It is 18 July 2021 and I am seething with indignation at an article in a Sunday newspaper. The piece, which is trailing a forthcoming Channel 4 Dispatches programme, focuses on one woman’s battle to protect her children from their paedophile father.
“Julia” – she is referred to only by her first name – was living with her partner and their two children when she received a Facebook message from a woman who claimed to know Julia’s partner and his ex-wife. The woman explained that the marriage ended when Julia’s partner was convicted of sexually abusing their seven- and nine-year-old nieces. (He served 18 months of a three-year sentence.) The crimes had taken place abroad, and the perpetrator had entered the UK undetected by assuming a false name. When Julia confronted her partner, he denied the claims, but then grew abusive. This continued for months, until Julia left, taking her children to safety.
The Dispatches programme focused on the legal battle that followed. Julia’s ex wanted unmonitored access to their children. She resisted. It took eight years and 37 court hearings for her to win her case.
The article contained some clues about Julia’s identity: a young professional who had been at the helm of a family charity as well as a think tank. It left me wondering if this could be Julia Margo, who interned at the New Statesman during my time as deputy editor of the magazine (1998-2004).
A call confirmed my hunch. I asked Julia if we could meet, as I had a professional interest in domestic abuse. At the Centre for Social Justice, I had written reports on immigrants with no recourse to public funds who cannot access shelter or support; on the failure of many GPs to identify abuse; and on the need to provide housing for victims and their children to live safely. But without the justice system working for abuse survivors, all other measures seem precarious.
When Julia and I met, I felt both surprise and a measure of relief: she now ran a thriving business, had remarried, had a third child, and seemed as confident as she had done in our New Statesman days. How could this brilliant woman have been manipulated to such a degree? How could she have put up with abuse for 11 minutes, let alone the 11 months it had taken her to leave her tormentor?
Survivors often face such questions. Helena Kennedy KC, Baroness of the Shaws, was the first legal expert to explain the domestic abuse victim’s mentality in her 1993 book Eve Was Framed. “It may seem counterintuitive,” she told me, “but victims of abuse often stay in abusive relationships because of their own complicated emotions. They do it for the sake of the family or for their own sanity, or they want to believe that their partner is speaking the truth or believe he wants to change his conduct. Often victims are gaslit into believing that what is happening is their fault… There is still shame in perceived failure to retain a relationship.”
Julia struggled to see the abuse clearly for what it was: “My ex came up with plausible excuses – his ex-wife was vengeful, she was blackening his name. He admitted to lying about his past but swore he would undergo therapy – which he did – and that he would do anything not to compromise our little family.” The situation grew more serious, and during one violent incident, the police arrived, having answered a call from the couple’s four-year-old. The police took away Julia’s ex and she fled with her children. Their ordeal, however, was not over: Julia’s ex claimed legal aid, forcing her to confront him – and the justice system.
Even with her fortitude, professional success and connections (her twin brother, Saul, who also happened to be a former New Statesman intern, is now a judge), Julia found the lawyers, magistrates and judges she encountered intimidating. “There is a culture of disbelief within the judiciary and some very archaic attitudes,” she told me. “Often, victims’ accounts are simply not accepted.”
She found the presumption of shared custody, even where there is evidence of abuse, was widespread. So, too, was the prioritisation of avoiding “parental alienation” over safety: mothers, she said, are often characterised as vengeful by courts and “expert” witnesses.
Julia’s experience led her to want to help others. By the time we met, she had mentored 75 women through the courts. Amy, a teacher with a five-year-old son, was one: “I couldn’t have done it without her. Going to court – I had five or six hearings between 2021 and 2023 – I felt as if I were going into battle in a very dangerous place. The state of my nerves was such that I didn’t know if I could go through with the process. Julia steered me through it.”
Traumatised and vulnerable, domestic abuse victims seldom deliver the clear and cogent testimony judges seek. Rather, their statements often include contradictions, poorly expressed sentiments and inarticulate fears. In the unfamiliar space of the courtroom, one hostile question from an able barrister, one look of disbelief, is often all it takes to turn a victim into an incoherent casualty.
And there are so many victims of this crime. One in six homicides in England and Wales is related to domestic abuse. A Women’s Aid survey found that one in four women and one in ten men had suffered partner abuse. The landmark Domestic Abuse Act of 2021 was intended to address these issues. And yet charging, prosecution and conviction rates for the crime have reduced, year on year. Less than 24 per cent of victims will report their abuse. One crucial factor in the victim’s decision not to report or prosecute is their fear of what happens in courtrooms.
Accompanying survivors through court proceedings, Julia had identified a gap between what guidance called for and what happened on the ground. Although Practice Direction 27C (part of the guidance for court proceedings) allows for independent domestic violence advisers and independent sexual violence advisers (IDVAs) to accompany parties in the courtroom, in practice very few survivors find an IDVA to attend court with them. And although victims of domestic abuse are automatically eligible for special measures in family proceedings – such as screens or giving evidence through video-link, and separate entrances, exits and waiting rooms – overburdened courts can seldom accommodate such requests. Failure to provide these basic supports risks reducing victims’ willingness to take the witness stand and compromising their testimony when they do so.
