Women’s Aid responds to CPS statistics showing domestic abuse prosecutions have dropped

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Yesterday, the Crown Prosecution Service released its quarterly report of domestic abuse prosecution rates. The volume of completed prosecutions decreased to 12,858 in Q1 22/23, a reduction of 4.3% compared to Q4 21/22 (13,442).

Sarah Davidge, head of research and evaluation at Women’s Aid, said:

“It is shocking that domestic abuse prosecutions continue to be dropped. A successful criminal justice system must both support survivors of abuse and hold perpetrators to account. At the moment, this just isn’t happening.

“Women will not report domestic abuse if they aren’t confident they will be believed and action will be taken on their behalf. Much more needs to be done to restore women’s trust in the police. This requires specialist police training on domestic abuse and a whole society approach to tackle the inherent sexism and misogyny which underpins women’s inequality and violence against them.

“Survivors must be shown they will be believed, supported and see justice served when they have the courage to come forward.”