Naomi Long

The Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (Northern Ireland) 2021, which came into force in February 2022, criminalises patterns of non-physical abusive behaviour as well as physical abuse.

It introduced a new stand-alone domestic abuse offence, as well as two child aggravators that can be attached to the offence, and a statutory aggravator which can be applied to any other offence.

Most prosecutions under the 2021 Act involve the aggravator rather than the stand-alone offence.

There were 1,625 prosecutions under the 2021 Act in 2022/23, resulting in 840 convictions (51.7 per cent). This rose in 2023/24 to 2,728 prosecutions and 1,515 convictions (55.5 per cent).

Of the 396 cases involving the stand-alone offence dealt with at court in 2023/24, 210 resulted in convictions. Of the 2,656 cases with offences with the statutory aggravator, 1,478 resulted in a conviction.

There were convictions in 17 cases where there was a child-related aggravator in 2023/24, with the aggravator proved in eight of them. In 2022/23, there were convictions in eight such cases, with the aggravator proved in six of them.

In both years, the vast majority of people convicted of an offence under the Act were male — 91.9 per cent in 2023/24 and 94.8 per cent in 2022/23. People aged 30 to 39 made up the highest proportion of those convicted of an offence under the Act during both years.

In all courts, convictions under the Act resulted in a custodial sentence in 30.6 per cent of cases in 2023/24 and 37.1 per cent of cases in 2022/23.

At the Crown Court, 72 per cent of cases in 2023/24 and 100 per cent of cases in 2022/23 resulted in a custodial outcome.

There were 154 cases in 2023/24 and 90 cases in 2022/23 where a sentence imposed was enhanced because of a conviction for an offence under the 2021 Act.

Justice minister Naomi Long 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.”

She added: “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.”