WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBER 2002

MS JANE MORRICE, MS ANGELA COURTNEY OBE AND MR CHRIS LYTTLE

  420. You can drive a car when you are a child.
  (Ms Morrice) I am a very keen protagonist of road safety and I will not go into the details here about what I would recommend in terms certainly of young men driving from the age of 17 to 25. I totally appreciate that a lethal weapon is a lethal weapon and cars can often be used in those cases. I suppose that is a different debate which would take a lot longer.

  Chairman: I just thought it was a little more apposite than having the vote perhaps, which can be a lethal weapon in some cases, as some of us have discovered.

  421. You called for a ban on handguns to be introduced in Northern Ireland as a move towards the normalisation of society. How would such a ban enhance public safety? Would not there be a danger that introducing such a ban at this time would leave individuals vulnerable to attack?
  (Ms Morrice) We totally understand and totally accept that and that is why in my introduction I said that we saw this ban on handguns as part of the overall normalisation package, if you like, with decommissioning, demilitarisation, disarmament in terms of what the aspirations are and where the police are going, and Dunblane, the introduction of the handgun ban. We are totally aware of the issue of personal protection weapons and the need for people to have these because of the threat. Therefore we are not necessarily saying that it should take place tomorrow. We recognise that there are certain circumstances in Northern Ireland where, if it was brought in, exceptions would have to be made because of the security situation or we could be working towards it as part of the normalisation process. The point I am making is that eventually, when we arrive at a situation that we are trying to work towards here in terms of peace, security and stability, Dunblane should be part of that process and I have not heard that debate being run here in Northern Ireland. I do not know why. I believe that there is a gun culture here. I have talked about gun rule but I believe that there is a reluctance to leave the gun behind. I think it is very important that from all sections we should be working towards taking it away. I do not know whether Chris or Angela would like to come in on this.
  (Ms Courtnay) I would say that when we are drafting legislation it is really important that we look at the values that we want to aspire to. We have to have legislation and personal protection weapons are important; we all acknowledge that, but we should take every opportunity that we can to say, "Look: we are moving to a society where there are not guns, where we have less investment in power and control and more respect for people", and we feel that it is a worthy aspiration to include such a clause in the legislation.

  422. I accept that that is a worthy aspiration. Have you given any consideration as to how individuals who currently carry personal protection weapons could be protected if handguns were banned?
  (Ms Morrice) In my answer I was saying that we are hoping to arrive at a situation where people will no longer need that protection because there is no longer the threat or the risk. This could be Utopia perhaps but it is something we are all trying to work towards. We totally recognise that we should not reduce the protection that people have but that if it were the case that the gun control network was advocating an immediate introduction of the Dunblane legislation it would have to be recognised that there would possibly be exceptions in terms of the Secretary of State's issuing of licences for personal protection weapons. It is a recognition of the importance of it but at the same time a recognition of the need to move to a situation where they are no longer needed. I hope that makes it clear.

  423. Have you any evidence and, if so, how far does it reach on the number of legally held weapons that have been used in this strife within Northern Ireland? Is it a difficulty not so much of the control of legally held weapons as the control of illegally held weapons?
  (Ms Morrice) We have some interesting statistics here. It depends on exactly what we are talking about when we talk about the strife in Northern Ireland. Let us look at the interesting statistics that we turned up for just this year in terms of legally held weapons. There have been 107 cases this year of licences being revoked. A number of those cases were instances of domestic violence, but there were 107 cases where licences have been revoked. That means that responsible holders of firearms have been irresponsible and these firearms have been in dangerous hands in some way if the licences have been revoked. I do not know whether that is a suitable answer to the question. It has only been going for this past year but I think it is important to bring it in here.

  424. It is certainly a very interesting answer. Do you have any details of whether they were revoked because they had been lost or they had fallen into the wrong hands or misused? Can you break down that 107? Or maybe some people no longer needed them.
  (Ms Morrice) I will pass to Angela who has the breakdown, certainly for domestic violence cases.

  425. We are coming to domestic violence in a moment. The hub is the reasons they were revoked. We want to go into the whole use or misuse over domestic violence but if we can leave that one separately, are some of those 107, for example, because the person was no longer considered to be at risk or was it because he had lost the weapon or used it incorrectly or what?
  (Ms Morrice) We got this information with the intention of using it for our domestic violence debate with you, so therefore we have only got details about the 19 recorded incidents in terms of domestic violence. Of the 107 19 were domestic violence related, actual shots discharged, threats to use a gun, one person shot, etc, attempts to self-harm being included in that. We do not have the remaining 80 or so but I certainly would advise the Committee that it might be very useful to research those facts.

  Chairman: I had just written a note to the Clerk saying do we have them and we need them, but that was before Reverend Smyth started on his question. I am sorry I interrupted.

