Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Rhonda Lusty, chief executive officer at the Men's Advisory Project (MAP), is providing evidence to the Committee today. Rhonda, you are very welcome. Thank you for being here. I am sure that you have an opening statement to make, so, without further ado, I invite you to make that statement.

Ms Rhonda Lusty (Men's Advisory Project): Thank you so much for having me today. Chair and Committee members, thank you for inviting the Men's Advisory Project to give evidence. As you may know, MAP is Northern Ireland's specialist organisation for supporting men and boys who have experienced domestic and sexual abuse. We have been doing that work for almost 30 years. Each year, we support around 1,000 men, including men who are being abused by current and former partners, men in same-sex relationships, men experiencing abuse within their families and fathers whose children also live with the consequences of that abuse. We work with men before, during and after their engagement with the justice system.

We also participate in Northern Ireland's domestic homicide review process where the victim is male. That gives us a particular perspective on this Bill. We see the distance that can sometimes develop between the abuse that someone has lived through and the offence that eventually reaches a sentence in court. A victim may have experienced years of coercive control, threats, isolation, financial abuse, manipulation involving children, and repeated episodes of physical or sexual abuse. By the time the case reaches sentencing, the court may quite properly be sentencing a much narrower offence. Our central concern is, therefore, that sentencing should be capable of seeing the pattern and context of abuse, not simply the final incident, and that the sentence imposed should not inadvertently increase the risk to the victim afterwards. That principle runs through the areas of the Bill in which we hope to assist the Committee.

Clause 1 sets out the principles of sentencing, and we are interested in how seriousness, proportionality, mitigation and transparency will operate in domestic and sexual abuse cases, particularly given that an offender's public reputation or apparent good character can look very different from their behaviour in private.

On clauses 3 to 17, particularly clauses 3, 4 and 10, we want to look carefully at suspended sentences. We are not arguing that custody is always the answer. We are asking what information about continuing risk, coercive control, children and ongoing access to the victim should be before the court before a custodial sentence is suspended and what meaningful supervision or requirements should follow.

On clause 36, we want to help the Committee to think about vulnerability without relying on stereotypes. A man can be physically strong, employed and outwardly independent while coercion, isolation, trauma or threats concerning his children significantly impair his ability to protect himself. We strongly support an individualised approach to vulnerability.

We also want to consider the position of children in respect of schedule 3 and clause 36. Clause 36 rightly recognises children as vulnerable where they are victims, but domestic abuse also affects children who may not be named in the offence at all. They may have witnessed the abuse, lived with it or been used as part of coercive control. That is particularly relevant when the Committee considers schedule 3 and the treatment of domestic homicide and patterns of controlling and coercive behaviour.

We would like the Committee to consider clauses 20 and 21 on unduly lenient sentences and whether relevant domestic and sexual offences dealt with in the Magistrates' Court are adequately captured by the mechanisms provided in clause 20.

Finally, we want to talk about what transparency means for victims. Clause 1 makes transparency an important sentencing principle, and clause 2 deals with sentencing guidance and reasons. A sentence may be legally correct and still almost incomprehensible to the person who has experienced the abuse. That matters because clarity is not simply about confidence in the justice system; it can affect safety. A victim needs to understand what a suspended sentence means, what conditions apply, what constitutes a breach, what happens if the offender contacts them again, and where and how they should report escalating behaviours. Specialist advocacy can help the justice system do that well. It can also ensure that information about risk, coercion and the wider pattern of abuse reaches the system in a form that can properly inform decision-making. Our written evidence identified many of those concerns. Having listened carefully to the evidence subsequently given to the Committee, we have refined some of our thinking about the legislative mechanisms that may address those concerns. We think that that is the proper order for a specialist organisation in this process.

We can tell the Committee what abuse looks like in people's lives, where legal provision may fail to recognise that reality, and what risk that can create, and we can then work with those responsible for prosecution, probation and sentencing legislation to find a mechanism that is legally sound, proportionate and workable. We hope that that perspective will be useful to the Committee today. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Rhonda, thank you very much for your evidence and your presentation. I will put it out to members.

Mr Beattie: Rhonda, we have engaged on a lot for a long, long time —

Ms Lusty: We have.

Mr Beattie: — so thank you for your evidence. I will ask a couple of questions and try to get your perspective for a wider understanding. Why are we finding it so difficult to get awareness and traction out there about the domestic and sexual abuse of men? What is holding that back?

