Peter Kyle: ...troubles, and I apologise to the House for getting a zero in the wrong place. The Belfast/Good Friday agreement sets out that “we must never forget those that have died or been injured and their families”. In truth, though, victims and their families were left without a clear path to address their personal tragedies through the peace process. The Good Friday agreement was a staggering...
Peter Kyle: ...in schools. As the hon. Lady pointed out, most schools successfully support students to make the right decisions on behaviour, learning and delivering outcomes that are successful for them, their families and our community. We should be entirely grateful for that. However, today’s debate focuses on the areas where we do not succeed, and we need to do much better overall. Most teachers do...
Peter Kyle: It was revealed in a coroner’s court last week that in August 2019, an 18-year-old woman who was a victim of sexual assault was told that she would not get her day in court for 19 months. The day after, she lost her life to an overdose. The coroner said that the two events were linked. This was six months before covid landed on our shores. It is not covid that broke our system of...
Peter Kyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps have been taken to use the findings from his Department’s Expert Panel on Harm in the Family Courts to inform the make-up of the advisory panel for the Review of the Presumption of Parental Involvement.
Peter Kyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many breaches of community orders imposed by (a) youth, (b) family, and (c) all courts have (i) been processed and (i) are outstanding since 23 March 2020.
Peter Kyle: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. One of the people we have not mentioned in Committee so far is Sir James Munby. In his time as president of the family division of the High Court, he was a robust defender of it and a vocal proponent of reform. In engagement with and in the processes of Parliament, Sir James was fulsome in his advice and in answering questions. When I was...
Peter Kyle: ...that involvement from both parents is in the best interests of the child. That is the nub of the challenge we face. We have come a long way in our understanding of the relationships within families and in abusive situations since that time. Section 1 of the Children Act states that the court must consider the welfare of the child, and practice direction 12J of the family procedure rules...
Peter Kyle: ...adults are at least 1.5 times more likely to be a victim or survivor of violence than non-disabled adults. Disabled women are at least three times more likely to experience domestic abuse from family members, be that their partner, parents, siblings, adult children or other family members. Some of the abusers will also be the person’s carer. It is highly likely that those figures are an...
Peter Kyle: ...coalition Government. As recently as 2017, reports have urged change. It should therefore be a source of regret to Members across the House that it took the efforts of a grieving partner, via the courts, to spur the action that we see today. Jakki Smith, an NHS worker, and John Bulloch, her prison governor partner, were in a relationship for 16 years before tragedy struck. After a fairly...
Peter Kyle: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes an important point. She is right about the secrecy of family courts. In a subsequent urgent question that I was granted on cross-examination, I asked for a full review of practices in family courts with that very much in mind. Since then, some journalists have been allowed into family courts, but it is heavily regulated to the point where it still...
Peter Kyle: ...new, more fruitful aspects of life, which she was prevented from doing before. One of the aspects I experienced very soon after the process of supporting her began was the experience of the family court. I could not believe what I heard when she came to see me after some hearings in the family court, where she was made to share the space of the person she had fled. Having seen her on the...
Peter Kyle: .... Lady’s experience of dealing with these cases and being able to see the impact on victims, was she aware of the challenges that victims have before they get into the courtroom, because often in family courts it is very difficult to separate victims from perpetrators? Was she aware, in her job at the time, that that was also an issue that needed to be dealt with?
Peter Kyle: One benefit of this approach to legislation is that it allows scope for creativity in the individual court to tailor to a specific circumstance that might not be predictable. In such circumstances, how can other courts learn from that innovation? It is obviously the responsibility of the judiciary, including the president of the family division of the High Court, but we have learnt from...
Peter Kyle: ...Member for Birmingham, Yardley made the point very well that, for some of the issues that we are tackling with the legislation, the powers already existed in other pieces of legislation, but the courts, in their conservatism, refused to exercise them. As my hon. Friend asked, will the Minister ensure that his Department gives the right steer to the courts, which the president of the family...
Peter Kyle: ...insight and wisdom that many Members will bring to this area. We have already benefited from the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster with her experience on CAFCASS, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, and, ever since I realised that the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford was on the Committee, seeing her background, I have genuinely been looking...
Peter Kyle: Q My final question to Suzanne is about cross-examination in family courts. It is a bit strange speaking out into the ether, but I know you are there somewhere, Suzanne. The legislation outlaws the vast majority of cross-examination. Do you believe it goes far enough? If you think it should go further, specifically what else would you like to see?
Peter Kyle: The Minister’s Department has taken the first steps of family court reform by banning cross-examination of victims by perpetrators, but a lot more needs to be done with family courts. What plans has he got to reform and modernise the family courts?
Peter Kyle: ...—she had been raped multiple times, she had been knocked unconscious and she had been hospitalised more than a dozen times—but the perpetrator of those crimes, from prison, summonsed her to family court on three separate occasions. She told me that on the third occasion she had to ask the taxi driver to stop on the way home so she could vomit in the gutter because of the experience of...
Peter Kyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to improve support for people with autism in the family courts.
Peter Kyle: ...Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has plans to include in proposals for a Domestic Abuse Bill, provisions to ban the cross-examination of victims by perpetrators of domestic abuse in the family courts; and if he will make a statement.
