Clause 5 - The offence
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [Lords]
4:00 pm
Mr Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, Home, Constitutional & Legal Affairs; Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I simply cannot accept the argument that the subsection makes cases unprosecutable. All that it does is highlight one of the features that the judge will have to point out to the jury in summing up. The fact that domestic violence has occurred does not, under subsection (2), absolve the person concerned. It is simply a factor on which stress should be laid for the jury. I think that the Minister is going a little far in making the leap to say that the case would become unprosecutable.