Women’s Aid respond to new protective measures for survivors of domestic abuse being launched by the Ministry of Justice and Home Office

Sophie Francis-Cansfield, Head of Policy at Women’s Aid, said:  

“Today, 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. 

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, 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.”