Labour MP Ruth Jones will put forward a Bill on Tuesday calling for pets to be recognised in domestic molestation orders as research shows abusers manipulate their victims’ love for animals
A Labour MP will today put forward new legislation calling for domestic abuse laws to be beefed up.
Ruth Jones will urge ministers to adopt Ruby’s Law – which would give courts more power to recognise pet abuse as a form of coercion. Ms Jones told The Mirror : “The Government has said that we’re pushing an open door, but I want to translate it into action.
“At the moment pets are not even recognised. So if the perpetrator is using a pet as a form of coercive control, that’s not recognised in the family law courts.
“And then obviously women are staying because they want to protect the pet. And the thought of the partner killing the pet is too terrible. And then they stay when they should be fleeing.”
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Ms Jones, MP for Newport West and Islwyn, will put forward a Bill calling for non-molestation orders to cover pets. It would also allow courts to decide who retains care of an animal, and ensure they are safe.
She said: “At the moment judges are sympathetic, but they haven’t got the tools or the armory they need. There’s nothing in law that actually recognises a pet is seen as a member of the family by the people in distress.”
Ruby’s Law was devised by lawyer Christina Warner, who has been frustrated at courts’ inability to recognise the bond between victims and their pets – and the way this can be manipulated. She named it after her own beloved cat.
Ms Warner told The Mirror: “Pet abuse is a widespread, insidious part of domestic abuse. Protecting pets helps protect the whole family.
“Every threat to a pet in an abusive household is a threat to the human survivors. Recognising this is crucial for meaningful protection.
“In abusive households, pets are often silent victims. Protecting them is essential to protecting the people who love them.”
She said pet abuse is often a deliberate tactic used by abusers to control and intimidate their victims. It comes days after the Government’s animal welfare chief, Baroness Hayman, said the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is looking at ways to break the link.
She said: “You’ve got this coercive control issue, by which people who are suffering from domestic violence can be manipulated and exploited, and it’s much, much harder to leave.
“It’s hard to leave anyway, it becomes much harder to leave if you’re concerned about leaving your pet behind.”
In October a grim study by the National Centre for Domestic Violence (NCDV) found thousands of cases where abusers used pets to control their victims. The charity’s analysis of over 64,000 witness statements found one in 15 contained an explicit mention of threats, harm or risk to pets. This is a barrier to leaving and a marker of heightened risk, it said.