This specialist training will play a vital role in helping the judiciary identify risks of harm and mitigate court-induced trauma for survivors, meaning that the safety of women and children is at the heart of all court decisions. 

“We are also calling on the Government to make resources available to the Judicial College to enable the development and implementation of this training. For too long, abusers have been able to manipulate the court system to continue harming women and children. This must stop now.” 

You can read the Statement of Intent here: Family Court Judicial Training Statement of Intent

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Farah Nazeer, Chief Executive of Women’s Aid, comments: 

“This week, the Ministry of Justice announced a range of reforms to the criminal justice system, as well as much-needed funding for victims’ services. For too long, survivors have been left to muddle through the justice system without adequate support, often without being believed, so these changes are welcome.  

The announcement that £550 million will be invested in victim support services, to be spread over three years, will provide some respite to life-saving services, which have continued delivering high-quality care and support despite a funding crisis. While we await further clarity on the critical question of what proportion of the funding will be ring-fenced for domestic abuse and sexual violence services, and while we would of course like to see further investment in the long-term, this 2% uplift is welcome given the challenging economic context that we are currently in, whilst recognising that costs have increased for many services well beyond this. 

Looking ahead and in the context of this government’s commitment to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in a decade, we continue to urge that  £280 million be committed annually to support these community-based support services, which provide survivors with life-saving help, when they need it most. 

This week, we also saw a number of changes introduced to tackle the backlog of court cases, which is having a detrimental impact on survivors – causing them to drop criminal proceedings due to the damaging impact the delays have on their mental health. A key element of this week’s proposal is the diversion of cases away from court and towards out of court resolutions. We are concerned that the increased responsibility of judicial discretion and on magistrates in domestic abuse cases could mean an increased risk to the safety of women and children due to inconsistent levels of domestic abuse training across judges. Coercive control is an insidious part of domestic abuse and it is vital that judges and magistrates understand its complexity, and the responsibility that they have towards survivors, women and children alike. We urge that specialist domestic abuse training be provided to all judges and magistrates to ensure that decisions are risk-assessed and survivor-focused.  

We are pleased to see further reform, including reforms recommended by the Law Commission which centre the needs of survivors over those who commit heinous crimes against them, accepted by the government. We are pleased to see that it will be enshrined in law that where previous convictions evidencing domestic abuse exist, these can be used at trial for further domestic abuse related offences. We are also pleased to see vital measures introduced to restrict the use of ‘bad character evidence’ against rape victims in court. For too long, survivors of rape have been disbelieved, questioned and undermined, while conviction rates remained stubbornly low. These changes are vital if trust in the justice system is ever to be rebuilt.” 

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Farah Nazeer, chief executive of Women’s Aid, said: 

Despite the pledges made in the Labour government’s election manifesto to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the next decade, we are once again disappointed to see a budget that does not explicitly mention VAWG and domestic abuse.  

If the government is still committed to its manifesto pledge, then investing in the sector that supports survivors and provides lifesaving, frontline services is absolutely essential. For years, successive governments have failed to invest into the VAWG sector in a way that is as sustainable as it is impactful. We have seen powerful, standalone investments that make for positive interventions, yet neglect to provide the ongoing support that victims and survivors urgently need. Without urgent and sustainable investment, local refuges and community-based services simply won’t be able to continue supporting women and children at their point of need, leaving many trapped in life-threatening situations. 

Despite the omission of VAWG from the autumn budget, we are pleased to see that the government has made the decision to scrap the two-child benefit cap, which placed countless children at risk of poverty. This is a shift that has been long-campaigned for by Women’s Aid as well as the wider VAWG sector, as the removal of the cap will allow for more women and children to leave refuges and restart their lives, following the ordeal of abuse. 

We are concerned that the decision to freeze income tax thresholds further exacerbates the lack of financial support women need to escape abuse. Women’s Aid research demonstrates that it can cost a survivor almost £50,000 to flee and ‘stay fled’ from domestic abuse. While the maximum support available from the state is around £40,000, many survivors would not be able to access this full amount. The deficit in financial support is twice as large for survivors who have no recourse to public funds. We continue to call on the government to commit long-term to the Flexible Fund and to carry out an impact assessment of the ‘Budget’s key economic interventions on survivors of domestic abuse to better understand their unique needs. In addition, the introduction of a cap to pension contributions under “salary sacrifice” schemes means that any contributions above the cap would be subject to NI payments by both employees and employers; we are concerned of the impact this could have on specialist services, combined with the rises to minimum wage, on the sector’s ability to retain workers and have financial stability. Once again, we continue to call for funding commitments that match the ambition of the manifesto pledge. Specialist domestic abuse services should be given the funding they urgently need to support women and children as they flee abuse and rebuild their lives in safety.  

