Justice Minister Naomi Long welcomes the first official publication of domestic abuse prosecutions and convictions statistics.
The statistics published today relate to the domestic abuse offence (and associated child aggravators) and any other offence aggravated by reason of involving domestic abuse, provided for in the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (Northern Ireland) 2021.
The Minister said:
“The implementation of the domestic abuse offence and associated aggravators, in February 2022, was a landmark moment in tackling domestic abuse.
“The new offences sent out a clear message that all forms of domestic abuse, physical and non-physical, are wrong and won’t be tolerated.
“I am pleased that we are now starting to see some data coming through which will enable us to analyse the effectiveness of the new legislation and identify any areas for improvement.”
Today’s bulletin presents information on prosecutions and convictions for domestic abuse related criminal cases dealt with at courts in Northern Ireland for the financial years 2022/23 and 2023/24, as well as out of court disposals completed within the same period. Information on case processing times for such cases is also provided.
Key findings
As it takes some time for cases to complete their journey through the justice system, not all DA related cases dealt with at courts were for offences under the 2021 Act. In 2022/23 and 2023/24 respectively, while there were 3,384 and 3,756 DA related prosecutions at courts, 1,625 and 2,728 were for offences under the 2021 legislation.
In 2023/24 and 2022/23 respectively, 55.5% (1,515 out of 2,728) and 51.7% (840 out of 1,625) of all DA related cases under the Act resulted in a conviction; 302 cases in 2023/24 and 211 in 2022/23 were dealt with by out of court disposal.
Of the 396 cases with the new DA offence dealt with at court in 2023/24, 210 resulted in convictions. Of the 2,656 cases with offences with the statutory aggravator (Section 15), 1,478 resulted in a conviction.
In 2023/24, there were convictions in 17 cases where there was a child related aggravator (Section 8 or Section 9), with the aggravator proved in 8 of these cases. In 2022/23, there were convictions in 8 such cases, with the aggravator proved in 6 of those cases.
In 2023/24, 96.6% (2,635) of cases were dealt with at magistrates’ courts, down slightly from 2022/23 (99.4%, 1,616), though that may, in part, have been due to Crown Court cases taking longer to complete.
During both years, the vast majority of people convicted of an offence under the Act were male (2023/24: 91.9%, 1,392; 2022/23: 94.8%, 796).
People aged 30 to 39 (2023/24: 37.9%, 574; 2022/23: 35.5%, 298) made up the highest proportion of those convicted of an offence under the Act during both years.
VAP was the main offence category for 60.3% (867) of cases in 2023/24 and 57.2% (461) of cases in 2022/23 were the main offence was an offence with the statutory DA aggravator (Section 15).
In all courts, of those convicted in a DA related case under the Act, a custodial disposal was the main outcome in 30.6% (463) of cases in 2023/24 and 37.1% (312) in 2022/23. At Crown Court in 2023/24, 72% (59) of cases resulted in a custodial outcome; all 7 DA related cases convicted at Crown Court in 2022/23 resulted in a custodial outcome.
The sentence imposed in 2023/24 was enhanced in 154 cases where there was a conviction for a DA related offence under the Act. The figure for 2022/23 was 90.
Special measures were put in place in 206 DA related cases under the Act that were dealt with at courts in 2023/24 and 77 of those dealt with in 2022/23.
Justice Minister Naomi Long commented on her intention to publish further information on the implementation of the domestic abuse legislation.
She said: “In the coming months I intend to publish a report which will include statistics on police recorded offences as well as feedback from witnesses on their experiences at court. This additional data will provide a fuller picture and allow us to further analyse how effectively the legislation is operating.”