Ms Lusty: Some of it is about time, although I know no one wants to hear that. Think about how long it took for women to bring domestic abuse into the public arena. It took a really long time for feminist scholars to understand and do the research that proved the evidence that then got the funding. That took maybe 60 years. Realistically, we have been after this for about 30 years, and I think that we are the longest-standing agency that supports male victims in the United Kingdom. If you double the time and how far we have we come in the last 30 years, that will give you an idea.

It is also about what the public see and understand. There is a lot of stereotyping. Any time we do a talk, we ask this question: if you close your eyes and think of domestic abuse, who, in your image, is the perpetrator and who is the victim? Most people will say something along the lines of a man standing over a woman or something like that. What work are we — all of us in society — doing to move past those stereotypes and to encourage men to highlight their experiences so that we can understand and bring to light what men are experiencing day to day, and even simply to understand the amount of abuse of men that is going on? We know that 32% or 33% of the domestic abuse known to police is happening to male victims. The majority of the country would not have a clue about the number of men who have died in domestic homicides. That, in itself, says something. Do men see themselves represented when we talk about domestic abuse? No. If men do not see themselves represented when we speak about domestic abuse, the public will not be alive to it. I honestly think that that is the main issue. Some of it is about time, and some of it is to do with stereotyping in and around masculinity, but much of it is to do with whether we are making a big enough effort to have men seen in our messaging in and around domestic abuse.

Mr Beattie: You are right, Rhonda. Politicians, myself included, are at fault in many ways, because we find that we have to caveat all of this by saying, "We know that men are responsible for most of the domestic abuse against women". We nearly need to always say that when we talk about domestic abuse against men, instead of seeing it as something completely separate and different. That is where some of the problem is: we cannot just deal with it as one issue. We know that violence against women and girls is awful. We know that, but we do not need to always reference that when we talk about this particular issue. Is that fair?

Ms Lusty: There are myriad aspects to this. I put this to the Committee: when a man loses his life to domestic homicide, there are not many MLAs standing on the Floor of the Assembly speaking about it; there are not many of them attending their homes; and there are not many of them asking whether there is going to be a candlelight vigil or anything like that. Oftentimes, what we will hear from the families of those victims and other men in our survivors' groups is, "Do these lives not matter?". Anytime we speak about male victims, as you say, we have to caveat what we are saying with, "And also, women". We know "also women", and no one who faces abuse wants anyone else to go through what they are going through. It is OK to speak. I do not think that we are still in a space where, any time we speak about male victims, we have to say, "And also, women". I understand why, in terms of public relations, that might be encouraging for you, but I would warmly welcome our MLAs stepping forward and seeing that, whilst domestic abuse and domestic homicide, of course, happen to a gender —. You should support every person in this society if they face abuse, and you should be supporting them equally.

Mr Beattie: Rhonda, thank you. That is really important. I have two very short questions. The first is about one of my hobby horses. You say that victims need to be able to give personal statements. Do you accept that the perpetrator needs to be present when they give them?

Ms Lusty: I have pretty strong views on that, if I am honest.

Mr Beattie: What are they?

Ms Lusty: Personally, I believe that, if you have done something to someone, you should be made to face the impact that that has had on that person. That is the very least that you should do. I believe that the court should be given some powers in sentencing if that person will not be there for sentencing or will not listen to an impact statement. I am not saying that that is contempt of court, but it feels like it, does it not? If a victim wishes to say, "This is what has happened to me. This is the impact of what you did to me", and the other person is saying, "I am not going to listen to that", it feels like that should be taken into consideration at sentencing.

Mr Beattie: It feels the same to me, to be honest.

Ms Lusty: I am not saying that that is within anything here.

Mr Beattie: No, it is not; it is just something. Very briefly, you mentioned sentencing in the Magistrates' Court and the inability to challenge it as being unduly lenient in the present system. Are you saying that domestic or sexual abuse sentences that are heard in the Magistrates' Court — because some are — should be open to challenge for being unduly lenient?

Ms Lusty: It looks as though there is already an ability to do that in the Bill, but 95% of domestic and sexual abuse cases are heard in the Magistrates' Court, so we absolutely need the ability to look at the sentences in those if they are unduly lenient. It looks as though there is an ability to do that in the Bill.

