One impact of the lack of a dedicated offence of domestic abuse is that the Government has not been able to properly identify domestic abusers in prison to exclude them from being released early. Appallingly, the Government confirmed to me that “it is not possible to robustly calculate the number of domestic abusers in prison or their reoffending rate” because there is no specific offence that tracks it. This is leaving many victims and survivors without the protection they deserve. This needs to change!
That’s why I’ve introduced the Domestic Abuse (Aggravated Offences) Bill. This Bill would create a new set of legally defined domestic abuse offences—similar to how racially and religiously aggravated crimes are recognised in law. Under this legislation, crimes committed in a domestic abuse context—such as domestically aggravated assault—would be treated with the seriousness they deserve. And crucially, this would see perpetrators excluded from early release schemes as the Government has pledged (SDS40), this would also give us better data to track and tackle domestic abuse.
I’ve secured a meeting in early March with the Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips MP to discuss my Bill, with the Home Secretary having paved the way for this meeting when I raised this issue in the Commons on behalf of victims in Eastbourne and across the country. I will keep you updated on the outcome of this meeting.
On Monday I held a roundtable discussion on domestic abuse in Eastbourne, bringing together ten incredible local organisations to assess gaps in provision, outline key challenges for local victims and survivors, and scope out opportunities for collaboration.
The result: we have formed the ‘Eastbourne Tackling Domestic Abuse Network’ . The insights from this meeting will help shape the campaign and strengthen our response to domestic abuse locally. As a group, we are all keen for Eastbourne to lead the way when it comes to ending domestic abuse.
You read more about the campaign here - domesticabusebill.co.uk