Providing vital protection to victims, for the first time all types of domestic abuse will be covered – including physical, psychological, stalking, and coercive control. The new Domestic Abuse Protection Notices and Orders will also be handed out by all courts (family, civil, and criminal), meaning more perpetrators will be forced to live under restrictions.
They will initially launch in Greater Manchester, three London boroughs and with the British Transport Police. They will also be used in Cleveland and North Wales from early 2025 ahead of a national rollout.
The Domestic Abuse Protection Notices can be issued by the police immediately following any incident of abuse, providing protection straight away and giving police time to apply for a Domestic Abuse Protection Order to secure longer term protection for the victim.
Unlike some existing protections, which can only be enforced for 28 days, the new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders will have no time restrictions, meaning victims are protected for as long as needed to stay safe. Breaching the order will be a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in prison, making sure perpetrators who flout the rules are punished.
Friends and family of victims will also be able to apply for the new orders on behalf of the victim, as well as victims themselves and the police. This will reduce victim engagement with the criminal justice system, if necessary – process which can be daunting for some survivors.
As well as imposing exclusion zones, the orders can mandate positive requirements such as attendance at a behaviour change programme.
For the first time, family courts able to impose tagging in the most serious cases, a power previously reserved for the police and criminal courts only. Minister for Victims and Violence Against Women and Girls, Alex Davies-Jones, said:
“It takes tremendous courage for victims of domestic abuse to seek help. Our role in government is to make this as straightforward as possible. These new orders reduce the pressure on victims by allowing third parties to make an application on their behalf, while ensuring the powers available to the courts are more stringent than ever before. This government will continue to do all it can to end violence against women and girls.”
The Domestic Abuse Commissioner said:
“Domestic Abuse Protection Orders were designed to bring together the most effective features of existing orders to provide flexible and long-term protection to victims of domestic abuse.
The DAPO pilot should evidence what is needed to sufficiently resource participating agencies and sector partners alike, so that it can be fully funded for a national rollout.
I look forward to closely following the pilot’s progress and see how DAPOs can improve the safety of domestic abuse victims and hold perpetrators to account across England and Wales.”
Victims and VAWG Minister Alex Davies-Jones will visit Croydon Court and Minister for Victims and Safeguarding Jess Phillips will visit the Metropolitan Police today to mark the launch, as they raise awareness of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence campaign. Sophie Francis-Cansfield, Head of Policy at Women’s Aid, said:
“The Ministry of Justice have announced the long overdue pilot launch of Domestic Abuse Protective Orders (DAPOs), which were first announced as part of the Domestic Abuse Act in 2021. This comes with a series of other requirements, including family courts being able to impose tagging on perpetrators in the most serious of cases. While Women’s Aid welcomes these protections, we have concerns over the implementation of these measures on the ground and the ability to ensure long-term safety for survivors of abuse through them.
Existing protective orders, such as Non-Molestation Orders and Restraining Orders, have been criticised for not adequately protecting survivors from further harm, as while in theory they serve to safeguard, a lack of awareness, monitoring, and robust response to breaches, means that perpetrator are able to act with impunity even when these orders are in place. While Women’s Aid supports the criminalisation of breaching a DAPO, survivors need to be able to trust there will be accountability for this and prosecutions will be pursued. Consistency in how the police and wider justice system deal with these orders and breaches of them is required to ensure survivors will be protected by these measures.”
She said that allowing parties other than survivors to make DAPO applications will help family members and friends in taking action to protect their loved ones but there is a “risk that in doing so”. She continued:
“…survivors will lose their autonomy and voice. It is not an easy decision for survivors to flee abuse and it can be extremely difficult for them to stay gone. It must be their choice to go and take action against their perpetrator, so that they can feel empowered. This is especially true when they have lost their freedom in the relationship, through coercive control. This element of DAPOs must be promoted as a collaborative process and not as one that concerned family members and friends explore without the survivor’s input.
The nature of domestic abuse means that the abuse does not just end when the relationship does. In fact, leaving and post-separation can be the most dangerous time for a survivor, as perpetrators retaliate to losing control. The implementation of Domestic Abuse Protection Notices, as a temporary measure while DAPOs can be obtained, will help to ensure that survivors are kept safe during the difficult post-separation period, if used properly. Specialist domestic abuse training for responding officers will be needed, so they can ensure they identify the situations where these preventative steps need to be taken.
Giving family courts the ability to impose tagging on perpetrators will also help to mitigate the risk to safety that survivors experience in the post-separation period, but we would like some clarification on which cases are considered the most serious. There is concern that this tagging measure, along with the criminalisation of DAPO breaches, has the potential to lead to an over-surveillance, which we know disproportionately impacts Black and Minoritised communities, so we call on agencies to take steps through these pilots to ensure discrimination is rooted out from the start, to prevent any disparity from happening.
These piloted measures do have the potential to protect women and children from abuse but only if properly implemented and monitored. We need to make sure that those who are responsible for these measures are properly trained on domestic abuse, so that they can effectively identify the cases where precautionary steps are needed, apply them consistently and work with local specialist services to ensure the survivors’ safety and needs are always prioritised.”
Law Society of England and Wales president Richard Atkinson said:
“We welcome additional protections for victims of domestic abuse and the government’s pledge to do more to tackle violence against women and girls. However, safeguards must always be fair. There could be serious consequences for perpetrators who breach these orders, so they must be made aware of what the orders mean for them and be able to receive legal advice and representation.
For this to happen without delays for the victims, the government should provide sufficient legal aid funding before implementing these intended protections. We are concerned that the present funding structure will fail to enable legal aid providers to undertake the work, and we know that the provider base for legal aid is severely diminished.
The implementation of the orders should be closely monitored during the pilot phase to ensure that legal aid funding works effectively, and the impact of issues with legal aid needs to be included in the evaluation. We are all entitled to a life free from violence and fear. It is critical that survivors of domestic abuse are provided with strong and fair safeguards to protect them from further abuse.
Any new safeguards for domestic abuse victims will require adequate investment in the legal aid system.”
