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    Tougher Management of Most Dangerous Abusers – Will The New Laws Work?

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    Tougher Management of Most Dangerous Abusers – Will The New Laws Work?

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    On the 20th February 2023, the Home Office announced that new measures were being introduced for tougher management of the most dangerous abusers and also new protection for victims of domestic abuse. These new measures form part of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. In case, you weren’t aware of these new measures, here is a summary of what they are:

    1. Tougher management of the most dangerous domestic abuse offenders. The government will change the law to make sure that any offender who has a conviction for controlling or coercive behaviour and who has been sentenced to 12 months or more imprisonment or a suspended sentence will automatically be managed by the police, prison and probation services under MAPPA (Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements).
    2. New civil protection orders. The Home Office and the Ministry of Justice will be piloting new domestic abuse protection notices, and orders in Gwent, Greater Manchester, and three London boroughs covered by the Metropolitan Police, British Transport Police, and other criminal justice systems. The three boroughs will be Croydon, Bromley and Sutton.
    3. The Ask for Ani codeword scheme pilot, will build on the existing scheme in pharmacies throughout the UK. Domestic abuse victims/survivors will be able to ‘Ask for Ani’ in 18 jobcentre and jobs and benefit offices and receive trained support from a trained staff member.
    4. Violence against women and girls will be added to the strategic policing requirement, which will categorise violence against women and girls as a national threat.
    5. Identifying dangerous perpetrators before conviction using a new digital tool which will be used by front line police officers to help them to identify who may be a high risk offender and likely to carry out domestic abuse offences.
    6. Strengthening Claire’s Law. Reduced timeframes will make it quicker to access information on a partner’s or ex partner’s previous abusive or violent offending. The guidance for this will also be placed on a statutory footing from April 1st 2023.
    7. More funding for victim support programmes from 1st April 2023.
    8. Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) to be given up to £36 million over the next two years for tackling perpetrators through interventions such as Perpetrator Programmes which address abusers’ behaviour.

    This is all great, isn’t it? Or is it? I was going to go through all the new measures and tell you what I personally think of them, whether I think they will work and if not, why not. But that would make for a very long blog. So I will tell you what I think of it generally! and it really comes down to this………

    We know that 80% of domestic abuse incidents go unreported to anyone so the police will only ever catch up to 20% of perpetrators and these will not all have been convicted or received sentences of 12 months imprisonment or a suspended sentence. Moreover, of the 20% of incidents that are reported, not all will be reported to the Police.

    I have had sight of the new risk assessment tool which will be used by front line officers to identify who may be a high risk offender and likely to carry out domestic abuse offences. It is good. It focuses far more on coercive and controlling behaviour and should simplify the risk assessment for front line officers who do not necessarily have the expertise of a more specialist officer in matters in relation to domestic abuse. BUT – as above, we know that 80% of incidents are not reported so high risk offenders are still likely to go under the radar!

    The new civil protection orders will rely heavily on the police to administer, manage and implement. This will involve copious amounts of paperwork and admin for police to complete when the Police service is already stretched and police officers are struggling to keep up with demand and forces are reported as being under resourced.

    Don’t get me wrong. I think any changes, new measures, legislation etc, should be welcomed with open arms. And all of these measures, on paper, look great at tackling domestic abuse and violence against women and girls in general. But in reality, on the ground level, these things often don’t work. And they don’t work because up to 80% of incidents are not reported!

    There is no easy fix for this but perhaps more funding should be given to the education of children on unhealthy relationships. Perhaps it should be given to fund more specialist training of police officers and the judicial system in matters relating to domestic abuse. Perhaps more work and funding are needed to encourage victims/survivors to report these crimes. To give victims/survivors the reassurance and trust they are currently lacking in the judicial system and the police.

    Because for all the work going into these new laws, nothing will change if we can’t find a way to encourage victims/survivors to trust the system in the first place and report the crime!!

    Sharon Bryan
    Head Of Partnerships & Development Of Domestic Abuse Services

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    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.”