There are two different things. Cases of non-fatal strangulation are now going to a higher court. Such cases and some sexual offences cases might be indictable either way. However, 95% of domestic and sexual abuse cases are heard in the Magistrates' Court, so if something looks unduly lenient, there needs to be the ability to look at it. That should be done through the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and proper court processes to ensure that everything is working as it should. Of course, we believe that the courts will pay proper attention, but there should always be overview. It should not be that there is no overview because it is simply a Magistrates' Court.

Mr Beattie: I stand to be corrected if I am wrong, but I think that it is explicit in the Bill that they will not look at cases in the Magistrates' Court that are seen to be unduly lenient, only a wider number of cases in the Crown Court. Your position is pretty much what I believe, which is that there needs to be oversight.

Ms Lusty: Maybe my reading is incorrect, which I am more than happy to check.

Mr Beattie: I will check myself, but my understanding is that it was explicit that there was an option to extend into the Magistrates' Court, but it is not taken. It is only sticking with a wider range of cases in the Crown Court.

Ms Lusty: I thought that there was also an opportunity for some types of cases from the Magistrates' Court to be included in that.

Mr Beattie: I thought the same. I thought of non-fatal strangulation, which can be heard in both, and the answer is no.

Ms Lusty: OK. Well, in that case —.

Mr Beattie: I will confirm that I have not got that wrong. The Chair will always keep me right.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I am going to follow up on that. After this meeting, will you look at clause 20 and have a think again about your reading of it? If it is contrary to what you think, come back to us. There is no issue there. You do not have to do that today. I only say that in case there is something there that we have got wrong.

Ms Lusty: Yes. For some reason, I have it that clause 20(3) provides a targeted route for specific summary offences. We would have wished to ask you which relevant domestic and sexual offences you intended to prescribe, on what criteria and on what timetable. In clause 20(3), we can understand the wish for the mechanism to remain exceptional and perhaps controlled, but that was how we read it: there is a targeted route for specific summary offences.

Mr Beattie: Chair, can we look at that? I remember asking the Department directly about that issue, and its answer was that it would only be Crown Court cases.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Rhonda is quite right on Part 4 of the Bill. Clause 23 is a very short clause relating to supplementary provision. It takes you to schedule 4, which is nearly two pages long. The devil is in the detail. We are on to something, and we need to make sure that our minds are clear as to what the Bill does. Thank you for that. We will dig into that now. Remember that the Department is coming up next week.

Ms Egan: Thank you so much for coming in today. I really appreciate it. I was really interested in your written submission. Something that I found really interesting was your feedback on clause 1 on the purposes of sentencing and how they do not recognise harm and culpability. I thought that was really interesting. What do you think the recognition of harm and culpability would mean to victims and what impact would it have? Also, a few weeks ago, the Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime attended the Committee and suggested the inclusion of denunciation. Do you agree that that should be included?

Ms Lusty: The idea to make sentencing very clear to victims is a really good one. There was an idea that sentencing would be clear and victims would see what had been taken in. What we felt was missing was the idea that —. Please forgive me; let me just find my terrible notes. Here we go.

I cannot find this now. I am so nervous that I cannot remember the question.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): You are OK.

Ms Egan: Do not worry at all.

Ms Lusty: I am so sorry.

Ms Egan: There were several parts to my question. I was interested in your feedback on including harm and culpability for the purposes of sentencing.
What that would mean for the victims if it was included? How important would that be for them?

Ms Lusty: Victims often do not see themselves in the final sentence. Very often, what has happened to the victim will have taken place over a long time, and it might be that what went forward for prosecution was the one thing that could be evidenced or maybe a few things were able to be evidenced and, in the end, only one thing put forward for prosecution. Victims tell us that the impact of what happened to them, and the reality of what it looked like in their lives, is lost. There is something about feeling that this huge, life-changing thing, which can sometimes live with them for the rest of their lives —. In this one sentencing moment, there is no mention made of harm or of the victim; it is felt that that has been missed. We felt that in some areas it is still missing in the Bill. There was much that we liked in the Bill, especially the plain language and things like that, but it felt that that area had been missed that victims wanted.

Did you ask about denouncing it?

Ms Egan: Yes. The next part was that the Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime gave evidence to the Committee. She thought that denunciation should be included in the Bill, and that was interesting coming from another organisation that works with victims.

