Domestic abuse of any kind is a despicable and insidious evil. This includes behaviour that is controlling, coercive, threatening, degrading and violent which also includes sexual violence. These behaviours are usually carried out by a partner, or an ex-partner. Whilst women can abuse their male partners (Sheree Spencer was recently jailed for four years for abusing her husband over a 20-year period), most of the domestic abuse is carried out by men against women.
In my legal experience, I have seen women in court, women who have had the courage to pursue a criminal case against their male partners break down in tears whilst giving evidence of the thrashings they have suffered at the hands of their partner. I can see why they break down in tears. For the most part, they don’t want to be there. They don’t want to be in court, in this oh-so-public space talking about how they have been humiliated and beaten up: beaten up by someone they loved, made love with; someone who is the father of their children. Especially when they must relive this most painful of experiences. Personally, in these circumstances, the book should be thrown at these perpetrators because they are nothing more than spineless waste men. And I would probably be the first in line to throw it!
However, I am somewhat disquieted by Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s ‘bold plan’ to add the names of domestic abusers who are convicted of controlling and coercive behaviour on their partners to the sex offenders’ register, if they are sentenced to at least 12 months, whether such a sentence is suspended or not.
Black women, overall, are generally reluctant to report the abuse they suffer at the hands of their Black men. Partly to do with the lack of trust that Black people have in the police and how Black men are treated by them, and they might want to protect them from police intervention due to institutional racism. On the whole, women who are being abused don’t really want their men to go to jail. All they want is for the abuse to stop.
I fully understand that the government is trying to do all it can to stamp out domestic abuse, and quite rightly so, but being put on the sex offenders’ register is a very serious thing particularly if the offence was not classed as a ‘sex offence’. Yes, the thought of being classed as a sex offender and being placed on such a list might act, for some, as a deterrent. But on the other hand, would such a plan deter certain women, who perhaps need the help of the law more than most, from coming forward to report the abuse? Especially if they think the father of their children would be classified as a sex offender and have to deal with the consequent repercussions of that. Hmm…?
