19
Examination of witnesses
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs OBE, Jen Reed and Professor Lisa Oakley.
Q95 The Chair: Good morning, and welcome to this meeting of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 Committee. We are delighted this morning to welcome Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs, who was formerly CEO of Surviving Economic Abuse and works as an independent expert in that area; Jen Reed, head of policy, gender and tech research at UCL; and joining us online, Professor Lisa Oakley, who is the professor of safeguarding and knowledge exchange at the University of Chester. A very warm welcome to you all.
We are going to go through a few questions, and if I can kick off briefly with all three of you, perhaps you could provide just a short definition of the area of abuse that you specialise in, and how you see it manifest itself in cases that you work with. Professor Oakley, maybe you would like to start.
Professor Lisa Oakley: My work is in the area of spiritual abuse. We would define that as a form of emotional and psychological abuse, characterised by a systematic pattern of coercive controlling behaviour within a religious or spiritual context, or with a religious or spiritual rationale. That might include a spiritual institution or a home, whether it is a faith belief or a place of education. We see things such as control through the use of sacred texts and teaching, the use of God sometimes as complicit in the abuse that is experienced, censorship equated to your relationship with God, a sense of divine position so you cannot be questioned, and sometimes spiritual threats.
We did some research with Broken Rites and Restored within the Christian faith community. In that research, we found that among those who had experienced domestic abuse, 60% had also experienced spiritual abuse. There is often a really integral link for people who have a faith with both these experiences. That might include using faith and belief to justify the abuse. As I have said, it might include the use of messages such as forgiveness to stop people being able to speak out, or teachings on the role of men and women.
Spiritual abuse can be perpetrated by anybody. In that research I have just mentioned, we found—a very small finding we need to do some more work on—that perpetrators do not have to have a faith themselves to use that to control and coerce others. We see a huge impact of this, including suicidal ideation, distrust, loss of self, and psychological harm. Because spiritual abuse is a lesser-known form of abuse, it is often not acknowledged and not identified.
The Chair: That is very clear.
Jen Reed: Our specialist area is technology-facilitated abuse, but I will refer to it as tech abuse as we go through, just for brevity. In essence, tech abuse is the use, misuse, or repurposing of digital devices, technology platforms, or other types of tech to harass, stalk, monitor or otherwise abuse another individual. It is most commonly associated with domestic abuse, and it is increasingly prevalent; it is very commonplace now within the domestic abuse context. I am happy to expand on that.
One of the key things to take away from today in terms of the definition of technology-facilitated abuse, or tech abuse, is that we are not just talking here about online abuse and online platforms. A lot of the ways in which tech abuse manifests itself for domestic abuse scenarios is as much with connected devices and digital tools that we all increasingly use in our everyday lives, which is a really important clarification.
There are some other key considerations for what it is and how it manifests itself. Tech abuse is just as devastating as physical abuse. In terms of the effects that we see on individuals, I cannot overstate how horrendous some cases are that we see. It occurs at all stages of the relationship, including post separation, or sometimes before you have even physically met that person and begun your in-person relationship, as well as during the relationship. Tech abuse can also compromise your safety.
Tech abuse is impacting how we can do risk assessments and how people can access help. Quite often, people are now told that they have to go and seek help on tech devices, which are the very things that have been used against them. It is impacting all the traditional pathways we have known in terms of how victim-survivors can actually access support and how they can live their lives in online spaces.
The Chair: Would you mind just giving a couple of specific examples? You said it is not just about the online world. Can you give examples of how the abuse is perpetrated more widely?
Jen Reed: Yes, absolutely. I will give a range. I must say there are some really extreme examples that you can find out there, which use almost state-level software, but they are few and far between. The majority of the examples are using everyday tech. It is people using what they can access on their phone, which is so commonplace. Tech is so much cheaper and easier to get these days; AI is in all our lives. These are not sci-fi fantasies. A lot of the tech in the examples is things that are commonplace.
For example, we see a lot of AirTags and tracking devices being sewn into children’s belongings or clothes during visitation orders so that the child can be tracked back to their refuge, so that their location can be tracked down. We see stalkerware and spyware installed on people’s phones, often the wife’s phone, also sometimes the children’s or the husband’s phone, without them knowing. There are very few ways of them ever being able to detect that. Then you can see all their communications, messages and emails. If you are attempting to gather evidence against your perpetrator on your phone, they can then also see what you are writing down in terms of your notes. It compromises the case.
We also see domestic appliances. If you think about how the home environment is now, your doorbell, for example, used to just be a simple doorbell. Now it is videoing you. If a family member comes to your door to check if you are okay, your partner or your perpetrator can see that entire interaction. Even if they come while your perpetrator is away from the home to check on you or offer you support, they are witnessing that entire thing through the video doorbell. It is the same if you are in the home. We have smart fridges, for example. We have seen smart fridges used to stop people from being able to eat, to access food while they are at home. When a perpetrator has gone to work, we have seen smart speakers accessed remotely to blast a wedding song, or something else triggering, through every speaker in the home the whole time that they are out.