  426. I wanted to follow that through because you did use the little word "if" and we are looking forward to having evidence so that we can analyse it. Can I refer to your suggestion that in the use of air weapons to attack pets, wild animals and people the numbers of those incidents are on the rise? What evidence has been collected on this?
  (Ms Morrice) We have letters from constituents, for example, and I have evidence in my own constituency that certainly there is an apparent increase in the harming of persons, property, animals, etc, as a result of air guns. I certainly know that in the Gun Control Network submission to yourselves they had given you clippings from newspapers in England and I think there are pieces in Nottingham as well that there have been those incidents. I am sorry that I have not got the list that I could give you for Northern Ireland but it is obvious that children are using these for fun, and fun often for children, unfortunately, is not necessarily what we would define it as in our terms for many children on the street, so I think it is very important that we regulate those.

  427. Am I right in inferring from that answer that a lot of those newspaper cuttings have referred to incidents outside Northern Ireland or are they all from Northern Ireland? I am aware of some incidents but I am trying to find out what is the evidence of an increase in the usage.
  (Ms Morrice) No, the newspaper cuttings I was referring to from the Gun Control Network were in England, in fact. No, we have not done the research in terms of the incidents because they are newspaper cuttings and I do not think that there is comprehensive research done in this area. I could quote you specific incidents in Bangor, although I do not think that that necessarily would be appropriate because some of them are not known to the press and there was a very difficult incident which could have been very serious had it been in the press because it looked as if it was not necessarily an airgun. It looked as if it had been a real gun, and therefore it could have involved the situation in Northern Ireland in something much more sinister, but it was not a real gun. That is another problem in terms of the use of these weapons, whether they are air guns or guns, that they could be misconstrued as being something more sinister than they actually are here in Northern Ireland.

  428. I appreciate that and we will have to follow that one through. I am aware of one incident in south Belfast. I am not aware of where the last incident took place prior to that. In your submission to us you made reference to combat games. I would like your views as to whether the Order could be amended to allow the use of low powered air weapons in combat games such as paintball, while still restricting access to other low powered weapons such as pellet guns. I ask you that in the light of your last answer because it might have been an imitation weapon and therefore if the Order could be so amended how would you suggest it might be amended?
  (Ms Morrice) You are talking about amending the Order to allow for paintball games but keeping restricted access to pellet guns, etc?

  429. Yes.
  (Ms Morrice) I am sorry; I am not a legislative draftsperson so I could not write it out for you, but I am assuming it could be done. Yes, I would hope that it could possibly be amended to do just that in terms of what you are saying because we do not see a problem necessarily with the likes of paintball games and in the tourism industry that might be interesting. Can I just add a point here which is something that I did not bring into the issue on under-18s, which is video games. I think this has to be seriously taken into consideration when we are talking about extending these licences to children. I do not know whether any of you have had the opportunity to view any of these video games that our children are exposed to, but these are killing games and children are being taught how to kill on video and it is very dangerous when they can be vulnerable to influence from that sort of thing. It could affect children in the outside world, outside of the video game, so that is something that I would also like to put on record as an important issue when considering extending this to children.

  430. Good afternoon. First of all, it is refreshing when you say that you represent a body of opinion which is different from the evidence that we have received. I think you are correct in saying that the majority of the evidence we have received has been from the gun lobby rather than the anti-gun lobby, so we very much welcome your evidence. I want to take up the comments you have just made about violence in the home. We started talking about children and video games but of course a lot of your submission and your comments were related to domestic violence per se, and indeed you quote studies from 1996 saying that the high possession rate of firearms in Northern Ireland has been a significant factor in the nature of domestic violence in Northern Ireland compared with the rest of the UK. I have one or two questions around that. I just wondered, given the presence of Angela Courtnay, if you would like to outline your evidence to us before I ask those questions.
  (Ms Courtnay) One of the main studies in this area of taking domestic violence seriously was by Monica Williams. During 1989 I have the report of the murders of female victims and male victims and attempted murders and out of all of those cases we have a wife of 27 shot by a 30-year old husband. He got life imprisonment for murder and he shot dead his wife with a legally held gun. The male victim was 41. His wife was the same age. She shot dead her husband with a legally held gun but she was acquitted because there was previous domestic violence by her husband. From my experience it is very common that when women are subjected to domestic violence they think that one quick and easy solution would be to use the gun. In some cases the gun is kept under the pillow, it is used as a threat. It is so common. Domestic violence is endemic in our society. The culture of power and control and "might is right" is rife. I was horrified when the police told me that they had 80,000 firearms files and I thought, "Oh, my God, all of those families". They are not all at risk. I have done training with the police on domestic violence and I know there are so many trustworthy people, but out of 80,000 in Northern Ireland I know there are a lot of people at risk, just extrapolating from that. Just to go on about the attempted murder, malicious wounding, a 22-year old defendant shot his victim with a legally held gun during an argument. There was a previous history of domestic violence by the accused towards the injured party there. When I asked a police colleague yesterday what evidence they could give me the response was, "We are looking at our systems and we are concerned about this". I know they are concerned about looking at all the statistics on domestic violence but in terms of firearms I was told that the police have the power to revoke firearms if there is deemed to be a risk, and that the form they are using currently does ask, "Is there a firearm involved?", and if there is they have the powers to revoke the licence. During this year from January the police attended 19 domestic violence incidents involving a firearm. Nine involved threats to use; in one there was discharge where there was injury; in three there was discharge but there were no injuries; there were three threats to self-harm and the other three there was not any information on. That is only from January and that was a very quick delve into the records.

