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The Southall Black Sisters


In keeping with the somewhat crazy and damascene nature of the blog this Palm Sunday, I would like to reveal another somewhat difficult thing. Yasmin Alibhai Brown is right about something.

This sticks in my craw. 'Yazza', or the 'Yazzmonster' as her critics refer to her (who have also, in a minor way, insulted me because of my friends) has this week run a piece on the Southall Black Sisters. Alibhai-Brown is usually wrong, as a rule. On this issue, she is absolutely right.

Southall Black Sisters are an organisation that supports black and asian women, and indeed women of all colours, who happen to be poor, or suffering violence, or isolated. They were deeply involved in the landmark Karanjit Ahluwalia case for instance. Mrs Ahluwalia was regularly beaten senseless by her husband, who returned home one night and decided to threaten her with a hot iron, demand £200, and announce that he would beat her near death in the morning. Then he went to sleep. So she, deranged with fear and determined to free herself after what she viewed as provocation, acted first.

Provocation is one of the defences built into the 1957 Homicide Act. England had no written statute concerning murder before that date; instead, case law, with all its complications, defined the crime. The Act gave a written definition (drawn from the cases) but also built in two major defences; provocation and diminished responsibility.

Provocation meant that an individual of the same age and sex as the defendant would have been provoked as the defendant was, and would have lost their self control and acted in the same way. It was often invoked by men, but the loss had to be immediate and any gap between the provocation and the loss of control--even going into another room or waiting--did away with the defence.

Diminished responsibility was the 'crazy woman' or 'alcoholic' defence; a disease of the mind acted upon by the external cause that caused temporary insanity. Many women neither wanted to rely upon it nor could they, when battered woman syndrome was not recognised.

Mrs Ahluwalia poured two pints of petrol over her worthless husband and set it alight after a decade of violence. He died. She was tried for murder, and was supported by the Southall Black Sisters in her well documented defence of provocation because of all the ten years' worth of multiple beatings and threats. She was convicted and won her appeal.

She was the first victim of such experiences to have the idea of cumulative provocation recognised by the court of appeal, though the situation has been changed a little by the cases flowing from the recent Holley decision in Jersey.

I have to say I have a great deal of pity for her, and I know that no one else other than the SBS would have helped her. Now, Ealing Council is threatening to close down the Southall Black Sisters because they do not meet the 'inclusion agenda' of the Labour government nor the priorities of Ealing's Tory council.

Southall Black Sisters are inevitably left wing and believe that women pay for the resurgence of religion. I disagree with them on that. But they do a lot of good. They are there for women who are treated shockingly. I opposed the authorities closing Catholic schools and orphanages because of their monolithic approach to 'values' ; I oppose Ealing's withdrawal of the Southall Funds.

I hope, if the Sisters do lose public money, that they may be able to raise money from friends and supporters privately. Perhaps Harriet Harman, who loudly trumpets her feminism by blaming men for everything, could hold a fundraising dinner. She did that sort of thing, after all, when she needed votes and money for her own election as Deputy Labour Leader.

Do you seriously think that the likes of Harman and Margaret Hodge will do so? I think that they will run a mile. But I stand ready to be proved wrong, if anyone even notices. The important thing is that the Sisters be saved! In those circumstances, I find myself, bizarrely, having to salute Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.

I'm off to the gym to punish myself on a treadmill. The picture at the side of this post comes from the Southall Black Sisters Website and is associated with their campaign slogan 'struggle not submission'.