Following new legislation proposed in the Criminal Justice Bill, people who are convicted of child rape will automatically lose their parental responsibilities for their own children.
This comes shortly after Jade’s Law, which is currently proceeding through the Lords as part of the Victims and Prisoners Bill. This involves automatically losing parental responsibility when the perpetrator has murdered the partner with whom they share children.
Alex Chalk KC, Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, stated:
“Our priority will always be to make sure the best interests of children are protected.
This new law will ensure they are automatically safeguarded against those whose despicable actions have shown them to utterly lack any nurturing and caring instincts.”
The purpose of this amendment is to offer additional safeguards and protections for innocent parents. Although the Court does have the power to revoke parental responsibility in scenarios when best for the child, at present, it requires families and former partners of the offender to initiate and finance the legal proceedings in order to obtain these orders for the protection of their children and these costs can equal to tens of thousands of pounds.
However, under the new amendment, parental responsibility will instantly be suspended, meaning the offender will no longer be able to jointly make important decisions on behalf of the child such as changing schools, whether or not they go on holiday, therapeutic support, etc.
Next, the case will be referred to the Family Court, in which the offender would need to prove to a Judge that it is in the child’s best interest to be reinstated parental responsibility.
Laura Farris, Justice Minister, comments:
“It is right that those who commit the most vile and unspeakable act against children should have their parental responsibility automatically removed rather than this being something the innocent parent is required to apply for.
I want to thank those who have campaigned for this change including Harriet Harman and Sanchia Berg for bringing this issue to the fore.”
The new legislation will be reviewed after three years in order to ensure its efficacy for victims and innocent parties and to explore avenues for further refinement.
Below are the proposed amendments the Government has made to the Criminal Justice Bill:
- Bring in a new offence of creating sexually explicit deepfake images, meaning those who create such images without consent, either for their own sexual satisfaction or to cause distress or humiliation, will face criminal charges and limitless fines.
- Introduce a new legal aggravating element to address perpetrators who cause death through degrading, abusive or threatening sexual behaviour. This is to help ensure that offenders of so-called ‘rough sex’ killings get given stricter sentences than previously.
- Improve the law regarding sexual activity in the presence of a child. This involves eliminating the requirement to prove that offenders, knew, intended, or deemed that the child was aware of the sexual act, this will stop any oversight in prosecutions.
- Review the language of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, to clearly state in law and to the public that spiking is illegal.
As said above the Government previously changed the Victims and Prisoners Bill to implement an automatic suspension of parental responsibility in the extremely sad cases where one parent has murdered the other one this is referred to as ‘Jade’s Law’.
Named after Jade Ward who was tragically killed by her former partner, see our previous blog here for further details of this case.
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