Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 – Reporting Requirement

4. Non-harassment orders data

Section 14(2)(d)

Section 234A of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 allows the court to impose NHOs, where certain criteria are met. Section 234AZA places an obligation on the court to consider imposing a in domestic abuse cases. The court is only required to impose an NHO if it is satisfied that there is a need for the victim or children (if any) to be protected by an NHO.

It also allows for the inclusion of children in NHOs if they are residing with the victim or the offender, or if a section 1 DASA offence is aggravated under section 5(1)(a) of DASA 2018.

An NHO under section 234AZA is designed to protect a victim from further behaviour which would amount to harassment and would cause the victim alarm or distress. It requires the person not to do certain things for a certain period of time, for example, not to approach or contact the victim.

A civil NHO can also be obtained by applying to the sheriff court or the Court of Session as a civil order. In this instance the police and criminal courts are not involved. A criminal offence does not have to have been committed by the harasser for a civil order to be sought.

Note: The figures shown below only refer to the ones issued in criminal courts under section 234AZA of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.

4.1 Cases with at least one domestic abuse charge under Section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 resulting in a conviction with non-harassment orders

Data on the number of cases with at least one domestic abuse charge under Section 1 of DASA 2018 that resulted in a conviction with an NHO was extracted from the management information used to prepare the Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard.

Table 4 below provides the number of cases resulting in a conviction with a charge of an offence at Section 1 of DASA 2018, for a crime committed on or after it came into effect on 1 April 2019 and those with an NHO by court type.

The reporting requirement is specifically looking for the number of cases with NHOs relating to the domestic abuse legislation or cases with statutory domestic abuse aggravation created by the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016. In this section, only the cases with domestic abuse charges under Section 1 of DASA 2018 resulting in a conviction with an NHO are included. For ease of comparison the total number of cases resulting in a conviction with at least one domestic abuse charge under section 1 of DASA 2018 shown in Table 1 are also introduced in Table 4.

In 2021-22 there were 69% (504) cases resulting in a conviction with at least one DASA offence where an NHO was granted. There was an increase in the number of cases resulting in a conviction with at least one DASA offence where an NHO was granted during the three financial years, going up from 59% (127) in 2019-20 and 64% (235) in 2020-21.

In each year, the majority of these cases resulting in a conviction with NHOs granted took place in sheriff summary proceedings, 88% in 2019-20, 80% in 2020-21 and 82% in 2021-22. Where sheriff solemn proceedings accounted for 11%, 20% and 18% for NHOs in 2019-19, 2020-21 and 2021-22 respectively, with a total of 6 NHOs taking place at the High Court over the three years. No proceedings were held in Justice of the Peace courts in any year.

Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard

Notes

1. Cases included in the figures contains at least one DASA 2018 charge code on disposal.

2. High court and sheriff solemn trial courts were closed for large periods of 2020-21 due to COVID and also during 2020-21 and 2021-22 sheriff summary and justice of the peace courts were closed for significant period of time due to national lockdowns.

3. If a case appears in two different financial years it will be counted only once (in the latest financial year unless that appears with an NHO earlier. In that situation it will be counted on the year that the NHO is issued).

4. Data presented here is based on management information to inform operational delivery and policy development.

5. Numbers of cases in the High Court are very small so care should be taken when quoting or considering percentages.

Table 4a below provides the total number of cases resulting in a conviction of an offence at section 1 of DASA 2018 (also shown in Table 2a but introduced here for ease of comparison with those where an NHO was granted) and how many of those had an NHO granted to the DASA offence, by sheriffdom.

In 2021-22 the sheriffdoms of Glasgow and Strathkelvin, Lothian and Borders and North Strathclyde have the highest proportion of cases resulting in a conviction with DASA offences with NHOs granted, 79%, 77% and 75% respectively. In general the proportion of cases resulting in a conviction with DASA offences with NHOs granted has increased in 2021-22 from 2019-20 in all sheriffdoms except in Grampian Highland and Islands.

Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard

Notes

1. Cases included in the figures contains at least one DASA 2018 charge code on disposal.

2. High court and sheriff solemn trial courts were closed for large periods of 2020-21 due to COVID and also during 2020-21 and 2021-22 sheriff summary and justice of the peace courts were closed for significant period of time due to national lockdowns.

3. If a case appears in two different financial years it will be counted only once (in the latest financial year unless that appears with an NHO earlier. In that situation it will be counted on the year that the NHO is issued).

4. Data presented here is based on management information to inform operational delivery and policy development.

5. Numbers of cases in the High Court are very small so care should be taken when quoting or considering percentages.

4.2 Cases with a statutory domestic abuse aggravation resulting in a conviction with non-harassment orders

Table 5 provides the number of cases with at least one offence with a statutory aggravation of domestic abuse created by the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 that resulted in a conviction (also showed in Table 3 and included here for comparison) and the number of those cases where an NHO was granted to the charge with the statutory domestic abuse aggravation.