Ms Lusty: How do we move away from what is happening unless we say, "This is wrong"? It is not enough to say that the person is one of x thousand people who go through the court system for domestic abuse. The police are aware of 30,000 incidents of domestic abuse. Many cases go in front of the court, but that is not enough. We must denounce domestic abuse and speak about what it is, why it is wrong and the impact that it has had on others.

Ms Egan: I agree. I appreciate that feedback, because I initially thought that the principles and purposes of the Bill were good. However, the feedback from the people who work directly with victims is valuable. What is your view on the importance of understanding sentences and the judiciary explaining sentences in language that anyone can understand? The Committee had some feedback a few weeks ago to say, "Oh, we think this already happens". I disagreed with that, and, as you have highlighted, a lot of people do not know what a suspended sentence entails or means.

Ms Lusty: That is one of the reasons why we also put in bail. I know that bail has nothing to do with this Bill, but our survivors' groups say that no one understands why someone who is awaiting trial for murder is on bail. No family we work with can understand why someone who is on trial for rape or murder is on bail. Nobody gets it. It is the same with suspended sentences. Sadly, suspended sentences in their current form are seen as a slap on the wrist by many victims and their families. How do we move past that into something else? You are asking me about the language that is used. Quite often, victims will tell us that when they receive written information, they go through it to try to understand which bit pertains to them. Even though others may think that the language is usable, those are the people who are steeped in it and use it every day in the court system. There is something to be said for using language that is understood by not only those who have perpetrated crime and abuse but also victims so that they know what is happening and what the sentence will look like. If we are talking about things like suspended sentences, the language needs to be, "This is what is going to happen with this person. This is how this person is going to take part in a programme of work or community order. This is what happens if they breach that. This is where you would go. This is what a breach might look like".

All those things must be in plain English so that people are in no doubt. We need to put something in place to make sure that there is a mechanism for all those things to be given to people in plain language or that they can go somewhere where someone can explain it to them. Some victims' agencies can do that. I am not suggesting that it is something for the court to do, but it is definitely on the court to ensure that documents are readily understandable by laypeople.

Ms Egan: That is important. Thank you for your feedback.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you, Rhonda, for your presentation this morning and for the amazing work that you have done over the last 30 years to support male victims.

I want to move on to the suspended sentence aspect. Before a suspended sentence is given, the judge will receive a pre-sentence report outlining the offender's profile and background. Did you identify issues with the current arrangements, and, if so, did that inform your recommendation on the need to have a specialist risk assessment before a suspended sentence is given? Have you seen examples of where that already happens?

Ms Lusty: One of the additional pieces of information that I sent you was a domestic homicide review (DHR) of a case involving "Anthony". We sent that not to show you that no one was sentenced but to let you see where risk was missed, missed and missed. It would be wrong for me to suggest that there were fewer than hundreds of incidents against that man, and many different agencies, all of which understood risk, did not assess the risk when those things came forward. The reason I put that to you is this: unless risk is properly assessed, and unless proper rubrics are used to assess it, how can we say that a sentence should be suspended? That is part of the issue.

All of this is appropriately gender-neutral, as it should be, but should we look at risk in the same way for male victims as we do for female victims? Certainly, we hear quite a lot of evidence from the men who we work with about how some of the things that happened to them were downplayed, overlooked or not even truly understood. We see that a lot with inter-familial abuse. I am not sure whether that issue has been brought before the Committee. About a quarter of the work that the Men's Advisory Project does is with men who have been abused within their family set-up. Quite a lot of inter-familial abuse happens across the country; it is not just intimate-partner violence. Given that inter-familial abuse is not well understood, and given that we do not have very good risk assessment of it — we do not have specific risk forms or anything like that, and we are still using the domestic abuse, stalking and honour-based violence (DASH) checklist, which is completely inappropriate for inter-familial abuse — it is very hard to understand how a proper risk assessment of situations that are not properly understood can then go before the court. How can that properly go before the court for an assessment as to whether it is appropriate for someone to get a suspended sentence or a custodial sentence? A great deal of work therefore needs to be done on that.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you for that. I will move on. You argued for better information sharing between all the criminal justice agencies. You mentioned that there are some gaps. Where is the biggest gap, and what specifically needs to be targeted?

