It’s ten years since Hollie Gazzard was brutally murdered in Gloucester by her ex-boyfriend. It was a crime which shocked the whole county, and robbed her family and friends of a truly exceptional young womn.
I want to pay tribute to her father Nick Gazzard who has fought so bravely and energetically over the last decade to tackle the threat of violence against women and girls. What he has achieved is exceptional.
I first worked with him back in 2016, when he supported my campaign on behalf of Cheltenham GP Dr Ellie Aston to toughen up punishment for stalkers. Hollie had been stalked by her ex-boyfriend before the murder, and Nick was able to give powerful testimony about the true threat of this insidious behaviour. Something that had been thought of as minor was exposed for the serious, suffocating, devastating crime that it is. We simply wouldn’t have succeeded on that campaign without Nick.
In the last ten years so much has changed. When I first started my career prosecuting as a barrister, violence within the home was dismissively categorised by far too many as ‘a domestic’. That was code for treating it as trivial with no ‘true’ victim.
I’m pleased to say times have changed. We’ve passed a Domestic Abuse Act, which defines the behaviour in law for the first time and creates tough new protection orders for victims. We’ve created a new offence of coercive and controlling behaviour, which recognises that not all domestic abuse involves kicks and punches. Sometimes it can be less visible but just as cruel.
And more recently I’ve been working with Love Island’s Georgia Harrison to introduce new laws on revenge porn, so that women are protected from men who seek to degrade and humiliate them. With the new Criminal Justice Bill we will be outlawing the spreading of deepfake images, which can cause dreadful suffering. And here in Gloucestershire, Safer Streets funding is being used to provide additional town centre lighting so women can feel safer walking the streets of Cheltenham at night.
Nothing can bring Hollie back. But I hope through the enduring pain Nick and his family can take quiet pride in what they have achieved in Hollie’s name.