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Vera Baird (Redcar) (Lab): I think that it is the cost of each visit from the police that is £1,027, whereas the cost of an advocacy service attending a client from start to finish would be £778.

Sandra Gidley: I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her intervention; she has far more experience in this field than I have. As we have already heard, 500,000 domestic violence calls were attended by the police last year, so it seems sensible to try to save money. Domestic violence is one crime that has, sadly, a very high repeat rate. Investing resources in each case, in whatever is the most cost-effective way, should in the long run bring down the overall rate.

Why is it so important to have a domestic violence advocacy service? There is a great need for the one-stop shop approach, and many calls are made for that to be delivered by women for women. I was slightly uneasy with that suggestion at first, because there are men who are victims too. However, they are generally not the biggest problem and are not usually in a situation in which they have nowhere to go. I am also assured that men in such circumstances are happy to talk to women. It seems to be necessary for women to have somewhere to go where they can be made aware of their rights, their entitlements and the support that is available for them. This subject is rarely talked about, and most women think that they are going through their problems alone. They often do not want to go public or let people know
 
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what is happening because they somehow think that it is their fault. It is not; but that is often the mindset involved.

The biggest omission from the Bill concerns child contact. Is it right that a parent with a proven history of domestic violence can have unsupervised access to their child? The consultation paper "Safety and Justice" said that that would be dealt with in the Children Bill, but it is not dealt with there and it is not dealt with in this Bill. If we are not careful, we will miss two perfect opportunities to do something about this problem once and for all.

Mr. Dawson: I share absolutely the hon. Lady's concern. Does she agree that it also seems utterly unacceptable for residence orders to be given to parents with a record of domestic violence or child abuse?

Sandra Gidley: Yes. The hon. Gentleman has a long record of proactivity in this field, and I have much sympathy with those arguments, which I shall come to in a moment.

The current presumption seems to be that a child is better off if he or she has contact with both parents. I cannot argue with that if both those parents are loving parents, and violence was not a factor in the break-up of a marriage. I could not agree more in those circumstances, and I have sympathy with those—usually fathers—who for various reasons, not their fault, are not allowed as much access to their children as they would like to have. Sadly, however, this is not all a bed of roses—life ain't like that. Research by Women's Aid has shown that in approximately half of domestic violence cases, the man has also abused the child in some way.

Listening to some of the rhetoric that is around these days one gains the impression that contact is often not granted to fathers, but let us look at the statistics. In 1997, 42,000 contact orders were granted; in 2002, 61,356 were granted. We might ask how many were refused, and wonder whether there is a growing trend in that direction, too. Bearing it in mind that a third more contact orders were granted, the statistics for refusal are quite stark. In 1997, 1,850 were refused; in 2002, the number had decreased to 518, which is 0.8 per cent. of cases. Clearly, a significant number of children have contact with a parent who has a known history of violence.

Guidance to the courts on that matter does not seem to be enough because the statistics show that since the court guidance was issued in April 2001 across England and Wales, at least 18 children have been ordered to have contact with fathers who have previously committed schedule 1 offences against children, and 64 children were ordered to have contact with fathers whose behaviour had previously caused the child or another child to be placed on a child protection register. Of those, 21 had unsupervised contact.

We are told that every child matters. I am not sure that those children's best interests were taken into account. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which has done much work on this, has produced numerous case stories showing the
 
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complexity of what the courts and others must handle. In some cases, children have been under considerable pressure to play down certain aspects of behaviour. Children want to please. They want to please both parents, and they want to say the right thing. It is not always possible to obtain the full story of what is going on during the first contact with a child. In one very sad case, pressure was put on a child who had claimed that certain things were happening with the parents. None of the family could believe it, and the whole family put pressure on the child, suggesting that he was imagining it and it could not really have happened. Each of us could probably describe equally heartrending cases.

A disturbing theme in a number of the NSPCC's case studies is the importance that officers in the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service appear to ascribe to contact with the father, often against the wishes of the child. The child may say that he or she is scared and frightened, and there are examples of that. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether the suitability of CAFCASS officers for the task has been reviewed. As I have said, children's wishes and needs are often complex.

There are other vulnerable groups to consider. I welcome clause 5, which creates the offence of familial homicide—

"Causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult".

It closes a legal loophole that allows each parent to say, "It was not me" or to stay silent, thus preventing a case from being made.

Not just children and not just women are affected. Action on Elder Abuse began campaigning for clause 5 after a lady called Margaret Panting, aged 78, died at the hands of her family in Sheffield. I understand that she was a constituent of the Home Secretary, and that he has taken a close interest in the case. There is a real need for the clause. Statistics from Action on Elder Abuse show that two thirds of such abuse takes place in private households, and that 44 per cent. of identified abusers are family members. Of the identified abusers, just under half are sons and daughters, and a quarter are spouses. It is only rarely that a hands-on carer causes the abuse. Because people often think of carers in this context, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not talking about them.

Despite the need for clause 5, however, I am not entirely sure that the current definition of a vulnerable adult is satisfactory. I am not convinced that we should define vulnerability in terms of age alone. That needs to be pursued in Committee.

A potential scenario in the clause gives cause for concern. There is an assumption that in a case involving a husband and wife, both partners are equally culpable. To an extent, that assumption ignores the nature of domestic violence. It is insidious. We tend to focus on physical violence, but a strong characteristic of these cases is the belittling of women. There is psychological abuse. A woman will reach a stage at which, although not exactly cowering in a corner, she adopts protective behaviour in order not to attract violent behaviour, and her self-esteem is shattered. It takes a long time for women to recover from that.

In such circumstances a woman may be terrified of saying something, and pointing the finger of blame. When such a woman is herself a victim, is it fair to put
 
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her in the dock beside her partner? The last thing I want to do is create a loophole—a defence allowing people who clearly have not been victims of domestic violence to say, "I was terrified that he was going to beat me up." Nevertheless, I feel that we must recognise a type of behaviour that is not unusual and make allowances for it.

Mr. Heath : We would expect a court to have particular regard to the extent to which the defendant had been subjected to domestic violence or was in fear of being subjected to it. Our noble Friends tabled an amendment to that effect, which the Government apparently intend to remove.

Sandra Gidley: I urge the Minister to think long and hard. If that amendment is indeed to be removed, is there another way in which attention can be drawn to what is a very real problem?

Vera Baird: I understand why such action has been advocated. My only concern about it is that there are other ways of putting pressure on people to stay quiet, to join in or to deny to the police that either party committed any offence. What about pressures such as duress and the withholding of money? My fear is that, by implication, the term "domestic violence" could almost exclude many other means of exerting pressure.

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