Domestic violence – it weren’t broke – but it is now!

The President of the Family Division was reported in The Times of 14 April as being very concerned that the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 had led to a reduction rather than an increase in protection since it came into force in July 2007. Judge Platt, in a report to the president, estimated that the number of applications for non-molestation orders had fallen by 25–30% since the Act. In the whole of Merseyside, there have only been two prosecutions since the Act came into force. The Government was warned in advance that making the breach of a non-molestation order a criminal offence would have the effect of deterring victims from seeking orders, for fear of criminalising their partners and the fathers of their children. Even before the Act, it was a recognised statistic that victims of domestic violence and abuse, on average, suffered some 35 incidents before taking action. In an interview in the Solicitors Journal of 18 March and an article in the Law Society’s Gazette of 3 April, District Judge Edwina Millward, President of the Association of District Judges, suggested that the Act is doing more harm than good. Before the Act, where a breach of an order with a power of arrest was alleged, the perpetrator had to be brought before the court within 24 hours of arrest, and in some cases dealt with by the court on the first appearance and, if not, then a full hearing had to quickly follow. The victim generally had a legal representative, and the court usually had full information about the parties, their children and the behaviour which had led to the order being granted, and the standard of proof was the civil standard.