We have seen hidden cameras in plug sockets. Let me tell you, you would not look at those and think there is a hidden camera. They are so innocuous. We have quite often had books, for example, with holes drilled in them so that you cannot see that there is a camera looking at you. You would not know that if you walked past a bookshelf, the same as you would not notice the camera in a plug socket or cameras hidden in teddy bears: children’s toys put on a shelf so that you can completely monitor your victim-survivor constantly, and they are often unaware of them. Also in medical settings, we are seeing hijacking of healthcare devices. That is appearing in A&E settings, impacting whether women—predominantly—can actually access healthcare and health services at all.
The Chair: That is fascinating. Nicola, do you want to say a bit about your area of expertise?
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs: Yes, thank you. I am talking about economic abuse, which is behaviour that controls a person’s ability to acquire, use and maintain economic resources. When I talk about economic resources, I am talking about money but also everything that money can buy, things such as food, clothing, housing, transportation and technology—such as mobile phones and a laptop—and also goods and services, such as utilities. Financial abuse is a sub-category of economic abuse. People often use the terms interchangeably, but that is the control of money and finances. We prefer to use the broader term “economic abuse” because it encompasses all the behaviours that a perpetrator will use. It therefore holds them accountable for all that behaviour, but also means that we understand the full impact on victim-survivors.
I would say that there are three forms of control that sit underneath economic abuse. The first, which people are usually more familiar with, is restriction. That would be things such as stopping someone going to work or claiming benefits or preventing them having access to a bank account, with them having to ask before they spend money. Interestingly, it can be having to ask before they take food out of the fridge, but I have also just learned that there are smart devices that can also monitor that. There is a real crossover between economic abuse, tech abuse and other forms of coercive and controlling behaviour. Sometimes it might even be having to ask just to use the car, which actually might be registered in the victim’s name. They might be paying the insurance and the petrol, yet they are not allowed to use it when they want to.
Probably less understood are the controlling constructs of exploitation and sabotage. I would say that now women have become more economically equal, we actually see more of these forms of control, particularly exploitation. This is where a victim-survivor is allowed to go out to work, but perhaps they are not allowed to keep their wages. Those are taken from them and they are given an allowance, which is usually not enough in order to live. The abuser might take debt out in their name; they might also refuse to contribute to household costs. Again, we see quite a lot of this, with the victim-survivor solely having to pay for the mortgage or the rent, as well as all the utilities and insurance products.
I am just thinking about tech devices again. For example, I have heard of perpetrators being able to turn on straighteners remotely, which can lead to house fires. If the contents insurance has been cancelled by the perpetrator, that becomes very difficult in terms of not actually being covered. They might also not be paying for things such as food, utilities and childcare. Again, we have a lot of victim-survivors who might be working multiple jobs in order to maintain a standard of living that the perpetrator insists on. All the while, the perpetrator is either not working, or they are working but they are keeping their money for themselves, enjoying nice holidays, cars and luxury goods, whereas the victim-survivor and usually the children are living in poverty.
Then there is sabotage, as I have talked about. That can cause someone to actually lose their job. If debt has been taken out in their name, that might destroy their credit rating, which has a negative impact in terms of being able to access things such as particular jobs, housing and so on and so forth. It can lead them to have to pay a property premium, so they become financially excluded. We also see property being destroyed that has to be replaced, the disconnecting of utilities, as I said, the cancelling of critical insurance cover, or sometimes having to do things such as picking up speeding tickets if the vehicle is registered in their name, but the perpetrator is driving it and acting illegally.
These are different controlling constructs, but in terms of the impact on the victim-survivor, it is actually the same inasmuch as they are not in control. Where restriction results in dependency, we see that economic exploitation generally leads to economic instability. As I say, the end result is the same. A victim-survivor might not be able to access £100 physically, or it might be that they just have no disposable income at all. Both scenarios leave victim-survivors in really tricky positions. They do not have the means to leave, which means inevitably they stay longer and experience more violence as a consequence. It can be really difficult to rebuild their lives moving on, especially if they have been coerced into a lot of debt and are having to pay that back.
My research has shown how this form of abuse can result in homelessness, the loss of possessions and prospects, and being left in debt, as I have just talked about, with a poor credit score. It is a very common form of abuse. Recent research by Money Advice Plus has shown that 97% of domestic abuse victims will experience economic abuse. Some 57% of them will be coerced into debt, and the average debt per survivor at the moment is £32,000. You can get a sense of how difficult that is.
As I have already alluded to, my research has shown how economic abuse commonly occurs alongside, and indeed reinforces and threads through, other forms of coercive and controlling behaviour, such as physical and sexual abuse. Emotional abuse is very connected, and actually economic abuse used to be understood as a form of emotional abuse, which is one of the reasons why it has been so invisible. When it takes place in the context of coercive and controlling behaviour, we see increased risk of both homicide and suicide because of economic abuse.
The Chair: That is a fascinating start. If I may, we have a lot to get through; it is brilliant to get that level of detail, but we probably need slightly shorter answers going forward.
Q96 Baroness Gohir: How is the statutory definition of domestic abuse used by front-line workers, agencies, police, social services, community providers and local authorities when dealing with domestic abuse?