  431. Do you mean just the month of January or from January to now?
  (Ms Courtnay) From January to now. We are a small population, of course, one and a half million in an area the size of Yorkshire.

  432. Domestic violence continues to be under-reported, misunderstood.
  (Ms Courtnay) Yes.

  433. I think it is an issue that society is in general waking up to in this decade more than any other but we still have a long way to go. Let us be clear what you are saying. What you are saying and what the evidence is suggesting is that it is the presence of the gun that leads to the severity of the crimes you have mentioned. In other words, the domestic violence continues but the ease of access and the presence of the gun make the possibility of serious offence, in this case murder or suicide, more likely. Is that what the evidence is suggesting?
  (Ms Courtnay) The evidence would suggest that to me and certainly the threat of a gun is very real.

  434. So a society whose gun control laws are looser than those of another would expect more suicides, more murders through domestic violence, than another, and if we as a Committee looked perhaps at incidents of domestic violence in the USA, which has a lot looser gun controls than European countries, we would find that same correlation as we have found in a smaller degree between Northern Ireland and the UK?
  (Ms Courtnay) I would expect so.

  435. My next question is about how we resolve this potential problem in as much as do we legislate or do we ensure that the current administrative procedures are tightened and/or changed? What I am suggesting, and I would like some comment and advice on, is whether or not we feel presently that the licensing system does allow for guns to be removed because of the threat of domestic violence before an incident has occurred. I would like some comment on your views as to whether or not that is happening or is not happening and whether or not we should tighten up the administration or re-legislate.
  (Ms Courtnay) I am not sure whether it is an either/or situation. I would not have enough access to the figures to know. Certainly the legislation should ensure that all administrative arrangements are as watertight as possible. I know that the police do take the issue of domestic violence seriously. They have done a lot of training involving ourselves and they would recognise, as we do, that the way they are called out it is only the tip of the iceberg. Legislation is important, public education is important, and administration is important. I do not think we can divorce them from each other. We have to say that in this area we have to act responsibly, so it is about responsible legislation, it is about responsible administration, and it is about public awareness around a whole area of domestic violence.
  (Ms Morrice) Certainly there needs to be much more work done in the cross-referencing of lists. You have reported domestic dispute records. They should be cross-referenced with your firearms certificates, not necessarily just asking whether there is a gun in the house. If you have a domestic dispute it should be bleeped up on the computer that that gun should not be in the house and there should not be a question that it may be revoked in the case. The gun should be taken out of the scene if you have got serious domestic disputes because you never know when that incident could lead to the death of either the man or the woman, or the child in that situation.

  436. In respect of the very valuable work that is done in respect of women shelters, when a woman presents herself for protection the particular shelter will go through a series of assessments in terms of the level of the risk of threat of immediate violence. Would it be normal for the question to be asked whether or not there is a gun within the household?
  (Ms Courtnay) I do not think it would be normal because we would not have very strict assessment criteria. We run on self-help lines. We believe what women tell us. If there is a gun we would usually be told about it. It would be pretty obvious, even in the case where the gun is under the pillow. So many women are in denial about the seriousness of this, but it would start alarm bells ringing. There really is a lot of work around safety strategies to be done if it is in that context. Certainly if their partner is in a uniformed service we know there are guns involved. You would not ask the question.

  437. Just on that point, I understand you are not experts in weapons but when you are talking about a gun under the pillow and a threat, there is a difference, would you agree, between a handgun, which someone has got for personal protection or for whatever other reason, and a shotgun which is locked away in a cabinet downstairs and is taken out when the individual concerned goes shooting, which is what the regulations are? Would you assess the threat in a family row as the same from the revolver under the pillow as from the shotgun locked away in a cupboard?
  (Ms Morrice) I have no idea what Angela would say, but my reaction to that is that it depends on how angry the man is.

  438. Or woman?
  (Ms Morrice) Or the woman, of course.

  439. Just testing!
  (Ms Courtnay) If the gun is under the pillow because of a possible intruder it could be one thing, but in the circumstances where it would be told to the people I work with there would be a very implicit threat and I think the risk would be higher where there is a gun in the house locked down in the cupboard and if we all get angry somebody might use it. I think it is rather different where there are ongoing problems of domestic violence and under those circumstances and before any licences are issued we should know. There should be more stringent checks as to what household it is going into.