Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
TUESDAY 22 JANUARY 2008
DISTRICT JUDGE
MARILYN MORNINGTON,
LORD JUSTICE
WALL AND
MR PHIL
MACKIN
Q60 Martin Salter: Judge Mornington,
I see you nodding. Do you want to expand on that?
District Judge Mornington: If
people reach either the criminal courts or family courts as a
society we have already failed them and the children. We need
educative programmes at every level, from parenting to children
at school, to information at school and the good work that is
being done with little ones who are already damaged, to programmes
in prisons for prisoners and general media programmes. I am desperately
short of places where I can send entire families for holistic
therapy. I do not want to separate families but bring them together
at least for contact in a safe and positive way. That is what
every judge in the country wants. We feel very hidebound by lack
of resources.
Q61 Mr Streeter: In your experience
how much domestic violence is alcohol-related?
District Judge Mornington: Alcohol
and drugs are used as excuses and exacerbate domestic violence
as do mental health and socio-economic problems. The reality is
that domestic violence is about power and control and perpetrators
will be violent whether they have been drinking, abuse drugs or
whatever. Most of the families I see do not have one problem but
a variety of them, particularly to do with mental health, all
of which I have to address.
Q62 Martin Salter: In terms of the
work that both of you do, perhaps I may alert you to the fact
that many of us in our constituency case work find ourselves dragged
into the middle of totally intractable situations. The MP is occasionally
prayed in aid in a war of attrition between one partner and another.
I am sure I speak for all my colleagues when I say that these
are some of the most uncomfortable situations.
District Judge Mornington: You
empathise with us!
Q63 Martin Salter: We desperately
seek an agency where we can refer this stuff.
Lord Justice Wall: In my experience
very few contact cases are about children; they are an ongoing
power battle between parents. I utterly endorse what District
Judge Mornington has said. At first instance I would like to say
to people in front of me, "Look, you are in the wrong place."
One of the great advantages of the Family Law Act 1996, which
has been abandoned, is that before entering into divorce proceedings
parties had to go to meetings at which they were given information
about what they were letting themselves in for. Most parents simply
do not realise that post-separation parenting is fantastically
difficult. They think it is easy because they believe that when
they separate it will solve the problem; it does not. I would
like to see a programme whereby any couple, married or not—it
does not matter, because most of the couples I deal with are not—before
entering the legal process go to meetings and are given information
about what they are letting themselves in for and the damage they
are doing to their children.
District Judge Mornington: I have
been working with government for many years now and am sympathetic
to resourcing issues. If we are to be properly resourced I am
aware that these sorts of programmes will be very expensive. What
I have been suggesting to ministers for some time is that perhaps
we choose a pilot area, put resources into it and see what the
need for those resources is, what the cost would be and what would
be the results. It will be hugely expensive but it saves lives.
Martin Salter: Chairman, it might be
useful to invite an additional memorandum on the ideas that have
been put forward.
Q64 Chairman: That would be very
appropriate, Mr Salter. May we have one?
District Judge Mornington: Yes.
Q65 Martin Salter: Judge Mornington,
I want to ask about honour-based violent crimes. In your experience
what makes it particularly hard to bring people to justice? What
more can we collectively do—I include politicians—to
encourage communities to break through the wall of silence that
often surrounds these appalling incidents?
District Judge Mornington: There
has been a total lack of understanding of how deep the concepts
of Izat and honour dictate the lives of many people in our communities,
particularly those of south Asian backgrounds. It has nothing
to do with religion. All agencies have been very wary of involving
themselves because of their lack of understanding. That no longer
holds sway. We now understand and there are people to teach us
an understanding of those issues, but the barriers are up. There
are issues of language, culture and immigration. We need a multi-agency
risk assessment tool for all agencies on issues of forced marriage
and honour-based violence and amend the present domestic violence
protocols and have training programmes for all agencies who have
experience of domestic violence to encompass these issues. We
need education and key teachers in every school effectively to
recognise and assist people who are likely to suffer this. We
need national education programmes and we need to work within
the communities through the Department of Communities and Local
Government and DfES because the barriers are up. They feel attacked
because of this, so it is necessary. I also work in Pakistan where
the same work is being done. In many ways we have been funding
better work there, particularly in Sindh province, than here over
the past three years. We need a national strategy to identify
the large number of pupils, particularly girls, missing from school
registers and those who have been taken off the register and are
said to be home schooled which leads to these issues. Airport
staff and others staff need to be trained to recognise girls who
are being taken out of the country. We are bringing three girls
a week back from Islamabad as victims of forced marriage. We know
that is the tip of the iceberg, but that is the failure end. It
has to be part of education within the communities and the children
themselves. It is a long-term strategy and it will not be easy
to do it at the present time.