Ms Lusty: The biggest gap is in GDPR. GDPR is absolutely misunderstood. There are caveats in GDPR, which are supposed to prevent the inappropriate sharing of people's personal information. If what you are doing is sharing information to prevent loss of life, there is a caveat in GDPR that allows you to do that, but many agencies do not understand that. When GDPR came in, lots of things came forward to try to prevent information sharing, because there was a great fear that, if information was shared inappropriately, those agencies would be prosecuted for inappropriate sharing. There are, however, caveats that allow us to work around that. There has not really been enough pushback on that issue.

As for some of the things that will work better, there has been an overhaul of the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) process. Are you aware of that?

Ms Ferguson: Yes.

Ms Lusty: Things like how we share information and give support can work better, but as for prevention, sometimes, it is things like staffing and money, let us face it. Sometimes, with information-sharing, people are unable to attend meetings because they do not have enough staff to attend meetings, and if they are not there, they are unable to speak about some of the risks that they might hold or that their agency might be aware of. Some of it is the difference between information held by voluntary and community organisations versus statutory agencies and how that might be shared appropriately across. There is definitely work to be done there, but it is also about understanding risk and risk being dynamic, and looking at how risk can, on the face of it, seem to be quite low, but if you are being properly advised by others, you might actually see that the risk is not only ongoing but at a high level, and that that person may be in a stigmatised group and unable to speak about that risk.

Ms Ferguson: I have one final question, through you, Chair.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Go ahead, yes.

Ms Ferguson: Under the recommendations on stronger recognition, obviously for children who experience or witness abuse, a Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland (CJINI) report from earlier this year showed that the child aggravator in the Domestic Abuse Act was not being used properly and that there were problems with children's voices not being heard in investigations and prosecutions. What are the biggest issues that you have found? Is the problem with the law or the way that the law is implemented?

Ms Lusty: It is difficult, because people still see children as witnesses, not as victims. A child being in a house where there is a domestic homicide where their mother or father has been murdered; or a child living in a home where there is domestic abuse or inter-familial abuse; or a child who is part of the abuse going on is seen as a witness but not as a victim. Oftentimes, we look only at one victim. We do not look at a household as a household of victims, and so, because that is happening, all of this only works as well as the investigation and the information that is brought out in the investigation toward all of this: all of the Act and all of the work that we do. Why are we not bringing in children's voices? It is because there is still a misunderstanding about what happens to children, what they go through, what they experience and that they are victims in their own right. If we are not using the aggravator currently, my concern is that, as we add additional aggravators that can be used, will they also be used appropriately or not?

Ms Ferguson: Thank you, Rhonda.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I will keep you on the child aggravator because it is something that I have been personally involved in, looking at justice Bills throughout my journey here. You referred to schedule 3 on mandatory life sentences. There are two specific sub-paragraphs in that, under:

and there is a whole range of lists here, but, basically, the two that I am interested in are:

and:

I can understand why they separated, because one relates specifically to the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (Northern Ireland) and the other one does not.

With regard to the child aggravator and everything that you have said and directed to schedule 3, what type of wording needs to be in there to acknowledge the child as a victim and to illustrate the aggravation? We are talking about mandatory life sentences there, so does the determination of tariffs in cases of mandatory life sentencing, the murder of a victim and, then, the offender, exclude the child?

Ms Lusty: It does.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Have you any thoughts on wording that would encapsulate your concern?

Ms Lusty: People seem to be more concerned about double-counting than about the child being absent entirely. We wish this legislation to go through in this mandate, but it should be pushed back so that the child is considered. There will be those more able than I am to come up with the right language, and maybe it is for those agencies to do so, but it is right for us to bring it up and speak about it. Thank you for bringing that up, Chair.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): No problem. It is something that I, too, have looked at and toyed with. I do not like the idea that the child aggravator is not being used appropriately in domestic abuse civil proceedings. You talked about male victims being almost victimised because of the stereotype. The Committee has heard a lot of evidence throughout our scrutiny of the Bill in which we have been reminded repeatedly that this is a male-dominated world with a history of male domination. Male victims may be struggling to gain recognition because we have lived in a male-dominated world. Nobody is denying that, but I think that it is having an impact on male victims coming forward and on society not recognising the risks or impact on a male victim. Do you recognise that?

