A reported increase in
lockdown domestic abuse cases will be a key subject of
questioning at a Justice Committee evidence session with the
Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution
Service, Max Hill QC, on Thursday May 21 at 0930
HRS.
Mr Hill will also be
asked about other effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the
prosecuting arms of the courts and legal system.
The Victims’
Commissioner, Dame , told MPs on April 15 that the
campaigning organisation Counting Dead
Women had recorded 16 domestic abuse killings in the
previous three weeks alone:
“We usually say there
are two a week”, Dame Vera said; “that looks to me like five a
week. That is the size of this crisis”.
Alongside these
reported deaths, the charity Refuge said there
had been a 150% rise in visits to its National Domestic Abuse
helpline website in the early days of the lockdown. Requests for
direct help, through calls or online requests to the
helpline, Refuge added, had increased by 25%
since the restrictions on peoples’ movements were
announced.
The Committee will
question Max Hill on how domestic abuse is - and will be - dealt
with during the pandemic by the police and the Crown Prosecution
Service (CPS). The CPS has prioritised prosecuting cases of
domestic abuse, serious sexual offences and abuse of children.
But the pandemic has lengthened the already large backlog of
cases of all sorts that come to court. This is caused by the
necessity of social distancing and other Covid-19 related
problems over the attendance of victims, defendants, lawyers and
others.
The Director of Public
Prosecutions may also be asked about the apparent confusion over
cases specifically brought under the Coronavirus Act (2020). On
May 15 the CPS announced that all 44 cases brought under the Act,
almost all by the police, had been wrongly charged and would be
dropped. This was mainly because the Act was aimed at controlling
people who may be infectious - and none of those charged
was.
Mr Hill is also likely
to be questioned about the serious effect Covid-19 has had on the
legal profession. The Committee learnt, in earlier evidence
sessions, of falls in work for barristers and solicitors of up to
75%. There is particular
concern about drops in funding for
the legal aid sector.
Representatives of the
legal profession have told the Committee that unless younger
lawyers are nurtured through the system there is a real danger
that there will not be enough practitioners in the
future.