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Isabella Lowenthal-Isaacs, policy manager at Women’s Aid, comments:

“While we acknowledge the government’s wider plans for the reorganisation of local government , we would like to express our hope that the specialist knowledge of some Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), especially when it comes to their understanding of domestic abuse and wider forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG), is not lost.

 

“Sadly, trust in police and the justice system is critically low, and survivors need confidence that their complaints will continue to be taken seriously and that there will be clear accountability for improving police performance. We are also worried that this change could place additional pressure on local authorities, increasing the risk of rushed or poorly informed commissioning decisions – with the greatest cost borne by survivors themselves.

 

“We therefore hope that in the transition process, there will remain dedicated individuals responsible for delivering the government’s ambitious goal of halving VAWG within a decade. We are also keen to understand how this decision will be reflected in the VAWG Strategy, given that a significant proportion of domestic abuse and wider VAWG provision is currently commissioned through Police and Crime Commissioners.”

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Isabelle Younane, Head of External Affairs at Women’s Aid, comments:  

“We know from our experience of working with survivors, that the danger they face from the perpetrator is heightened at the time, and immediately following, the separation. We warmly welcome the news that as of next month, survivors will no longer have to pay Person at Risk of Violence Order fees to ensure that abusers can’t track them through public records.  

 

“Safety is a fundamental human right, so it is vital that women and children are kept safe from abuse as they work on rebuilding their lives. This step is especially important given how so many women will flee abuse with nothing, having to start their lives from scratch, often having faced financial difficulties as a direct result of the abuse. This is great step in ensuring that the realities of so many survivors are finally being seen and responded to.” 

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Yesterday (October 21st), the national domestic abuse charity Women’s Aid and creative agency Hijinks, held a choir performance outside Parliament, heralding the momentous Ministry of Justice decision to have the legal presumption of parental involvement removed from child contact cases in family courts. The repeal follows a dedicated, decade-long campaign by Women’s Aid, survivor ambassador Claire Throssell MBE, and many other survivors and sector partners, marking a major campaign win and a significant milestone on the road to keeping women and children safe.   

The decision to remove the presumption comes after the Government’s own Harm Panel found that it was not fit for purpose and recommended that an ‘urgent’ review be conducted to address it, back in 2020. Today’s long-awaited decision has ushered in a new era of hope for countless women and children who historically had the courts system weaponised by perpetrators as a means of continuing abuse. It also marks a significant shift in the ‘pro-contact’ culture that has, for so long, dominated family courts, and placed the ‘rights’ of abusive fathers over the safety and wellbeing of children.  

Today’s event is especially poignant, as it coincides with the anniversaries of the deaths of Jack and Paul, beloved sons to Claire Throssell MBE, Women’s Aid survivor ambassador, whose deaths could have been prevented.  In 2014, Jack, 12, and Paul, 9, were both killed by their father, despite Claire’s warnings that he was a danger to them. Paul died on 22ndOctober 2014, and Jack on the 27th October 2014. Claire has since campaigned tirelessly with Women’s Aid to stop unsafe child contact with dangerous perpetrators of domestic abuse.  

Despite today’s long-awaited and warmly welcomed decision, we must never forget Jack and Paul, as well as the many children who have been killed because of unsafe family court practices. In a bid to shine a light on their stories and to ensure that the culture in courts changes for good, Women’s Aid brought a 19-child choir to Parliament.  The choir represented the 19 preventable child homicides documented in the recent 19 More Child Homicides report, which found that in the last 30 years, 67 children have been killed by a parent who was also a perpetrator of domestic abuse, in circumstances relating to unsafe child contact. In their memory, Women’s Aid is asking government to ‘hear the children’.  

The performance began with the choir of children singing together, gradually fading until only one child’s voice remained – symbolising how children’s voices and experiences are so often silenced in the family courts. The event will be made into a short film to be published later this week to shine a spotlight on the often-unheard children’s experiences of domestic abuse, including coercive control, and calling on government, family courts and statutory agencies to prioritise the safety of children in child contact cases to save lives.   