Jen Reed: I will be quick. Tech abuse is slightly different from economic abuse, in that it is not in the main definition within the piece of legislation. The key point to your question about how that impacts services and their interpretation is that tech abuse is often treated as a peripheral or siloed issue. Tech abuse is within the statutory guidance. However, a lot of the responses from police and other services we work with who are responding—and some are doing brilliant work to try to respond to tech abuse—are not being driven because they can see tech abuse half way down the statutory guidance; they are driven because they see it is so prevalent within the cases they deal with. That is why they are responding to it and trying to figure out ways of dealing with this.
Baroness Gohir: Would you like to see that in the definition?
Jen Reed: Oh, 100%. We have to. I am happy to expand on that if there is a follow-up question as to why. It is being treated at the moment as an online safety issue, in essence, for victim-survivors because it is not within that main definition. To your question, that is what is influencing how front-line services interpret this and whether they see it as core and central to domestic abuse—I hope it would be seen as that if it was in the main definition—or as something extra to consider. Actually, tech is now such an intricate part of all our lives and how we all live that it should not be seen as a side issue. It is absolutely essential to understanding domestic abuse as a pattern of control. Tech absolutely exacerbates how you can exert that control over people. It means people are being referred to “Go and report this to your social media platform”, or to deal with the online or cyber aspect, and that comes through to policing.
Baroness Gohir: How about if somebody says, “That’s just coercive control and that’s already in the definition”? How would you then say why this is needed?
Jen Reed: Yes. Tech is massively used for coercive control, so you could take that angle. It is more about the understanding of whether tech actually is coercive control or whether it is different. I know Nicola has opinions on the coercive control element of that as well and whether it is understood as being separate from other forms of abuse.
The separation of it means that people think this is an online safety issue and we should be speaking to tech companies about it. You therefore get treated as someone who has faced some kind of cybercrime: report it to the platform and come off Facebook. The onus is on the victim to deal with it, gather evidence and handle it, in terms of reporting it to the tech manufacturer, as opposed to saying to that victim-survivor, “Actually, what you are experiencing is domestic abuse. You can get help here”.
Baroness Gohir: What about in terms of spiritual abuse? That is not in the definition either.
Professor Lisa Oakley: I was going to say, there are a lot of commonalities in what we are both saying here. At the moment, spiritual abuse is not there. Just as we have heard, you could say, “Well, it’s already covered because psychological and emotional abuse is covered”, but unless you name something, particularly where forms of abuse are less understood and known about, it leaves a void that is currently not covered.
Just as we have heard, there is an argument for spiritual abuse to become a separate category. It is not an argument I am making, but it is an argument. There would then need to be links drawn between the two. Naming something is really, really important. We know from lots of research that actually when things are named, people begin to be able to recognise their own experiences. You also cannot act on something if it is not named. I would make exactly that same argument, that it is really important that we recognise things and name them.
You could say, “Well, lots of things are covered by coercion and control”. I would certainly agree with that, but we need to have a vehicle by which we name some things so that where people are being controlled in specific ways, they are able to recognise that. We also enable and facilitate statutory agencies and agencies working with people to be able to acknowledge and respond to that.
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs: It is good I have come last in some ways, because it demonstrates how important it is to name but also to define the form of abuse. One of the things that has been so transformative about the Domestic Abuse Act is that economic abuse is actually defined as well as named within it. To Lisa’s point, that is so powerful for victim-survivors because they know that what they are experiencing is wrong but they cannot name it, they cannot validate it, and certainly they cannot communicate it to other people. We need that common language when we need to reach out for a response.
I would say the Domestic Abuse Act has also shaped how professionals respond, both in statutory settings and in private settings. That also leads on to why it is important to name particular forms of abuse, because traditionally the stakeholders that you need to respond to economic abuse have not been part of the co-ordinated community response. That has mostly been statutory agencies. What we found in terms of response to economic abuse specifically is that you need financial institutions such as banks, building societies, money and debt advice organisations to actually be part of the solution.
The point that I would like to make in terms of thinking about legislation and government is that in some ways the private sector has actually led in terms of responding to economic abuse. While the definition of economic abuse has been taken on by the financial services sector, it was actually back in 2018 that it produced something called the Financial Abuse Code, which sets out how banks and building societies should respond to customers consistently. We have 33 financial services firms covering 49 brands now, which shows how the response has really transformed. That has really been helped along by the vulnerability agenda as well, which recognises domestic abuse.
As I say, in some ways the financial services sector is leading. There is customer vulnerability guidance, which firms have to follow, but also in 2023 the Financial Conduct Authority introduced something called the consumer duty, which means that financial services actually have to think about foreseeable harm. They are thinking about prevention in a way that the Government are not. That is looking at things such as safety by design, which goes very much back to tech: how can we make sure that products, policies and processes do not facilitate control by the abuser? How do we close those down? It would be fantastic if government could think about that.
One example I will give quickly is the payment of universal credit to one bank account. Making separate payments to individuals and their own bank accounts not only takes away the possibility of control but reinforces things such as financial independence and financial capability, which are also protective factors against economic abuse. In some ways, I would like to see the statutory sector follow the example set by financial services.
