Treat misogyny as a hate crime, say MPs, as they lay amendment to change law

Misogyny should be treated as a hate crime, say women MPs, as they put forward an amendment to incorporate it in the Government’s new domestic abuse laws.

The legal change would require police forces to record misogyny as a hate crime including, for the first time, in domestic abuse cases.

Five police forces - Nottinghamshire Police, North Yorkshire, Somerset and Avon, and Northamptonshire - already treat misogyny as a hate crime but the amendment would extend it to all constabularies.

A coalition of groups and MPs including Women’s Aid, the Fawcett Society, Refuge and Citizens UK are backing the change and say it would enable police and support agencies to build a picture of the scale of the problem, better help victims and combat such prejudices.

It would be the first step towards further legislation - currently being considered by the law commission - that would make misogyny a hate crime in its own right alongside racial or religious hatred.

“Misogyny is so ingrained in society that we need to count it rather than discount it,” said Stella Creasy, a Labour MP who is part of the coalition.

Nottinghamshire police were the first to record misogynistic hate crimes, from 2016, including stalking, groping, indecent assault and kidnapping.

They have since extended it to include domestic abuse where, it is argued by the coalition, women are more likely to experience repeated and severe forms of abuse, including sexual violence.

It says they are also more likely to have experienced sustained physical, psychological or emotional abuse, or violence which results in injury or death.

The amendment would require all police forces in England and Wales to “record any crimes where the victim, or any other person, perceived the crime to be motivated by this hostility or perceived the perpetrator to have demonstrated hostility in committing the crime.”

The coalition said: “This amendment would help to bring together the understanding of the forms of violence and abuse women and girls experience by ensuring all were recorded.”

Helen Voce, chief executive of Nottingham Women’s Centre, said: “Misogyny is the soil in which violence against women grows.”

The amendment is being presented by Lisa Jardine, a LibDem MP, and Liz Saville Roberts, leader of Plaid Cymru in the Commons.

It comes as another cross party group of MPs tabled another amendment that would put serial domestic abusers and stalkers on the sex offenders register and subject them to restrictions such as electronic tagging.

Three of the most senior women MPs in Parliament - Yvette Cooper, Caroline Nokes and Harriet Harman - have recommended that domestic abusers and stalking offenders would be on VISOR, the violent and sex offender register.

This would mean they would be subject to checks by police and probation and have to report any changes in their circumstances to officers.

If they failed to do so or breached the register by failing to reveal their address, bank account, travel plans, employer’s details and car registration, they could immediately be subject to national police alert and potential prosecution.

The three MPs - who all chair influential select committees - also propose that the domestic abusers and stalking offenders should be subject to similar monitoring and supervision as terrorists or the most violent criminals.

The so-called MAPPA (Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements) can include electronic tagging, restrictions on who they can contact and where they can go, their access to computers and the internet and their mobile phone use.

Ms Cooper, who chairs the home affairs committee, said: “Domestic abuse and stalking destroy lives. There are too many heartbreaking stories of people who have suffered terribly or even lost their lives as a result of domestic abuse or stalking by someone who had committed similar atrocious crimes before.

'That’s why we need much stronger action against serial abusers who go from victim to victim, and arrangements to track and monitor those perpetrators in order to protect future victims and prevent further abuse. 

Ms Nokes chairs the Women and Equalities Select Committee and Ms Harman chairs tthe Joint Committee on Human Rights. Also backed by Rosie Duffield MP.