Ms Lusty: Most certainly we recognise that, and that is absolutely what our victims feel. In some areas, some male victims feel that there is a complete empathy bypass about what happened to them, that the empathy of society, and oftentimes that of those looking at the crimes, is not the same, or might not be the same, if they were a woman. There are then other areas in which victims who we work with would say that they are treated very well. Some male victims of sexual crime feel that when they come forward, or even when they speak about it publicly, they are treated very well. That is not to say that their gender does not prevent them from coming forward or that the stigmatisation of abuse of men, whether sexually or domestically, does not prevent them from being heard, listened to or even viewed as victims. We hear that a lot.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): You rightly said that the wording in the Bill is quite gender-neutral, but a lot of those who have given evidence to the Committee said that "misogyny" should be included in clause 33, "Aggravation by hostility", alongside racial hostility, religious hostility, hostility related to sexual orientation or hostility related to disability. Those are in the Bill at the minute. A lot of people have been saying that "misogyny" should be in clause 33. Should misogyny be in there given that it is a gender-neutral Bill? Should there be an aggravation of misogyny?

Ms Lusty: It can be a gender-neutral Bill, and misogyny can be in there.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): OK.

Ms Lusty: You might think that that does not sit well with our role as a specialist organisation for male victims, but we are alive to the fact that some abuse happens to women and girls simply because they are women and girls. We have been persuaded over 25 years of the real impact that misogyny has on society and on what is happening to women and girls. Do we think that misogyny could be in the Bill? Yes, we absolutely do.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): If you think that misogyny should be in the Bill, should the word "misandry" also be in the Bill, on a separate line, away from "misogyny"?

Ms Lusty: There is not a great deal of evidence to support or back that up, whereas there is a huge amount of evidence to back up the inclusion of "misogyny" and the harmful impact of misogyny on the world. Of course, some people are impacted by misandry, but it is a very small number.

I am unsure that some of the things that those people might say they are experiencing really meet the same boundary of what misandry actually means. I think that we would have to go a really long way to consider misandry to be a situation at all. That is not to say that sex or gender cannot be considered under vulnerabilities but not under hostility.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): OK, let me bring you on to that. Clause 36 is on aggravation by reason of vulnerability. In the Bill, "vulnerable person" means:

Are you satisfied that that wording encapsulates most men who are victims?

Ms Lusty: I think so. Also, there is a difficulty that, if we make it more prescriptive, there will be a two-tier evidential boundary to try to get through that. That is quite well written, and I do not have an issue with that. Those two parts, vulnerability and hostility, should and can be viewed together. Any person can become vulnerable due to the abuse that they face and can be unable to ordinarily protect themselves, and others can be aware of that and can, you know, make hay while the sun shines. Do I think that that can happen to men? Absolutely. I ask that men, simply because of their gender, are not overlooked on that vulnerability. Anything that could happen to a woman could happen to a man, and that is not just by word but by deed in acknowledgment for the courts.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Let me read that paragraph out again:

What if I were to say to you that I think that "psychological harm" should be included in that list so that, if you are victim of psychological harm, you become vulnerable?

Ms Lusty: Is psychological harm not already included in the wording?

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I will read it again. A "vulnerable person" means:

It states:

Therefore, you would nearly have to prove mental disability or illness, but, to me, psychological harm is what has been put onto you. You could be vulnerable because you are physically or mentally disabled or ill, but, if a perpetrator has done psychological harm to you, you could basically be worn down by that.

Ms Lusty: Of course you could be.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): That would make you vulnerable.

Ms Lusty: Of course, as all coercive controlling behaviour does.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Exactly.

Ms Lusty: The wording was seen as being sufficiently wide when we had a look at that clause. It felt as though it was wide enough to encompass anything that was there. We are not going to be against the idea of adding psychological abuse. Of course, we are absolutely open to that. I do not think that that is excluded. Chair, you and the Committee have looked at that in a more refined way than I have.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): No problem. That is fine.

Ms Lusty: However, we definitely argue that men's vulnerability should be looked at and that it should start at the same threshold as that for a woman.

Mr McGlone: Thank you for your evidence. I have read your submission. I am particularly interested in sentencing and the use of references. My understanding of your submission is that you are not ruling out the use of references but there is a question around the circumstances in which those references are given weight in the court: is that correct?