Professor Lisa Oakley: Can I just make one point that is really important in terms of spiritual abuse? Sometimes people will say, “We can’t include this because statutory agencies might not be experts in faith and belief”. What we are talking about here is recognising where different factors are used to coerce and control people. You do not need to be a person of faith or to have a deep understanding. I would strongly encourage people to develop faith literacy, but you can see where faith and belief are being used to control people, whether or not you have it. I know that is an argument that has been used against recognising spiritual abuse, but it is not one that is actually evidenced.
Q97 Baroness Sugg: You pretty much answered this question already: I was going to ask you about the statutory definition and what you would like to include in it. From an economic abuse perspective, as you say, that is defined and explained. Is there anything we could change within the statutory definition that would benefit your work?
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs: Yes, absolutely. Five years and a bit of hindsight have helped to answer that question, because I was so excited to see a definition at the time. The way in which the definition of economic abuse is sitting within the legislation does not necessarily mean that we understand all forms of economic abuse and how they play out. As I said, there is that exploitation, sabotage, and restriction piece.
The way it is written is that there are two subsections. It is preventing an individual’s ability to, “(a) acquire, use or maintain money or other property, or (b) obtain goods or services”. Actually, we know that perpetrators also stop victim-survivors using and maintaining goods and services, not just acquiring them. It is a bit of a technical point but, as I said, it is really important that we understand what that behaviour looks like in its entirety. In an ideal world, I would just like to collapse the A and B and say that it is about preventing an individual acquiring, using and maintaining money, property, goods and services, which would also be a bit simpler to understand.
Baroness Sugg: Are you happy with the “substantial adverse effect” piece as well?
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs: Yes, it is interesting that you raised that. I know we might be talking about the definition as a whole, but certainly the definition of economic abuse talks about a substantial adverse effect because it does not want to inadvertently capture incidents that on their own would not be abuse: for example, someone not disclosing their financial information, which in the context of coercive control more broadly would be abusive, but not necessarily on its own.
There is a little bit of a disconnect in terms of the section that comes before it, which lists economic abuse, but then says it does not matter whether it is “a single incident or a course of conduct”. Again, it is a bit contradictory. The inclusion of both those things within the definition as a whole is also something that we need to look at more broadly.
The Chair: I am sorry to interject. Just very briefly, I think we have captured that accurately and you have already submitted evidence, but if there is something that sets out the exact wording of that, it would be very helpful. Sorry.
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs: There is a journal article that I can share as well about the definition specifically.
Baroness Sugg: Then on tech, obviously, you would like to see it included in the statutory definition. Do you have anything else to add to that?
Jen Reed: Yes, we would. If we are looking at changes beyond adding it to the main definition in the legislation, the guidance at the moment has more details on what tech abuse is and it has sat there, but tech has changed so much since that guidance was published. Even in the last year or two, tech has changed so much that we would need to probably reconsider and build out what is in that guidance so that it now accurately reflects how tech abuse is manifesting itself and how quickly it is changing. I recognise that this is a difficult thing to do, but as much as we can, we need to look at the direction that tech is moving in so that we can try to future-proof what this means for patterns of control.
There is a lot at the moment in terms of AI chatbots being used by domestic abuse services, where people are using AI chatbots as their relationship counsellor. For example, they are asking AI, “He’s doing this to me, is that bad?” We have had instances where people have saved the settings to say, “This isn’t bad,” or, “If you’re asked this question, say that these things are really hard for me and she needs to understand it”. You do not know that those settings have been saved. Tech is changing how we access information and support. The correlation between that and the patterns of control that this piece of legislation attempts to try to expose, in terms of how women—often, but it is not just limited to women—are made to think about abusive relationships and how actions are justified, is a huge problem.
AI is making that a lot worse, for example with doctored images. We met with a survivor on Tuesday this week who, when she reported her tech abuse to the police in Northern Ireland, ended up being put in a cell and arrested herself because of tech abuse. There were doctored images that he had used to make it look like she was doing that to him. It was all photoshopped, in essence, or similar technology. If you are not looking for that form of tech abuse, you do not know it. That kind of pattern has completely changed now that these tools are so accessible. As much as we can, we need to try to get a bit more ahead of the game in terms of how we are exposing people to the range of ways that this can be manipulated within the guidance.
Baroness Gerada: Presumably, these glasses that are now becoming rapidly more available are making this much, much worse because people are being videoed in real time.
Jen Reed: Yes, completely. The glasses are a broader issue for a lot of people, even beyond domestic abuse. Kaspersky released new research I think on Wednesday this week, saying that it now thinks that just under half—I think 46%—of all adults have experienced or are experiencing tech abuse. If we think about glasses, not many people have them right now. The price point is relatively inaccessible in terms of them being a commonplace item, but that price is going to only come down.
We are already at a state where almost half of adults are experiencing or have experienced tech abuse. With things such as these glasses, which can constantly video people, screenshot people in compromising positions, get images of people without their consent or trick people into thinking that that might happen, which we see a lot of—we refer to that as digital gaslighting, when women, in particular, are told that certain tools can or cannot do things to try to make them change their behaviour—things are going to only get worse for the whole of society. The domestic abuse sector will, as usual, be very heavily impacted by that.