Q66 Chairman: Where do you get the
figure of three a week?
District Judge Mornington: From
the forced marriage unit.
Q67 Chairman: They have told you
that there are three a week?
District Judge Mornington: There
was a pan-European conference at the Foreign Office just before
Christmas and people from Islamabad attended and provided those
official statistics.
Q68 Martin Salter: Judge Mornington,
obviously you have worked out in embryo the action plan required.
I and my colleagues are very keen to investigate this further,
so anything you can do to help us highlight suggestions is welcome.
There has been an inordinate amount of hand-wringing about the
problem and a reluctance to move forward with programmes that
are prepared to challenge things that are unacceptable and are
held up as cultural norms. Anything you can do to help the Committee
get underneath this issue would be welcome.
District Judge Mornington: I think
I found it a lot easier when working in Pakistan and seeing that
they challenge things in the same way there. I have brought over
from Pakistan speakers whom the communities respect. It has also
helped me to get inside those communities. I am a Muslim and so
I cannot be accused of Islamophobia. It is not easy. Ann Cryer
is your expert and, sadly, she has just had an operation and cannot
be here today. We can do it. It was said of domestic violence
20 years ago that it was intractable, that we would never be able
to make advances and we should leave it well alone and it is a
private matter. We have learnt so much. One of the great successes
of this Government in the past 11 years has been the inter-ministerial
group on domestic violence. That is an excellent example of good
governance that we can now adapt to these issues.
Q69 Chairman: Maybe in your memorandum,
which is getting larger, you can stress to us what needs to be
done.
Lord Justice Wall: There is also
a judicial protocol between English and Pakistani judges who have
been talking to one another.
Q70 Chairman: It is not just the
Pakistani community; it goes wider than that.
Lord Justice Wall: We have to
deal with it on a nation-by-nation basis.
District Judge Mornington: That
is a real issue to be explored. I spoke to the head of the forced
marriage unit last week when we were here. I cannot believe that
in the Bengali community there is not a problem almost of the
same size and yet it seems to be under the radar and the same
numbers are not coming back.
Q71 Chairman: What is key is engaging
the communities and presumably as part of your action plan you
will have that engagement.
District Judge Mornington: Yes,
and with women in the communities.
Q72 Mr Davies: How do we know that
those three girls a week are not voluntarily entering into arranged
marriages?
District Judge Mornington: You
ask the forced marriage unit and hear their stories about how
they have had to escape and the efforts they have had to make
in Pakistan villages to contact the forced marriage unit to get
out. When they come back they are completely isolated from their
families, which is not a thing you say voluntarily.
Q73 Mr Davies: If these people are
escaping how many more are being put into forced marriages and
we do not find out about?
District Judge Mornington: Thousands.
Q74 Mr Davies: Thousands of British
girls every year?
District Judge Mornington: Forced
marriages that take place overseas as we know because of the numbers
we bring back and forced marriages also take place in this country.
I know that you are to hear from Jasvinda Sanghera and Karma Nirvana.
They will tell you about it. I am also trustee of an Asian women's
charity which is completely inundated with cases in this country.
It is a huge problem.
Q75 Chairman: Mr Davies raises a
very important point. Let us be clear on the statistics because
we are dealing with a relatively small community. You say that
thousands come in on the basis of forced marriage?
District Judge Mornington: No.
I am saying that every year between the transnationals and those
taking place here there are very large numbers of cases.
Q76 Chairman: And only three are
discovered?
District Judge Mornington: No.
Three come back every week just from one place.
Q77 Chairman: So, 150 a year?
District Judge Mornington: Come
back from Pakistan, one country.
Q78 Chairman: But thousands of cases
occur?
District Judge Mornington: Yes.
They happen within Kurdish and Iraqi communities. It will be very
interesting to see what happens with the new influx of Roma.
Q79 Mr Davies: These are forced,
not arranged, marriages?
District Judge Mornington: Yes,
forced.
Chairman: It will be very helpful to
have additional information on that. It was obviously a subject
on which Ann Cryer was very keen to question you but unfortunately
she is not able to be here.
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