The number of cases resulting in a conviction with offences with statutory domestic abuse aggravators where an NHO was granted increased during the three years going from 17% (1,560 cases) in 2019-20 to 23% (1,658 cases) in 2020-21 to 31% (2,705 cases) in 2021-22. It is possible that following the introduction of the specific domestic abuse offence in 2019-20, some offences which were previously categorised as other offences, for example common assault, with the statutory domestic abuse aggravation applied, may now be recorded as part of the course of conduct falling under the definition of the new domestic abuse offence. Data for future years is required to establish the extent to which this may have occurred.

In each year, the majority of these cases resulting in a conviction with NHOs granted took place in sheriff summary proceedings, 90% in 2019-20, 89% in 2020-21 and 89% in 2021-22. Where sheriff solemn proceedings accounted for 10% in the three years, and High Court for 1%.

Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard

Notes

1. Cases included in the figures contain at least one charge with a statutory domestic abuse aggravation (W aggravator).

2. High court and sheriff solemn trial courts were closed for large periods of 2020-21 due to COVID and also during 2020-21 and 2021-22 sheriff summary and justice of the peace courts were closed for significant period of time due to national lockdowns.

3. If a case appears in two different financial years it will be counted only once (in the latest financial year unless that appears with an NHO earlier).

4. Data presented here is based on management information to inform operational delivery and policy development.

Table 5a below provides the sheriffdom breakdown of cases resulting in a conviction of a crime with a statutory domestic abuse aggravation recorded and where an NHO was granted.

In 2021-22 the sheriffdoms of North Strathclyde and South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway had the highest number of cases resulting in a conviction of a crime with a statutory domestic abuse aggravation recorded that attracted an NHO (33% of all cases with statutory domestic abuse aggravation). In general, the proportion of cases resulting in a conviction with statutory domestic abuse aggravation that attracted an NHO increased by one and a half times or more in all the sheriffdoms during the three years.

Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard

Notes

1. Cases included in the figures contain at least one charge with a statutory domestic abuse aggravation (W aggravator).

2. High court and sheriff solemn trial courts were closed for large periods of 2020-21 due to COVID and also during 2020-21 and 2021-22 sheriff summary and justice of the peace courts were closed for significant period of time due to national lockdowns.

3. If a case appears in two different financial years it will be counted only once (in the latest financial year unless that appears with an NHO earlier)

4. Data presented here is based on management information to inform operational delivery and policy development.

4.3 Cases with at least one domestic abuse charge under section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 resulting in a conviction with non-harassment orders in favour of a child

The data presented in the tables within this section and section 4.4 below covers the period from September 2021 to March 2022 and does not reflect the full timeframe required by the reporting requirements. This is due to there being no marker on the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) criminal case management system prior to September 2021. An upgrade in September 2021 introduced a marker to facilitate electronic extraction of relevant data. Prior to this date, data was only available in individual court minutes. Extracting this historical information (April 2019 to August 2021) would require a resource intensive manual review of a substantial volume of cases, which is currently not feasible as the resources required to carry out such an exercise are not available.

It is acknowledged that as a result this report does not contain all information required under section 14 of the 2018 Act, as some information relating to NHOs protecting children is currently unavailable and therefore cannot be included. We are considering how best to address this issue outside the scope of this report.

Table 6 provides the number of cases resulting in a conviction with at least one charge of an offence under section 1 of DASA 2018, those with an NHO and, those with the NHO in favour of a child by type of court between September 2021 and March 2022. SCTS does not hold data that would allow the identification of all cases in which an NHO could be granted in relation to a child, as not all reported convictions would qualify for such an order.

Note: An NHO could have more than one person named and there is no requirement for a separate NHO for each victim/child.

Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard

¹ Number of cases with at least one DASA charge in a case.

² Number of cases with at least one DASA charge where an NHO was granted.

³ Number of cases with at least one DASA charge where an NHO was granted in favour of a child.

Table 6a provides the number of cases resulting in a conviction with a charge of an offence under section 1 of DASA 2018, those with an NHO and, those with the NHO in favour of a child by sheriffdom between September 2021 and March 2022.

Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard

¹ Number of cases with at least one DASA charge in a case.

² Number of cases with at least one DASA charge where an NHO was granted.

³ Number of cases with at least one DASA charge where an NHO was granted in favour of a child.

4.4 Cases resulting in a conviction with a statutory domestic abuse aggravation (W aggravator) where a non-harassment order was granted in favour of a child

Table 7 below provides the number of cases resulting in a conviction with at least one charge with a statutory domestic abuse aggravation those with an NHO and, those with the NHO in favour of a child by type of court between September 2021 and March 2022.

Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard

¹ Number of cases with at least one charge with a proven W aggravation.

² Number of cases with at least one charge with a proven W aggravation and an NHO.

³ Number of cases with at least one charge with a proven W aggravation and an NHO in favour of a child.

Table 7a below provides the number of cases resulting in a conviction with at least one charge with a statutory domestic abuse aggravation, those with an NHO and, those with the NHO in favour of a child by sheriffdom between September 2021 and March 2022.

Total 5,375 1,686 45 Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard

¹ Number of cases with at least one charge with a proven W aggravation.

² Number of cases with at least one charge with a proven W aggravation and an NHO.

³ Number of cases with at least one charge with a proven W aggravation and an NHO in favour of a child.