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Hundreds of domestic abuse victims face jail under new law [1]
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Date: 2025-05
When Jane’s* abusive ex-partner turned up at her house and began “screaming abuse” and “threatening her”, she called the police.
But when officers arrived, they said they couldn’t do anything as, despite her ex being stood opposite her home, he was technically outside of the restraining order area.
“I got angry and kicked off,” Jane told the Prison Reform Trust charity. “So they arrested me.”
Jane’s story is not unusual. At least 1,486 women who were accused of assaulting an emergency worker in the four years to November 2024 had been victims of domestic abuse in their lifetime, openDemocracy can reveal. The findings raise concerns that vulnerable women are being criminalised when they seek help to deal with an abuser.
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The true figure is likely much higher, as only seven of England and Wales’ 43 police forces responded to our Freedom of Information requests. The vast majority said they do not record whether people arrested for assaulting officers are known to have been domestically abused.
Recalling the circumstances that led to her arrest, Jane said: “Of course I’m going to be angry [at the police’s refusal to act]. They had no idea what he’d put me through.They just saw me as the one kicking off.”
“This data confirms what we see every day in our frontline work,” said Lucy Russell, head of policy and public affairs for Women in Prison, in response to our findings. “Women are being criminalised for the domestic abuse they experience. In these cases, for assaulting emergency workers, often as a direct result of their trauma and abuse.
“This offence is quite new, and it has horribly backfired, by disproportionately criminalising women. Women need to know that they can call for help without fear of ending up in handcuffs because of the trauma and abuse they are going through.”
Assaulting an emergency worker was made a crime in 2018, following legitimate concerns that frontline staff were facing violence when carrying out their duties.
Anne*, who also spoke to the Prison Reform Trust, was arrested for assaulting an emergency worker when police attended her house during an incident with her abuser.
“Maybe because you’re the one that’s suffering you tend to be the one that’s going to kick out at the police,” Anne said. “My arrests have been when I feel trapped and then it’s just like everything’s like a volcano because you think, I’m getting framed here by my abuser and nobody seems to understand.”
Anne described how during the arrest, “your abuser tends to be … dead calm…You just think, ‘I’m trapped again, I’m trapped.’”
Vanessa Bettinson, a professor at Northumberland University who specialises in coercive control and the criminal justice system, recognises Anne’s experience as common to women who are arrested during domestic incidents.
“When a woman responds with violence in this way, we still talk about what’s wrong with the victim and not what is wrong with the perpetrator’s behaviour,” she said.
“We need to be asking questions about the reality of a victim’s experience and what options she had. Women who have experienced the police responding in a certain way, such as by arresting the victim, or siding with the perpetrator, will not call the police again.
“This is something called social entrapment, where women become trapped in abusive situations because they don’t think they have a route to safety.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/domestic-abuse-victims-criminalised-tory-law/
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