Victims state orders “aren’t worth the paper they’re written on”
Government figures for domestic abuse protection orders shows prosecutions for breaching protective orders have fallen by 40% in recent years, despite reported breaches rising.
These orders aim to protect victims from their abusers, but figures indicate that these are not being properly enforced by the police.
Police issue a domestic violence protection notice (DVPN) before applying to the magistrates domestic violence protection order (DVPO). Breaches of these constitutes a civil rather than criminal offence.
To counteract these issues, the Home Office is planning to introduce a two-year pilot scheme for a civil Domestic Abuse Protection Order in 2023 to replace the DVPN and DVPO. The government stated this is to “provide longer-term protection for victims”.
The BBC refers to victims of domestic abuse who have been granted these orders, one of whom stated, “That non-molestation order isn’t worth the paper it’s written on” as “it’s certainly not made him stay away”.
Deborah Jones, who formed a support group called Resolute to help victims, criticised the orders for being “no deterrent at all for a perpetrator” as an abuser could “breach them numerous times, over and over again”.
“They get clever and very aware of the legal system. They know that there’s no real consequences to breaching them. Things need to change. There needs to be tougher consequences if an order is breached, perpetrators should be tagged.”
Figures from the Ministry of Justice show that a quarter of DVPOs issued have been breached every year between 2018 to 2021.

However, convictions for breaching DVP0s and DVPNs have fallen by 7% in these years, despite the number of orders rising by 48% in this period.
Prosecutions, convictions and sentences for breaching these restraining orders has also fallen every year since 2017.
Louisa Rolfe, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) lead for domestic abuse, apologised to victims who “have not had a service they should expect and deserve from policing so far”, but claimed “it is a priority, and we want to get so much better at it.”
Rolfe maintained that DVPOs are being issued correctly and staff had been trained in assessing “high-risk behaviour” in domestic abuse cases. She added:
“We want to support victims. We want to ensure their safety. This is a huge priority for policing, and we are really clear that we expect officers to take positive action.”
Although, the Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) said they have seen little improvement from police in these matters.
The CWJ stated police had failed to effectively protect victims asked Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Nicole Jacobs, to hold police account.
Nogah Ofer, a solicitor for the CWJ, stated domestic abuse training for police was not affective as it did not include protection orders. She added:
“It’s not really apologies that we’re looking for.
We’re just looking for improvements on the ground and for victims to get a better service.”
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