Domestic abuse offences or offences with domestic abuse aggravators data: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for an amendment of the answer in relation to a previous FOI disclosure relating to the issue of non-harassment orders in the sentencing of cases of domestic abuse and other crimes with domestic abuse aggravators applied (FOI/202500446564). This is your new request:

a) The number of people convicted for domestic abuse offences (including offences with domestic abuse aggravators applied) made subject to Non-Harassment Orders (in relation to their victim/s) as part of their sentencing in each year since and including 2018/19 and including 2024/25.

b) The number of people convicted for domestic abuse offences (including offences with domestic abuse aggravators applied) NOT made subject to Non-Harassment Orders (in relation to their victim/s) as part of their sentencing in each year since and including 2018/19 and including 2024/25.

c) For the number of Non-Harassment Orders imposed, please specify the court type in which they were imposed (e.g High Court, Sheriff Court).

Response

Regarding your new request, the number of people convicted for domestic abuse offences or offences with domestic abuse aggravators by court type has been extracted from the management information used to publish the Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard (Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard).

The domestic abuse aggravators considered in this analysis were:

CODE	Aggravation	Legislation
D	Domestic Abuse
W	Statutory Aggravation - Domestic Abuse	Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016
Y	Domestic Abuse Statutory Aggravation involving a child	Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018

D aggravator is used for cases where COPFS consider it to be a domestic abuse case, but the statutory aggravation in the 2016 Act doesn't apply. Courts are under statutory obligation to consider an NHO in cases where the statutory W aggravator is used and the 2018 Act Y aggravator is used, but not cases where the D aggravator is used.

Table 1 shows the total number of people convicted for a domestic abuse offence or another offence with domestic abuse aggravator and, how many of those accused, got a non-harassment order because of any of those offences by financial year.

Table 1: Non-Harassment orders for case-accused convicted for domestic abuse offences (including offences with domestic abuse aggravators).

Number of case-accused1,2,3	Non-Harassment orders issued
Financial year	No	Yes4
2018-2019	9,163	1,109
2019-2020	8,772	1,741
2020-2021	6,187	1,918
2021-2022	7,128	3,191
2022-2023	7,084	3,534
2023-2024	6,392	4,011
2024-2025	6,388	4,588

1 Number of people convicted of at least one domestic abuse offence or another offence with a domestic abuse aggravator in a case.

2 If there are multiple accused in a case they will be counted separately.

3 If a person appears in more than one case per year then they will be counted more than once.

4 Limited to one per person per case.

Table 2 shows the total number of people convicted with Non-Harassment Orders (in relation to their victim/s) for a domestic abuse offence or another offence with domestic abuse aggravator by court type and financial year.

Table 2: Non-Harassment orders for case-accused convicted for domestic abuse offences (including offences with domestic abuse aggravators) by court type.

Number of case-accused with NHOs1	Court type
Financial year	High Court	Sheriff Solemn	Sheriff Summary	JP Court	Total
2018-2019	3	113	993	0	1,109
2019-2020	14	178	1,548	1	1,741
2020-2021	9	213	1,696	0	1,918
2021-2022	34	353	2,804	0	3,191
2022-2023	68	441	3,022	3	3,534
2023-2024	133	552	3,325	1	4,011
2024-2025	196	562	3,830	0	4,588

1 Limited to one per person per case.

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