Legal News

Along with harassment two specific criminal offences of stalking have been introduced in England and Wales for the first time the government is also providing new support for reducing domestic and sexual violence, and female genital mutilation (FGM).
The Home Office minister Jeremy Browne said stalking was an appalling crime that destroys life. The impact on a victims life could be devastating and the government was doing all it could to make sure they were given the protection they needed with no fear to life.
The new offences would be adding more strength to the harassment offence in the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 by providing extra protection for victims, highlighting the seriousness of stalking on the victims and help bring the offenders to justice.
He also announced more support for tackling violence against women and girls. This includes a £150,000 fund for domestic homicide reviews to help prevent domestic violence tragedies, and the launch of a declaration against FGM and £50,000 funding to support frontline agencies tackling the problem.
One in four women in the UK are expected to be the victim of domestic abuse in their lifetime and over the past year more than 300,000 were sexually assaulted and 60,000 raped.
The equalities minister Helen Grant said new stalking offences would ensure victims of this heinous crime were better protected and will bring more offenders to justice.
She added that government’s efforts were to end all forms of violence against women and girls. But it must be ensured that if people are affected by crime than the right kind of help is available.
One of the methods was to provide funding which the government was doing as £40m of government funding has been put in place for organisations that did so much to help victims, often with so little at their disposal. Even the way wider funding is provided for victims services have been changed and have been made to match to the problems faced in local communities.
Lynne Featherstone, the ministerial champion for tackling violence against women and girls overseas, said the government was also working in over 20 countries to tackle violence against women and girls.
She said her role was to ensure that mindset of people were changed to allow women to live free from the threat of violence.
In particularly, ending the horrific practice of FGM by putting it on the mainstream development agenda by encouraging others to step in with much-needed political and financial resources.