We will tackle “epidemic of violence” against women and girls, say Labour

Labour announces plans to introduce rape courts and a register those guilty of domestic violence

Labour have announced plans to tackle the rising number violent crimes committed against women and girls.

The plans, which were announced at Labour’s annual conference, include a register to tackle the rising cases of violence against women and girls.

The plans would mean those found guilty of domestic violence would be placed onto a register to monitor their behaviour.

Those placed onto the register would be forced to surrender personal information to the police and notify of any change in circumstances.

The plans would aim to allow police to track previous offenders more easily.

This follows latest figures which show cases of domestic violence have risen by nearly 10% in the year ending April 2022 to 909,504.

There was also a rise in the number of stalking and harassment cases which have risen by 15% in the year ending March 2022.

The Labour plans also include the introduction of specialise rape courts to help with the backlog of cases of sexual assault.

Currently, rape victims are having to wait 706 days on average to go to court, a government report found.

The plans were to implement specialists rape courts in every Crown court in the country, which Shadow Justice Minister, Ellie Reeves, says would priorities rape trials and contain specialist staff, trained to handle such cases.

This follows a pilot scheme for rape courts which was implemented in August will aim to cut down on the time taken for these cases by training court staff, police and prosecutors in specialist trauma training in order to tailor towards providing greater care during rape trials, and preceding them.

Shadow Justice Secretary, Steve Reed, said the plans would counter the “epidemic of violence” against women and girls. He added:

“We need to fix this broken system. We need a review from end to end of the entire criminal justice system and everything that affects and causes a young or old person to offend and reoffend.

Labour will get a grip of the Tories’ failure to tackle the epidemic of violence against women and girls – with improved monitoring of domestic abuse perpetrators, longer jail terms for rapists, and more rights for victims.

It’s time to put those suffering at the hands of offenders first.”

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