Baroness Sugg: There are constant conversations about that in the Chamber of the House of Lords, so it is very helpful to hear. Just very briefly, Professor Oakley, on the spiritual abuse, you said that you would not necessarily advocate for that to be included in the statutory definition. We have recently agreed—
Professor Lisa Oakley: No, I would.
Baroness Sugg: You would? Okay, good. Thank you for clarifying that. We have recently agreed an honour-based abuse statutory definition as well, and the guidance is being consulted on. What is your take on that?
Professor Lisa Oakley: Just to be clear, what I am saying is that it needs to be included somewhere. That could be as a category of abuse that is recognised on its own. That is not what I have advocated for in my work. It was initially, and I have changed because it shares commonalities with psychological and emotional abuse. The issue at the moment is that it is not anywhere. It is not identified either as a form of emotional or psychological abuse specifically, or as a category in its own right, and therefore it is just absent. When people are experiencing this, it is not acknowledged.
Just to give you a little example, there was a book called Framing Abuse written by Kitzinger. In it, she looked at the first time a news report in the UK used the terminology “child sexual abuse”. I think it was 1973. She said at that point in time, people in the same family recognised that they were experiencing abuse but they had never had the language before. That is where we are with spiritual abuse right now. When I talk about it at any event, there are always people who come to tell me that they have had this experience but they do not have the language for it.
In the definition, we either need to say, “psychological and emotional abuse, which can include spiritual abuse,” or we need to have a category that recognises it in its own right. However, at the moment, we are in neither of those places, which means that people cannot identify their experiences and they cannot be responded to either.
Baroness Sugg: That is a helpful clarification.
The Chair: Before we come to the next question, I am going to press you slightly, Professor Oakley. This could be to anyone, but just in the interests of time. If we think of the average police officer turning up on the average evening, I suppose my pushback would be, we are now giving them a checklist of 900 different forms of abuse. I am exaggerating, but how realistic is it? You said that, in a way, you could put all this under coercive control—does this control a victim’s behaviour and does she live in fear?—rather than specifying every single version. I hear what you have said but if we do a reality check on the officer who is turning up and if we are fair to them, is it realistic to expect that it would change the response on the doorstep, or do you think it feeds in at a different point?
Professor Lisa Oakley: It is really important. If we think about another example, we have the category of child sexual abuse, and then we started to recognise that children might be being groomed by gangs, that there was something different happening. Then we developed the language of child sexual exploitation because it was really important to have things specifically named. Rather than it being something else for someone to have on a checklist, it is actually about equipping people to recognise the different ways in which the person they are interacting with might be being coerced and controlled. If you do not know about it and it is not named, it is not going to be on your antennae of things that might be happening. It is really important.
The way that you do it is by equipping people to give clear definitions, to be clear about what the characteristics are. In the moment, it is one method that somebody might be using to control and coerce somebody. They might be looking for the things that we have talked about in this session already. They might be looking for the tech abuse and all the different ways that that might be happening. It is not overload; it is equipping people so that then when there are conversations happening, it might be able to be recognised. What we are doing at the moment is not equipping people to respond.
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs: Could I add to that? Sorry, I do not want to take up too much time. From my experience, certainly, victims of economic abuse will not call the police and say, “I’m experiencing economic abuse”. As you say, Baroness Barran, they will be turning up on the doorstep for another reason, probably because they are in an emergency situation. It is really important that the person on the doorstep can respond to that particular incident, but also that there is a further investigation when they go back to the station. They should speak to the victim-survivor in more detail to understand what that coercive control might look like more broadly, which would then provide an opportunity for other forms of abuse to become apparent.
Especially in relation to economic abuse, despite it being named and recognised as a form of domestic abuse, we understand that police officers are usually quite dismissive or continue to say that economic issues are a civil dispute and not something they can respond to. They are still focusing on the things that are easier to evidence, as opposed to the more invisible forms of abuse, which is one of the challenges we still have. Cassandra Wiener will speak to that as well.
The Chair: Yes. That sounds right to me that it might be less the front-line officer but more the specialist or the Independent Domestic Violence Adviser: the person who is actually going to have some time to have that depth of conversation.
Jen Reed: Could I possibly add one very brief addition? We have a record in the police for tech abuse, but at the moment it is what we refer to as the online flag. Arguably, we do not find any case that does not have some form of digital footprint. That online flag that they are meant to make for case recordings is, in effect, completely redundant. The data that they are collecting, as opposed to it being on a list of 900 things, is preventing other action relevant to other legislation.
We are not recording whether that tech abuse was, for example, through social media or which platform it was, at the scene when an officer is engaging with someone. The police therefore do not have that data to feed back to Ofcom, for example, as the regulator for online safety, so that it can look for broader patterns of which platforms are being abused or taken advantage of, to take further action. While I take the point about not having too much on there, not having enough data means we cannot actually do some preventive work that is really key for tech abuse. There is no mandatory training for police on tech abuse, despite the fact it is so prevalent.
Q98 Baroness Porter of Fulwood: If we think now beyond the definition, could you say a little about what you think both the positive and the negative impacts more broadly of the Act have been? If you have any insights or views around the DAPO pilots and what you have seen there, if you could share those with us as well, that would be helpful.
