National Centre for Domestic Violence Logo

Please note that Internet Explorer is no longer a supported browser so we cannot guarantee the integrity of our website when using it. Please use an alternate browser like Edge or Chrome.

Access ASSIST Online Injunction Database

Click here to leave training feedback

-or-

Make a Referral Using the Form Below:









    YesNo


    YesNo
    *Fields required. By submitting a referral you agree to receive updates on the progress of your referral, as outlined in our Privacy Policy.

    Police & Agencies

    Information For Police & Agencies 1

    Information For Police & Agencies

    NCDV works with all the police forces and many statutory and voluntary agencies around the country. Our service covers all of England and Wales. We have an extremely efficient referral system www.referdirect.org.uk

    The National Centre for Domestic Violence is not funded by the government. We create our own income and use it to provide free legal support to help victims/survivors of domestic violence and abuse.  We also accept donations and actively fundraise for our dedicated Pro-Bono team, who work with people who get referred to us but who are unable to apply for Legal Aid.

    We only have one objective; to help obtain civil orders – Non-Molestation Orders, Occupation Orders, Prohibited Steps Orders and Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPO) where available. These are orders that victims and survivors of domestic abuse and violence can apply for themselves to protect them from further abuse.  Our service is used by the police, by local authorities, statutory and voluntary agencies, Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs), housing associations, the NHS and many others.

    Our domestic abuse training has been developed to meet the need for high quality training around the issues of domestic abuse and coercive control, civil protection orders, and helping employers manage domestic abuse in the workplace. We deliver 1hr training on civil injunctions completely free of charge, and a range of competitively priced training for sector professionals and others. See information here  Domestic Violence Training – NCDV

    We invented and run the only nationwide injunction database for the police – www.ASSIST.uk.net. We provide access to injunctions for protection within 24 hours of the order being obtained.

    We currently get roughly one-third of all the injunctions granted in the UK.

    This is a free service.  We have never, and will never, charge a victim/survivor for the service we provide.

    Civil injunctions can empower victims/survivors of domestic abuse and violence and help protect them from abuse.

    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.”