In a white-walled room at Croydon custody centre on Wednesday, Jess Phillips let out a little whoop.
Talking about new strict new restraining orders on domestic abusers, which were launched that morning, DI Sharad Verma said: “We’ve issued two Dapos today … you should have the first national-level Dapos by the end of the day.”
“Let’s hope that it can stop escalation as well,” Phillips said. “We have to move away from just putting slightly better plasters on bigger cuts, and instead try and stop plasters being needed in the first place.”
Phillips – alongside the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan – was in Croydon on a gloomy November morning for the launch of the new domestic abuse protection notices and domestic abuse protection orders (Dapns and Dapos).
Ahead of a national rollout, these measures will be piloted in three London boroughs, including Croydon, as well as Greater Manchester, Cleveland and North Wales and by the British Transport Police.
The government sees the new orders – alongside embedding domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms from early next year – as a first step in meeting its goal of halving violence against women and girls in a decade.
Brought in to replace domestic violence protection orders (DVPOs) – which campaigners and victims warned were misunderstood and underused by police officers in domestic abuse cases – the new orders can force abusers to stay away from their victim, as well as enforcing “positive requirements” such as attending behaviour change programmes.
Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said the measures were designed to be significantly more effective than the old orders, which victims and their supporters said were often ignored with impunity.
Breaching a Dapo is a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in prison and family courts can tag the most serious offenders for up to 12 months, something that previously could be done only by criminal courts or the police. Phillips said the success of these new measures would depend “on victims’ ability to trust that positive actions will be carried out and breaches will be taken seriously”.
The new protection orders could be a “gamechanger”, said Supt Andy Wadey, the Met police’s lead for domestic abuse and stalking. “Here in London we’ve seen it as an opportunity to start managing offenders quite proactively,” he says. “It’s going to have an impact on repeat victimisation, repeat offending – and that’s got to be a good thing.”
The new Dapos – which were legislated for by the last Conservative government in 2021 – have also been expanded to cover all forms of domestic abuse, not just violence or the threat of violence, and will have no time restrictions, unlike the 28-day limit on the protection orders they replace.
Khan, who recently launched an anti-misogyny drive across London schools, said the Dapos simplified a complicated landscape of protection orders and would make it easier for victims to be protected and get the support they needed.
“There’s been lots of things in the recent past that have highlighted the distrust between women [and] girls with the criminal justice system,” he said, referencing the sharing of photographs after the deaths of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman and the policing of a vigil for Sarah Everard during the Covid pandemic.
“That’s why it’s important that there’s a proper response from the centre, from the government, because that will be heard loud and clear – you’ve got to earn back trust and confidence to be able to take action.”
Women’s rights organisations have warned that officers will have to be trained to use and implement the orders or they will be useless. In 2019 a super-complaint from the Centre for Women’s Justice revealed that domestic violence protection orders were used in only 1% of cases. For the year ending March 2024, that figure had risen to 1.4% of cases.
“We welcome this pilot,” said Nogah Ofer from the Centre for Women’s Justice. “But the real challenge is to make them a widespread effective tool against domestic abuse, and that takes very significant additional spending on police training, police time and lawyers to make court applications.”
In Croydon, Phillips asked officers to keep her updated on the progress of the two protection orders they had applied for on the first day they could be used. “This is day one, and it is a learning exercise,” she said. “But I don’t get up most mornings feeling all that hopeful – and I feel hopeful today.”
