UKC

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/555276

As we seem to be talking about this stuff a lot at the moment I thought I'd highlight this petition. As things currently stand, domestic violence is not a specific offence and bringing charges of common assault is subject to a six month time limit. As it can take people a long time to leave an abusive partner, this restriction limits the chances of legal action once they are able to break free. It's also not helped by the extremely long delays in things like reviewing digital evidence. Making DV a specific offence with a longer time limit for charges seems like it would be a good way of increasing the likelihood that perpetrators are brought to justice and hopefully prevented from abusing future partners too.

Nice one cheers. No idea why people are disliking this.

Signed.

Signed 🙂

Signed

Probably because the climbing community like any other area of life will include violent abusers who won't want the time limit extended as it could adversely affect them.

Thanks for highlighting this. Signed.

I can't really see that being true, although we are just the same as any other part of the community, I think it's a stretch that those people would bother to dislike the OP.

I might be wrong of course, and normally I ignore Likes/Dislikes, just idle wanderings.

Signed 

Good shout, thanks for the link.

Ditto to both your points.

Signed. A good and honourable petition.

Done

Wouldn't extending the time limit for all assault be more effective? Otherwise it will be necessary to define and then prove the domestic bit of DV as well as the assault.

Signed ! And thanks for posting this.

Perhaps. I can't really see a problem with extending the period for all assault, it seems like it would be a sensible thing to do. But I can also see an argument for making DV a specific charge as perhaps this would make it easier to highlight aggravating factors. In all honesty, I think the petition is flawed as it doesn't properly address the reclassification OR suggest extending it to all common assault. I see it more as a starting point to provoke a conversation in Parliament if it's backed by enough people.

Seems plausible, and misogynists (an old friend's step dad's climbing friends apparently didn't like women), petition signed by me too.

Odd you got so many dislikes for that. I suspect there are very few, though my suspicion may be based on me being a man with no experience of it. There has been a small number of transparent misogynists on ukc, thankfully most didn't stick around for long. Years ago there was one character who was open about his history of girlfriend/wife beating. He posted in the spirit of addressing his problem but iirc it was really all about him. It didn't go well.

OP: Signed

Signed and agree with all of the above. It's a blunt tool to highlight the issue. Hopefully experts in the field will be in charge of changing the legislation.

I read a pretty depressing twitter thread, I think it was the Secret Barrister talking about why the new policing bill wasn't going to help domestic violence/assault on women etc cases as was implied by the government. The amount of time it takes to bring these cases to court previously was ridiculous, now, with the defunding of the CPS, the courts and the covid backlog it can be 4yrs from report to trial.

I deal with men, it is almost always men at the police station for assaults and the violent history beyond 6 months can’t be charged as common assaults, the police can get round this if there is enough evidence for ABH (No time limit) Any medical notes at the time of the assault can be really handy, if there are multiple low level assaults plus oppressive behaviour then an offence of controlling and coercive behaviour can be put (No time limit)

Otherwise the offences can’t be prosecuted.

I can’t see an issue of removing the time limit for DV common assaults. Very easy to define and there is already a well recognised definition. If the defence take issue and say it is not DV then the court can decide after hearing an argument about it.

Petition signed

The SB thread was really depressing. And it's really made me wonder what I would do in that situation. I'd always thought that reporting rape or sexual assault was the right thing to do and that women had an obligation to each other to go through the criminal process, in the hope of preventing there being another victim. But the grim reality portrayed in that thread makes me understand why so many women don't report rape, especially anything that could even vaguely be played as a 'he said, she said' case. It just doesn't seem worth it for the minuscule chance a man will be prosecuted and the pathetic sentence he's likely to get if he's convicted.

Thanks for your input, it's really interesting to get some more info from someone who knows what they're talking about.

Signed