Help Stop Clare's Law being a woman only law - make all UK Law equal to Men and Women by writing to your MP!

Help Stop Clare's Law being a woman only law - make all UK Law equal to Men and Women by writing to your MP!

By Dark Politricks

If you read my latest article you will know I was a bit annoyed about the new Clare's Law which was being brought into the UK nationwide.

This law would let women ask the local Police for any criminal history about their new partner. The new law would not apply to men who make up 40% of all domestic abuse victims.

The disturbing thing about this law is that it divides our judicial system into a sexist one where one law exists for men and another for women.

Also the police are able to give out "suspicions" and "allegations" to the inquisitive woman which might not be truthful or correct.

How many vindictive women are out there which would claim that their ex partner beat or abused them because they are upset or jealous that they split up?

I don't know, but I do know that we have had multiple recent court cases where women have been prosecuted and sometimes jailed for making false claims of rape against men. The most recent one being the case of Natasha Foster who was jailed for 3 years for making up a claim of rape against an ex boyfriend.

Therefore if you think this new law couldn't in any way affect you then think again.

Not only could your current partner lie and make a false claim of abuse but just by alleging an offence took place, even if it didn't result in a court case, it could still be treated as an "allegation" serious enough to be given out to future partners.

Also old crimes that should be "spent" after a period of time under the 1974 Rehabilitation of Offenders Act will still be eligible for the Police to give out to future partners even if the crime happened many years ago. This goes against the whole point of the 1974 law as the crime is not even supposed to be on your record any more.

This turns the whole concept of our criminal justice act on its head. Supposedly, under this law, once you have spent your crime you are "rehabilitated" and therefore allowed to not mention it on job application forms of other legal documents that ask about criminal convictions.

This new Clare's Law, like the Criminal Records Bureau checks before it, have totally negated the nature of the 1974 Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and could throw any chance of rehabilitation away for ex-offenders.

For example if you had a fight with a man 20 years ago this should supposedly be "spent" and no longer on your record. You should be able to apply to jobs and not even mention the event.

However under Clare's Law the police could give this information out if they felt it was "relevant". This in itself is leaving a very important matter up to a low-level Police officer rather than a Judge or Magistrate.

Here is what is "supposed" to happen when you have committed a crime and then "spend" it by passing a specified length of time which is dependant on the seriousness and nature of the offence.

I quote directly from the Home Offices own page on the law:

Subject to subsection (2) below, where an individual has been convicted, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, of any offence or offences, and the following conditions are satisfied, that is to say—

(a)he did not have imposed on him in respect of that conviction a sentence which is excluded from rehabilitation under this Act; and

(b)he has not had imposed on him in respect of a subsequent conviction during the rehabilitation period applicable to the first-mentioned conviction in accordance with section 6 below a sentence which is excluded from rehabilitation under this Act;

then, after the end of the rehabilitation period so applicable (including, where appropriate, any extension under section 6(4) below of the period originally applicable to the first-mentioned conviction) or, where that rehabilitation period ended before the commencement of this Act, after the commencement of this Act, that individual shall for the purposes of this Act be treated as a rehabilitated person in respect of the first-mentioned conviction and that conviction shall for those purposes be treated as spent.

Read the full law here: The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

Therefore after my earlier rant I wrote to my local MP about this matter and I got a response back telling me that he will raise the matter with the Home Secretary.

Here is the letter I received:

 

Dear Mr ....

Thank you for your email in which you pose some interesting questions which I shall submit to the Home secretary.  I shall let you know when I have a reply.

Best wishes

Sir Gerald Howarth MP Member of Parliament for Aldershot House of Commons London SW1A 0AA

 

Therefore I suggest anyone else, male or female, who is concerned about our whole criminal justice system being split into two - one for men and another for women, complain to their MP, or directly to the Home Secretary ASAP.

You can find your local MP and contact them directly online here > http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/

Here is the letter I sent to my own MP. If you cannot think of your own version feel free to copy it and change wording as you see fit.

Dear [YOUR MP's NAME],

Can I enquire about the introduction of the new "Clare's law" which is apparently going to be rolled out across the country.

From the news reports it seems that this law is only going to apply to women even though a reported 40% of victims of domestic violence are now men.

I quote directly from a report made from Home Office statistics which was reported in the Observer > http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/sep/05/men-victims-domestic-violence

"About two in five of all victims of domestic violence are men, contradicting the widespread impression that it is almost always women who are left battered and bruised, a new report claims.

Men assaulted by their partners are often ignored by police, see their attacker go free and have far fewer refuges to flee to than women, says a study by the men's rights campaign group Parity.

The charity's analysis of statistics on domestic violence shows the number of men attacked by wives or girlfriends is much higher than thought. Its report, Domestic Violence: The Male Perspective, states:

"Domestic violence is often seen as a female victim/male perpetrator problem, but the evidence demonstrates that this is a false picture."

Data from Home Office statistical bulletins and the British Crime Survey show that men made up about 40% of domestic violence victims each year between 2004-05 and 2008-09, the last year for which figures are available. In 2006-07 men made up 43.4% of all those who had suffered partner abuse in the previous year, which rose to 45.5% in 2007-08 but fell to 37.7% in 2008-09."

Therefore can I ask you the following questions:

-Will men be able to find out if potential new female partners are violent and in this age of supposed equality surely any law should be equally applicable to men and women?

-What actual information will be given out to women enquiring about their partner?

-How does this new law effect the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 in which convictions are supposedly "spent" after a number of years. For example if I was arrested and convicted for a street fight against another man when I was 18 will that information be given out?

-What about if a women had made a false claim of rape against me which led to no charge or conviction? From the reporting it seems that even "accusations" true or not can be given out. How would that effect men who have been falsely accused of rape or other violent crimes.

-How are you going to handle "deliberate" misleading reports of domestic abuse by former partners who are upset that their relationships have broken up. I can see no better way for an annoyed ex to get back at me than claim to the Police that I hit or abused her and therefore ensure any future partner I might have could be told about it. It could potentially ruin relationships and allow manipulative women to purposefully ruin lives.

Also I would like to state that in a country where we are all supposedly innocent until found guilty the only way guilt is proven is by a conviction in a court of law.

Therefore giving out "accusations" and "rumours" goes against a supposed long standing maxim of our country that all are equal under the law until proven guilty.

Can you please ask the Home Secretary how she can claim we live under the rule of law when it is not applied equally to all?

Surely in this day and age of female equality when websites exist that let women brag about beating men up > http://www.likelike.com/pollcommentary/2408 we should all be equal under the law, rather than having two sets of laws dependant on the sex you are born as.

Yours sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]

 

Hopefully if enough of us can get questions raised in Parliament or MP's actually thinking about the consequences of their new laws they may think again.

I have no problem with sensible measures to protect women from horrible domestic abuse.

However any law in a democratically country should be equally applied and it should not negate previous laws in doing so.

Please help our politicians understand this.  

View the original article on Clare's Law an unfair law to be rolled out across the country here on the main site www.darkpolitricks.com

Read the The response from my MP to Clare's Law on my main site: http://www.darkpolitricks.com