Domestic abuse perpetrators could be electronically tagged or forced to attend programmes to address their attitudes under new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders.
Breaching an order would be a criminal offence. Where abuse involves or affects a child, this would be counted as an aggravating factor during sentencing. A Domestic Abuse Commissioner would be appointed to hold the government to account.
These and other proposals were published last week in the consultation, Transforming the Response to Domestic Abuse, ahead of a draft Domestic Abuse Bill.
For the first time, economic abuse is recognised as a type of domestic abuse, protecting victims whose finances are withheld, or who are denied access to employment or transport.
It offers a new statutory definition of domestic abuse as ‘any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence or abuse…’.
‘Controlling behaviour’ is defined as ‘a range of acts designed to make a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating them from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the means needed for independence, resistance and escape and regulating their everyday behaviour’.
Family law solicitor-advocate and NLJ columnist David Burrows said: ‘It concentrates on: promoting awareness of domestic abuse; the issue of protection and support of victims; and how to “pursue and deter” perpetrators.
‘A lawyer will be concerned with the third: police response and improving the experience of the justice system of “victims” (they are not “victims”; nothing is proved yet); and with what the Ministry of Justice makes of it all in the current review of legal aid.’
Views are sought by 31 May 2018.
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