Farah Nazeer, Chief Executive of Women’s Aid, comments:   

“Today’s event was a poignant, and visceral, reminder of the very real danger that the ‘pro-contact’ culture in family courts poses to the lives of children and their mothers. Time and again survivors have told us of their harrowing family courts experiences, which allow the perpetrator of abuse to carry on tormenting survivors and their children – and finally, we are seeing some real and significant change take place. The government has made a momentous decision to repeal the presumption of contact – a vital step that will usher in a time of change and will see the safety and wellbeing of children prioritised. 

“For years, we and our survivor ambassador, Claire Throssell MBE, campaigned to have the presumption of contact removed. We succeeded. Now, we will continue applying pressure on the courts to maximise the impact of this monumental decision, by calling for legislation to be brought urgently to enact this critical change – women and children simply cannot wait. We are also calling for specialist domestic and sexual abuse training to be mandated for judges, in recognition of the fact that years of pro-contact culture will take time and education to reverse, and to ensure that preventable mistakes are avoided and both women and child survivors are kept safe.” 

Claire Throssell, MBE, survivor ambassador of Women’s Aid, comments: 

“For almost a decade, Women’s Aid and I have worked together, campaigning to change the family courts and improve laws, to ensure that children at risk of further harm from abusive parents have a brighter, safer future, free from fear and oppression. Every child deserves to be heard, seen, supported, and believed; to have a childhood and to live.  

“Successive governments have failed to protect children, standing by an outdated presumption that it is in a child’s best interests to have contact with both their parents, even when there have been allegations of domestic abuse.  We have campaigned tirelessly to have this presumption removed from the family law and practice, because until this narrative changes, more children, like Jack and Paul, will continue to die.  

“Although today’s announcement can never bring back Jack and Paul it will give children further protection against preventable harm in their lives. No child should have to hold out a hand for help in darkness to a stranger and say that they have been hurt by someone who should love and protect them most. No parents should have to hold their children as they die, from the abuse of a perpetrator, as I did a decade ago.” 

Justice Minister, Baroness Levitt KC, said:  

“The horrors of domestic abuse can scar a child for life. It is apparent from our research that the presumption of parental involvement can, in some courts, lead to contact being ordered even in cases where there has been domestic abuse. Our priority must always be children’s welfare. Being a parent is a privilege not a right: the only right which matters is a child’s right to safety and this government is determined to ensure that that is at the heart of every decision made about each and every child. 

“Repealing the presumption is a key part of our package of family court reforms which will protect children.  

“I want to thank Claire Throssell who, despite the unimaginable loss of her sons Jack and Paul, has campaigned tirelessly to ensure no child goes to bed frightened. She is an inspiration.”   

Notes to editors 

What is the legal presumption?  

The ‘presumption of parental involvement’ was introduced into law in 2014. It means that, in a contact case between separated parents in the family courts, the court must presume that the continued involvement of both parents in their child’s life is in the child’s best interests.  

Why are you campaigning for its removal?  

Leading domestic abuse and legal charities, as well as countless survivors, have long campaigned to have the legal presumption of child contact removed. It is the only presumption about what furthers a child’s welfare in family court. It dilutes the court’s focus on the welfare of the child because it places the court in a position where they must presume involvement of a parent is in the child’s best interests unless this can be shown otherwise. With an estimated 60% of cases in the family courts involving domestic abuse, the presumption feeds the pro-contact culture withing the court. This can be extremely dangerous and has led to the preventable deaths of children, as found in our recent ‘19 Child More Homicides’ report. 

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Isabelle Younane, head of external affairs at Women’s Aid, comments:  

“We were saddened and dismayed when watching last night’s BBC Panorama, which demonstrated that, despite numerous reports and investigations calling for urgent change, such as the Angiolini Inquiry and Baroness Casey Review, police officers continue to display misogynistic, racist and homophobic behaviours.  

“We know from our work with survivors that most women will not report domestic abuse to the police for fear of not being believed and due to low levels of trust in policing. Last night’s viewing works to further reinforce the belief that officers will not believe or respect women, and as a result, will fail to protect them.  

“Police officers are meant to be there to keep law and order, to protect those most in need of protection. This will never be the case until the fundamental culture within the forces changes and officers treat all victims of crime with the respect and sensitivity that they deserve.”  

 

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