Judges, however, also struggle, both with the volume of domestic abuse cases – which account for 60 per cent of all family court hearings – as well as their complexity. Lawyers have expressed concerns that magistrates – who hear up to 90 per cent of domestic abuse cases – are not effectively implementing the training they are given in how to handle such hearings. Operational issues also compound the pressure on courts: funding and legal aid are in short supply, while the backlog of cases has grown to the extent that some take two years to come to court.
Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales, is clear: “We have good legislation that covers coercion and control, recognises the child as a victim… but now we need its implementation to be proper and consistent.”
Change was called for.
Every Wednesday, in the grand, 17th-century halls of the Old Bailey, the lord sheriff of London dons a black coat, starched white, ruffled shirt and a heavy medal on a gold chain to host lunch for the High Court judges who have been sitting that morning. In January 2023, Alastair King, the then lord sheriff, asked me to help him draw up a guest list for a themed lunch on domestic abuse.
Jess Phillips, MP for Birmingham Yardley and champion of the domestic abuse cause at Westminster, and Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner, attended. Both spoke bluntly: if judges didn’t change their approach to domestic abuse cases, 76 per cent of victims would continue to keep from reporting the crime, and justice would not be done. Sarah Munro KC pledged access to one of the judges in charge of training, Lynn Tayton KC. Within weeks Julia joined Tayton to hold a training session at Warwick University.
The interview-style session started with data on the retraumatising and debilitating effect that families attribute to the court process, as well as Julia’s first-hand experience of the courtroom. Many of the 70 Crown Court judges present told Julia that they felt disempowered by the complexity of domestic abuse cases. They often have to rely on scant guidance and scarce information to make sense of allegations of abuse, as objective evidence – such as recordings of threats or photographs of bruises – is often unavailable. Crucially, the majority of judges admitted ignorance of how trauma could affect a victim. Telling and retelling the circumstances of their abuse can lead victims to forget chronology, mix up recollections, overreact to the slightest incident in the courtroom. Their testimony as a result is poor, easily manipulated by the perpetrator.
Yet the Domestic Abuse Act of 2021 put in place a host of mechanisms, including IDVAs and courtroom screens that separate abuser from victim, which can secure a better hearing. A presiding judge can call for these special measures to be utilised – and Julia urged the judges to do so.
Julia held two further sessions, attended by more than 200 judges. The Judicial College – a body, presided over by senior jurists, that provides guidance affecting all 3,000 judges in England and Wales – were open to extending the training. We were also invited to join domestic abuse campaigners in suggesting changes to the Equal Treatment Bench Book, the judges’ and magistrates’ mammoth manual, which includes guidance on dealing with sensitive cases such as those involving rape, hate crimes and domestic abuse.
These recommendations were introduced to the manual in July last year, including that all domestic abuse survivors should be classified as vulnerable witnesses and therefore automatically entitled to special measures, such as screens and video-linked statements; that interrogation should be carried out in a non-aggressive manner, with judges charged with reducing conflict; that pre-trial therapy should be allowed for victims, without fear of therapists manufacturing false accusations, thereby prejudicing the trial; and that IDVAs should be available on request.
“Since we began our programme,” Julia said, “I have seen that attitudes in the judiciary are changing and many senior judges seem very open to adopting a different approach to witnesses in domestic abuse cases. There have been improvements, too, such as the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service formally recognising that if one party has a history of sex abuse or other relevant convictions, the starting point for child arrangements should be ‘no contact’.”
The Ministry of Justice is now piloting “pathfinder” courts to provide earlier access to specialist support for victims of domestic abuse involved in Family Court proceedings. Although the evaluation of these pilots has yet to be published, Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner, is hopeful: “They allow for more information to be gathered earlier, so each child has their own “Child Impact Report”, explaining their family context and the context of domestic abuse. Better quality of information prevents delays, counter-accusations… and ultimately helps the judges hear better evidence.”
Labour has introduced domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms to advise on risk assessments and work with the police to secure a fast response and timely support. New domestic abuse protection orders are also being trialled, which include measures such as requiring perpetrators to accept electronic tagging and to participate in behaviour-change programmes.
Keir Starmer’s government has made halving the incidence of violence against women and girls one of its priorities. It is a huge ambition, but eminently attainable if agents in a survivor’s recourse to justice – judges, magistrates, mediators and police – can more confidently play their part in ensuring fair access.
Julia and I want to play our own part, and have set up a charity to improve the victim’s journey through the judicial system, Fair Hearing. We are working, too, with the Liberal Democrat MP Josh Babarinde and Ben Douglas Jones KC to ensure a change in the law to allow domestic abuse victims standing trial for some offences to use their abuse as their statutory defence.
Julia continues to mentor domestic abuse victims through the courts – 35 to date. They come to her through word of mouth, a mixture of middle-class wives who have stayed with their abuser for decades because of their children, and young girls whose first, brutal love affair has left them unable to function. She listens to each distinct personal story, conscious that for victims, being listened to is more important even than the outcome of their trial. And she prepares them for a courtroom experience that, fortunately, has improved since her own.
Note: This article was amended on 14 March 2025 to remove a description of Lynn Tayton KC as a High Court judge (she is a senior circuit judge based at the Central Criminal Court), and to correct inaccuracies in its description of the Judicial College and its training programme.
[See also: JD Vance’s free speech hypocrisy]
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This article appears in the 26 Feb 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Britain in Trump’s World