Jen Reed: Definitely from a tech perspective, some key strengths are the pattern of controlling and coercive behaviour. There are also the strengths in terms of recognising that you do not need to be living with each other. There is that break in the recognition that domestic meant cohabiting. There has been a further change to relationships that we have seen since the Act was introduced, particularly with younger people. They might be in a relationship with someone they have met through a dating app and, in effect, feel they are dating or in a relationship with for sometimes a long time.
People will sometimes be speaking to their partner for a year or two years before even meeting them in person, or it is never formally established as a relationship and labelled as such, but it feels like they are in a relationship with one party. Then when there is abuse and control—sometimes this overlinks with economic and financial abuse, where people are being requested to send money to people they have met online whom they believe they are in a relationship with—that is not always recognised as close to the person or personally connected necessarily. The perpetrator could say, “I’ve never even met this person, how could you say I am personally connected to them, or I’m in a relationship? She was delusional”. That becomes really unpicked.
Particularly for young people, we have a massive issue in terms of changes for how this is being normalised. Tech abuse is not being recognised by young people for what it is. We have analysed Refuge data that proves that. We have parents who are increasingly tracking locations of their children for safety, and then you go into your first intimate partner relationship and you think it is completely normal to be tracked because you have only ever been tracked. You are sharing your location on Snapchat, and you just live your lives in a different way. Despite the strengths I mentioned at the beginning, one of the downfalls is that we did not necessarily recognise how much tech would actually change intimate relationships. Young people in particular have suffered from that, and women who are within domestic abuse scenarios. That is what we need to get better at.
Q99 Baroness Porter of Fulwood: Do you think the provisions around the protection of children within the Act are sufficient?
Jen Reed: I would not say yes or no to that. If I were redesigning it from scratch, the question would be: can children get the support they need? At the moment, that does not always happen. To your earlier question, it is certainly a strength that the age was lowered to 16. We know that there is abuse and control in relationships that children have when they are under 16. I know there are some people who would call for that age to be even lower, so that people can access domestic violence support earlier, but it is a bit of a grey area. A lot of experts on tech abuse disagree as to whether children can be considered to be a perpetrator of tech abuse, for example.
What we know is that they are victims in their own right. I mentioned earlier the example of AirTags and cameras being sewn into children’s clothes, toys and belongings. It is so commonplace. We also have the level of anonymity that tech gives, if you are not meant to have the same level of access to your child because you are a perpetrator of domestic abuse. To speak bluntly, for example, if you are the father and you are meant to have a visitation order and speak to that child in controlled circumstances, if you can mask your identity and speak to them online through any online platform or through their gaming console, and they do not even know it is you, it completely breaches that.
The ways in which children and young people live their lives in this digital world, there is almost this digital-first expectation. It gives all these other risk vectors for how they can be influenced and impacted by tech abuse, if you have someone who is willing to abuse those platforms and devices.
Baroness Gerada: It sounds like a “Black Mirror” saga.
Jen Reed: It does, but sadly, these are not random isolated cases that we are talking about. It is so widespread. Yes, it is very sad.
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs: Yes, I would say there have been many, many strengths. Certainly at a strategic level, we have seen the understanding of economic abuse and the definition being translated into relevant government policies and strategies, as I have just said. I am thinking about things such as the Financial Inclusion Strategy, which centres economic abuse. It also features in the Homelessness Strategy. The Child Maintenance Service has recently responded through things such as bringing payments into direct pay only, to reduce the ability of perpetrators to continue to control.
Unsurprisingly, the new violence against women and girls strategy very much focuses on economic abuse and makes other commitments. It is introducing something called the Economic Abuse Evidence Form to public agencies such as HMRC. This is a form that was developed by Money Advice Plus and supported by Surviving Economic Abuse in terms of its piloting. It provides evidence of economic abuse, alongside a request letter, usually in relation to debt, asking for that debt to be written off. Again, we have seen a real transformation in terms of understanding that debt that has been coerced should not have to be paid back over decades, that that is not correct, and that we need to find different ways of responding to it. All that is really important.
Similarly, the VAWG strategy talks about government coming together with the big credit reference agencies, lenders and third sector organisations to think about how victim-survivors’ credit ratings can be restored. Some barriers in terms of them moving forward are being addressed. On the negative side, I would say that the more we have understood and the more work we are doing, both in the public and private sectors, the more it has demonstrated a disconnect between the two. A simple example I would give you might be around someone who goes to court and as part of a financial settlement is awarded the property, which is fantastic. However, they then go to the bank, which says, “Actually, you fail the affordability criteria to have this mortgage in your name on that property”.
Certainly, UK Finance, which is the member organisation for banks, has called for some government leadership in relation to this, which I would absolutely agree with. We really need to develop an ecosystem response to victim-survivors to make sure that we have that consistency. Again, if financial services are writing off debt and Government agencies are not, the overall position of the victim-survivor, who will have both public and private debt, is not going to be improved.
