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    History of NCDV

    History of NCDV 1

    History of NCDV

    We believe that an open honest transparent organisation is the best way to show that we really do care. Many victims have experienced a lifetime of controlling abuse and sometimes trusting someone is difficult. Below is a summary of our more recent history and our future plans.

    NCDV started as a charity but with no government funding available we decided to change to a private limited company, in 2021 we changed our status to a Community Interest Company.

    We supply our services free to the public by charging solicitors for the work we do to compile documents for court applications.

    This work would normally take a solicitor four to five hours and we charge them less than it would cost for them to do it themselves – which is cost effective for the solicitors and helps speed up court applications.

    Working with our solicitors’ panel we can cover nearly the whole of England, we are actively encouraging more solicitors’ firms to join the panel to create an even larger network of support options.

    Our aim is to provide a free, fast emergency injunction service to survivors of domestic abuse regardless of their financial circumstances, race, gender or sexual orientation and we will continue to innovate our service to provide this.

    2002

    London Centre for Domestic Violence

    NCDV originated as the London Centre for Domestic Violence, which was set up by our founder Dr Steve Connor OBE in 2002. It later transformed in November 2006, to the National Centre for Domestic Violence.

    We believe the Times newspaper’s profile on Steve Connor (CEO) best explains this journey: the story begins in 2001. Click here to read it.

    In 2002, thanks entirely to Connor’s doggedness, the London Centre for Domestic Violence was formed.
    2002

    2006

    NCDV Founded

    The London Centre for Domestic Violence is transformed into the National Centre for Domestic Violence.
    2006

    2017

    National Legal Service

    The next evolution for NCDV was to find a legal resource for our clients to give them a better and more professional service.

    After years of planning the National Legal Service was created with our clients best interests at heart.

    Their legal team will directly help victims which means NCDV will be able to offer a more professional, quicker, give a better, faster and fuller service as well as allowing development of additional support services outside of NCDV.

    2017

    2017

    Regulatory Change

    Due to new regulatory advice in 2017, we no longer charged solicitors for the documentation we provide them.

    NCDV challenged this decision.

    2017

    2018

    Regulatory Change

    In collaboration with National Legal Service we opened up a host of new opportunities for our staff, many of whom work with NCDV as part of their law degree doing paralegal, casework, training contracts, finance management and much more which will help them progress a legal career.

    2018

    2021

    Status Change

    NCDV changes its status to a Community Interest Company (CIC) with a Not-For-Profit charter.

    Our commitment is to invest any profits created back into the domestic abuse sector.

    Read more here.

    2021

    2024

    NCDV launches trial service in North Wales

    2024

    By Fiona Bawden, Times Online (8th May 2007)

    “Steve Connor, a student at City Law School, is a man on a mission. Six years ago he was a fairly directionless 27-year-old. Today, as well as taking the Bar Vocational Course, he is chairman of the National Centre for Domestic Violence, a ground-breaking organisation that he dragged into existence after a friend could not get legal help to protect her from an abusive partner.

    Connor’s route to the Bar has been circuitous. In 2001 he returned from a year in Australia (he says that he would not dignify describing it as a gap year), and took a job as a process server in South London. The job (“I just saw it advertised in the paper”) was not quite as dull as it sounds. On one occasion he was threatened with a machete, on another, he was nearly stabbed by a man he had arranged to meet on Clapham Common to serve with a non-molestation order: “He’d seemed really friendly on the phone…”

    The turning point in his life came when a friend, who was being abused by her partner, turned to him for support. Connor went with her to the police. She did not want to press criminal charges so the police suggested that she visit a solicitor to take out a civil injunction. “We must have seen 12 solicitors in a morning. We just went from one to the next to the next to the next. Everyone was very eager to help until we sat down to fill in the forms for the legal aid means test,” he says. The woman, who had a small child, did not qualify for public funding. But, Connor says, her financial situation as it appeared on paper did not bear any relation to her financial situation in reality. “She had a part-time job and she and her partner owned their home. Yet she didn’t have any money. Her boyfriend was very controlling and controlled all the money; he kept the chequebooks and didn’t let her have access to the bank account.”

    The injustice of the situation got under Connor’s skin. “I just couldn’t believe that there was no help available to people who did not qualify for public funds but could not afford to pay.

    I just kept feeling that this must be able to be sorted if only someone would address it.”That “someone” turned out to be him.

    In 2002, thanks entirely to Connor’s doggedness, the London Centre for Domestic Violence was formed. It started out with him and a friend, but is now a national organisation, covering 27 counties, and has helped approximately 10,000 victims last year to take out injunctions against their partners.

    NCDV now has nine full-time staff, 12 permanent volunteers and has trained over 5000 law and other students as McKenzie Friends to accompany unrepresented victims into court. We have also trained over 8000 police officers in civil remedies available regarding domestic violence. The National Centre for Domestic Violence (NCDV) has branches in London, Guildford and Manchester and is on track to have branches in 16 areas within the next two years.

    NCDV specialises exclusively in domestic violence work and could be characterised as a cross between McDonald’s and Claims Direct. The high degree of specialisation means that its processes are streamlined: clients can be seen quickly and the work is done speedily and cheaply. “Sometimes, we will have one of our trained McKenzie Friends at a court doing 10 applications in one day,” Connor says.

    Clients are not charged for the service. NCDV staff take an initial statement: clients who qualify for legal aid are referred to a local firm; those that don’t get free help from the centre itself. It runs on a shoestring, heavily reliant on volunteers and capping staff salaries at £18,000 a year.

    Steve expects to qualify as a barrister this summer and hopes that having a formal legal qualification will give the centre added clout. “We are already acknowledged as experts and consulted at a high level, so I thought it would be helpful if I could back that up by being able to say I’m a barrister,” he says. He is just about to complete a one-year full-time BVC course at the City Law School (formerly the Inns of Court Law School) and, all being well, should be called to the Bar in July. Although Connor sees his long-term future as a barrister, he says that he has no immediate plans to practise. “I want to get NCDV running on a fully national level. Then I may take a step back and have a career at the Bar.”