Getty ImagesFewer than half of domestic abuse cases in England and Wales become police-recordable crimes, and most do not lead to prosecutions, government figures have said.
An estimated 2.3 million people were victims of domestic abuse in the year to March 2024, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales. More than two-thirds are women and 712,000 are men.
An Office for National Statistics (ONS) study said that 1.4 million incidents of domestic abuse were recorded by the police and, of these, 39,000 resulted in a criminal conviction.
It comes as a pilot scheme for domestic violence orders to be harder to publicize – but the charity warns that if the police and courts don’t do it, it often costs “less than the paper it’s written on”.
A pilot for enhanced domestic abuse protection notification and orders (DAPN and DAPO) was set up by the previous government in 2021 and will be trialled in Greater Manchester, the three London boroughs and British Transport Police.
There will be further pilots in Cleveland and North Wales in early 2025 before a national rollout.
Jess Phillips, the minister briefed on protection and violence against women and girls, said it would combine the strongest elements of the existing order into a flexible order to “get more victims to receive the strong protection they deserve”. .
The new order could be enforced by the court and combine powers in other protective orders to provide “flexible and long-term protection” for victims, said domestic abuse commissioner Nicole Jacobs.
Importantly, breaching the order would be a criminal rather than a civil offence.
It is intended to cover all forms of domestic abuse and, unlike some orders which only last for 28 days, there is no time limit.
Along with the exclusion zone, the order can impose conditions on the abuser such as attending a behavior change program. Violation of these conditions will be a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment for up to five years.
Family courts will also be able to impose tags for up to 12 months in the most serious cases, which previously could only be done by criminal courts or the police.
Friends and family can also request an order for the victim.
Domestic abuse charities welcomed the order but said it must be accompanied by greater awareness and training in the police and courts.
The ONS analysis found that police recorded around 1.4 million incidents and crimes related to domestic abuse in the year to March 2024. Of these, 500,000 were categorized as incidents and 850,000 as crimes.
Of these, there were 73,000 referrals to the Crown Prosecution Service and 49,000 criminal charges. There were about 39,000 criminal convictions in the same period.
One person can be convicted of more than one crime and the case takes some time to go through the court – but the figure suggests that less than one in 60 people who told the survey they experienced abuse were likely to see a person convicted.
Abigail Ampofo, interim chief executive of the charity Refuge, said the order would give police and other agencies more tools to implement measures to protect survivors of domestic abuse.
But he added: “However, we know there are many problems when police use their powers to protect survivors and catch perpetrators.
“Survivors told us that the police did not act against the order, and that it often cost ‘less than the paper it was written on’.”
Refuge said previous super complaints by the Women’s Justice Center found Domestic Violence Protection Orders had been obtained in an average of 1% of domestic abuse cases.
Ms. Ampofo said: “For DAPOs to work and provide survivors with real protection from abusers we need a real sea change in the culture of internal policing and the police force in response to domestic abuse as a whole.”
Women’s Aid supports the criminalization of DAPO but wants to see more police training and for the courts to be integrated.
“You have to have faith that the order will protect you,” said policy director Sophie Francis-Cansfield.