Then just to touch on children, inasmuch as the issue of economic abuse affects them as victims in their own right, it is an example of abuse where you really can see that. If a victim and their children are both experiencing the same economic controls, they are absolutely experiencing economic abuse in the same way that their parent is. That is not recognised well enough. There is an argument that is sometimes made around cycles of abuse, where people say that if a child sees their mother experiencing abuse, for example, they are more likely to become a victim of domestic abuse themselves, because somehow this behaviour is normalised.
I would really challenge that, because a lot of children absolutely recognise that that behaviour is wrong. However, because they are experiencing economic deprivation as well, which is impacting their life chances, it is more likely that they are not going to have the personal, social and economic resources they need when they grow up, because of that ongoing impact of the lack of opportunities they have had in life. That therefore means that they have less power, which means they are more targeted by people who would seek to abuse them. The Child Poverty Strategy touches on this, but it does not really understand it in a way that would lead to us having—as Jen said—specific responses to victims as children more broadly, but also specifically to economic abuse. That is not getting nearly enough attention.
The Chair: I am going to do another polite speed-up call, just because we have a bit more to get through.
Professor Lisa Oakley: Can I just answer that one, if I may?
The Chair: Super-briefly, if I may suggest.
Professor Lisa Oakley: I will be really brief. I would say positives are definitely the recognition of coercive control and the different ways in which that can happen, and lowering the age from 18 to 16 is really important, as that is often an area where young people fall between services.
In terms of issues, although we are naming psychological abuse, there is still a lack of understanding of psychological abuse. A study showed that young people could recognise when their parents were perpetrating physical abuse as domestic abuse but not when they were perpetrating psychological abuse, so there is still some work to do there. There is still a lack of understanding around the role that faith and belief can have, but we are going to talk about personal connections, so I will come back to that. That is really key in the area that I work in.
Q100 Baroness Gerada: That is a natural segue, which has been touched on a little by Jen; maybe I will start with you then, Professor Oakley. We have had a lot of evidence, pros and cons of expanding the definition in the Act of how people are personally connected. What is your sense of the expansion of the personally connected, and have you any recommendations for change?
Professor Lisa Oakley: This is one of the key areas; in the area that I work in, it is something that is talked about in terms of domestic abuse quite a lot. How it currently stands would not apply to relationships within faith communities, for example. I want to make it clear that I am not saying that is where domestic abuse just happens, but that is my area of research. It is very common within faith and religious communities for people to use the notion of family, for example, and to even use language like “brothers” and “sisters” to interact in ways that resemble family. But the current definition of personally connected would not cover that.
You have asked me to be succinct, so I am going to be really succinct. I know the arguments for and against: if you expand it, where do you finish with that expansion? I can completely understand that, but in this whole process of revisiting I wonder whether we should think about what it means to be personally connected? If we do not want to expand what we currently have, how then do we cover the relationships that are not covered by this current definition? We either need to revise it or consider how we address the gaps that there are.
Baroness Gerada: Thank you for that. I am going to move on to Jen, but we have heard evidence about people being called “auntie” when they are not actually auntie, they are distant relatives. Jen, you have already touched on it with fake people online. What is your sense, then, of the expansion of the personally connected? In the digital world, we have no idea who we are in contact with.
Jen Reed: It is so much harder, and this is the problem. For the sake of speed, I will not repeat some of the points I made earlier but you are quite right, that is how it comes through. The key point I would add on those messages is how people, victims and survivors, are treated. We do not address that within this personally connected element at the moment, which is that quite often when coercive control and economic abuse happen in those online spaces, people are told that the route to redress is through harassment, and you are being harassed; it is not necessarily recognised as abuse or they are told that it is an online safety issue and you should contact the platform. Refuge have said that 95% of the people they deal with who contacted the social media platform were not satisfied with the response they received. It is very often inadequate and, because it is occurring online, it sends you to a different part of the system and victim-survivors get ping-ponged all over the place.
Q101 Baroness Gerada: The statutory definition of domestic abuse defines it in a gender-neutral way. Has this had any consequence for how the type of abuse that you are an expert in is treated by statutory agencies in your areas? In financial services, for example, do you have any views on whether it has had any change?
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs: It is a bit tricky, but obviously sometimes how you frame an issue will dictate how it is responded to. When you are talking about domestic abuse, it is disproportionately experienced by women because it is reinforced by their inequality. Certainly when I am looking at economic abuse, I am thinking about their economic inequality, which is often hidden in plain sight.
I am just thinking of a police officer who might say, “Well, on the accusation that this person is looking after your money, they say it is because they are better at looking after money and they just want to look after you”. That is quite difficult to prove one way or the other. That brings me back to my broader piece around really understanding what is going on more broadly and understanding the different experiences of women and men. I am a little on the fence in terms of whether the legislation itself needs to be gendered; certainly the translation into practice absolutely has to be.
Baroness Gerada: Many of your examples are men exerting abusive control on women around finance, is that right?
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs: Many of my examples are because it operates within that context of coercive and controlling behaviour that women are more likely to experience as opposed to men, and because of their higher level of risk. At the same time, economic abuse can be perpetrated by women, maybe because it is slightly easier than perpetrating physical abuse, for example. Economic abuse is also very common post separation, because you do not need that physical proximity; actually, you do not even need to know where someone lives.
