Justice reforms planned by the Department of Home Affairs will cover stalking and other offences not included in the Domestic Abuse Bill.

Witness Rachel Horman, the head of domestic abuse, stalking and forced marriage at UK law firm Watson Ramsbottom Ltd, told the Legislative Council that she believed the Bill was lacking in some areas.

Miss Horman told MLCs that in her opinion, provisions surrounding stalking had been ’mistakenly’ omitted from the Bill.

However, Tanya August-Hanson MLC, who is a member of Home Affairs and is guiding the Bill through LegCo, has insisted that the department is going to cover stalking, just not in this Bill.

During the LegCo sitting, she said: ’We are looking at stalking offences at the moment in terms of Home Affairs here on the Isle of Man, it is due to go into the justice reform legislation.

’We also have a sex offences piece that is coming forward as well, which updates the legislation from the UK, which includes things like up skirting and revenge porn, as it is put as well.’

Miss August-Hanson also asked Miss Horman why she thought it was appropriate to ’put stalking into this piece of legislation when you have stalkers that perhaps are not personally connected and have never been personally connected to the victim’.

Miss Horman said: ’Obviously I have not seen your stalking Bill. Certainly the way that coercive control, domestic abuse and stalking are defined within England to Wales there is a clear cut-off point. Stalking starts at separation; the same behaviour before, during a relationship, would be coercive control.

’So it would make sense, in my view, to put it in because even the stranger stalking work tends to be done hand-in-hand with domestic abuse services.’