Progress made on raising awareness of domestic abuse as an offence says PSNI

‘Anything we can do to better safeguard victims and children who are impacted by domestic abuse, will be a priority’

There has been “positive” progress on raising awareness of domestic abuse as an offence, the PSNI said as a major inspection report was published.

The third Criminal Justice Inspection (CJI) review of the implementation of Part 1 of the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (NI) 2021 was published on Thursday.

It found there was “positive” progress in raising awareness across the criminal justice system about domestic abuse as an offence.

It also recognised that police officers face a number of “difficult challenges” on a regular basis when dealing with domestic abuse cases.

Detective Chief Superintendent Zoe McKee said they welcomed the findings and the recommendations of the report.

“We continue to work with our partner agencies in the criminal justice system to ensure that we deliver a service that meets the needs and expectations of all victims and witnesses,” she said.

“As an organisation, we have already commenced a body of work to ensure the voices of children who are impacted by domestic abuse cases are clearly heard and feature in investigations.

“This is year three of our delivery of Part 1 of the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (NI) 2021, which saw us equipped with new legislative tools to target those who perpetrate domestic abuse and protect the most vulnerable.

“Anything we can do to better safeguard victims and children who are impacted by domestic abuse, will be a priority.”

Ms McKee continued: “We have delivered specialised training in partnership with Women’s Aid – which has a focus on children as victims of domestic abuse cases and the new legislation that holds perpetrators to account.

“Officers from across different departments within the police service have attended a series of awareness sessions to ensure they have the required awareness and confidence that they need when dealing with such cases.

“We’re also working with our IT systems internally to help develop and implement a technical solution that assists officers in seamlessly adding child aggravators to case files.

“Training programmes for our custody sergeants have also been developed to ensure child aggravator awareness is captured on our internal systems prior to their disposal.

“We also continue to work with colleagues in the Public Prosecution Service to review and improve processes relating to victims, including developing a robust quality assurance process to monitor the appropriate use of aggravators.

“Domestic abuse remains a service priority and we are fully committed to delivering for victims and bringing offenders to justice.”

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