Baroness Gerada: We heard evidence of grandparent abuse—can I call it?—by grandchildren and children, which presumably is very common.
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs: Yes, that actually goes back to the piece around the connections and how they are defined in terms of relationships. I would say that the definition works very well in terms of personally connected, certainly in terms of ex-partners, people you have been married to or have had a civil partnership with.
But if you are thinking about adult children who are abusing older parents—I am thinking from an economic abuse perspective—that usually would be taking advantage of the fact that they have a caring responsibility and that their older parent has become confused. It is easier for them to perpetrate economic abuse, but not usually in that context of control; usually it is in terms of a motivation of economic gain. So if we then try to respond to those scenarios in the same way as domestic abuse as a form of coercive control more broadly, that response is inappropriate. Such things as risk assessment tools are not helpful in terms of getting to the issue and then responding appropriately.
Baroness Gerada: Briefly then, Lisa or Jen, do you have anything to add around the gender-neutral aspect? Again, we have to be brief.
Professor Lisa Oakley: I will be very brief. It is really important to recognise that domestic abuse is gendered. In the work we have done, we have actually seen that teachings around men, women, husbands and wives can actually be part of their experience of domestic abuse. We need to find a way for there to be a recognition that domestic abuse can be perpetrated across genders, but also a recognition that it is a gendered experience that people have.
Jen Reed: I would add two very quick points. First, tech abuse has a gender imbalance in terms of how it is perpetrated. Quite often, and I will be blunt here for the sake of brevity, men and boys will either understate the role that tech can play or massively overstate it. For example, overstating might be, “You cannot leave the house because if you do and you try to leave me, I have friends on the dark web, they will be able to find you. Nowhere is safe. Everywhere is watching you”. The other extreme is under-reporting—“What do you mean you think you are being watched? That is nonsense”—when actually there are hidden cameras in every room. We have some really extreme examples of that.
The real concern here for the gender dimension is the absolute explosion that we have seen in online misogyny and radicalisation of young boys online in recent spaces and how mostly online spaces are reinventing, reinforcing or pushing ideas such as the glorification of rape and love myths that she will behave a certain way: “If she really loves you, why would she not allow you to track her location? If you are in that relationship, you are all in, that is what a relationship is”.
Baroness Gerada: What did you call that?
Jen Reed: Glorification of rape culture online and the broader manosphere culture. A lot of young boys who have never had a relationship before are googling what it is like to be in a relationship. They will go into these forums, and that is what they are seeing as normal. If we do not do more to tackle that, it will feed through into what their first relationship looks like and how abusive they are. There is so much evidence about how what you have experienced as a child already in domestic abuse settings and what you have witnessed will filter through to your likelihood of being in a violent relationship when you are older, or being more susceptible to that. Now you do not even need to be witnessing it in the home, you can witness it online: you google it and you are shown how to do it; there are manuals. It is outrageous.
In terms of future-proofing the legislation and the guidance and understanding how this happens, we have to get ahead of that. That is a huge issue in terms of recognising the gender aspect, and we know that boys do not necessarily see those issues as clearly as girls do. The overwhelming majority of nudify apps—if I put a photo of you in the app, it would take your clothes off—are designed to only work on girls’ and women’s bodies. They are not designed to work on men’s bodies; they are for boys to use. Boys will laugh about that much more than girls will, who recognise the seriousness of it. To pretend that gender balance does not exist is—
Baroness Gerada: Rubbish?
Jen Reed: Yes.
The Chair: I am going to hop forward, because we have touched a bit on the 16 to 18 point. I am going to go to Lord Polak, who I know worked very hard when the Bill was going through on recognising the impact on children.
Q102 Lord Polak: I am just following on what was just being said there. The issue of children has come right across in all the discussions throughout. What sort of impact has the fact that the Act now defines children as victims in their own right had on the areas that you are experts in and dealing with?
The Chair: Would anyone like to go first? I am looking at Nic.
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs: I addressed that answer in a previous question, so, for time, I will stand aside.
Jen Reed: Similarly, I would say it has not addressed it properly because tech abuse is not properly referenced in the Bill. That is potentially why we are seeing such an explosion: it has not sufficiently addressed it.
Professor Lisa Oakley: I am not a front-line practitioner, so I cannot answer from that perspective. It is really important to recognise children as victims in their own right. But if you are in a context where faith and belief are used to control, actually the way in which the Act recognises victims might not actually have that much impact on the ground because of the belief systems that might be around that might prevent children and young people being able even to know that abuse is happening.
If you are in a community where the body is not talked about, where the value is very much on family, where there are lots of messages and teachings against speaking out, which might even be done positively, then the extension of the Act with the inclusion of that is really important. But we have to have a reality check about how it might actually impact in practice in that kind of circumstance.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I am dying to ask you another question, but then I would be breaking my own rule on timing, so that would not be allowed. You have all given us fantastically detailed, helpful advice and genuinely advanced our understanding on all the three aspects that you have talked about. We are really grateful to you. If there are any points that you feel you would like to reiterate, follow-up in writing or wish that you had said and did not feel that I gave you time to do so, I am sorry, but please feel free to be in touch. With that, this public session is now ended.