Ms Lusty: We tried to keep the two areas separate. I am not sure how well my framing of that might have worked. Of course, there are some areas in which information should be given to the courts, but nothing should be heard after a guilty verdict. I can see no instance in which it would be appropriate for a reference to be given once someone is found guilty. However, there can be some mitigations, obviously, that may be given to the court prior to sentencing, as would be the case in any fair trial. It might be a mitigation with regard to caring responsibilities or something like that. Of course, that type of thing can still be given prior to sentencing.

Mr McGlone: Your submission states:

Is that in the context of pre-sentencing?

Ms Lusty: Yes, that is for pre-sentencing. I see no probative value in someone providing a reference for an individual who has been found guilty. How someone might behave in public may be very different from how they behave in private, and, often, that public persona can be what silences victims. We want that to cease entirely.

Mr McGlone: We have all come across cases of "Town saint, home devil", which is relevant to this. Thank you for that.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I have one other question. We have not touched on this. Clause 1(2)(e) refers to:

That smacks of restorative justice; in fact, it adds to it. Women's Aid and Nexus are against restorative justice being used in domestic violence and sexual abuse cases: is that your belief?

Ms Lusty: I was very cold to it. We spent some time with the Department and had victims speak to us about restorative justice and what it had given them. The men whom we have spoken to in our survivors' groups are cold to it. However, the victim who spoke to us about it made a good point. She said that it is not for us to tell victims what options are open to them; it is for them to be aware of the options and to make decisions themselves.

The restorative justice models that we spoke with the victim about were very complicated, well-funded and well-risk-assessed situations. The type of thing that would have to be provided would be of great detail, and much attention would have to be paid to coercion, control and differences, especially in cases of familial abuse, where pressure could be placed on people in such small areas. To do that would cost us a huge amount of money; it would be a huge undertaking. Does that mean that we should not do it? No. If it is something that could make a difference to a victim and that a victim might wish for, it should not necessarily be taken from the table.

I will be honest: I was cold to it, but then I met a victim who spoke warmly and sincerely about what had and had not been able to be given to her through the process. I also heard about the many checks and balances that went into that process. I am unsure whether we are anywhere near able to do that in our current form.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Clause 1(2)(e):

could read as though the reparation could be financial. We also know that domestic violence and coercive control can have a strong financial element such as withholding money and support. Could that be used as another front, even post-sentencing?

Ms Lusty: The years that you have spent with us are obvious, Chair, because you know that almost anything can be used by an abuser to abuse, and you all know that. If we start thinking about any sort of financial recompense, we start seeing how easily that can be used to further manipulate, coerce and control a victim and how appealing it might be to a victim who was placed in terrible situations by a perpetrator and by the abuse that they faced, sometimes for years, and the children that they have to support, so we must tread carefully if we look at it like that.

If we are thinking about reparations in some genuine "sorry", hearing and understanding of exactly what happened, that is something of a reparation. You might think, "How is that reparation?", but it is undertaking a thing and then seeing the result. The victim's voice in what might that person need to do and what that might look like is important as well. It is important, however, to keep at the heart of this the victims and what they might want or need. If that is something that victims might be interested in, we should not be completely cold to it, but it should be done with huge amounts of caution.

Mr Beattie: If I could follow up on that, let us say that a court orders reparations and the person who is to pay the reparations says, "I can't afford that", and a plan is put in place so that they pay, for example, £50 per month to the victim: that, in itself, can have a negative effect on the victim. Would you be in favour of a situation where, if a court orders reparations, the Department pays those to the victim in full, and the perpetrator, if they can, pays them back to the Department or something similar to that?

Ms Lusty: Taking the victim out of it is a much more elegant way to do that, and it would take the burden off the victim of what is, again, being placed on them by the perpetrator. That is a more elegant solution. I have heard pretty strong pushback about the idea of financial reparation for harms that were done to someone by someone who, let us not forget, loves them. A lot of victims are strongly against the idea that that could be repaired financially. I can see what you say about how we can do that and take that pressure and abuse off the victim. Money coming in monthly may also be a re-traumatisation.

Mr Beattie: If a court orders reparations, whether people like it or not, it should be done and dusted and paid to the victim in full so that they do not have to wait for the perpetrator to pay it at £50 a month or whatever.

Ms Lusty: Of course.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you very much for your time, Rhonda. I really appreciate that, and the session has been very useful for us.

Ms Lusty: Thank you so much.