Swinney questioned over five-year delay to domestic abuse protections

Pressing John Swinney at First Minister’s Questions over a sharp rise in sexual crime, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton urged the Scottish government to end its delays in implementing key domestic abuse protections.

The Lib Dems have repeatedly criticised the delayed implementation of the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021. These delays mean that domestic abuse protection notices (DAPNs) and domestic abuse protection orders (DAPOs) have still not been rolled out.

These measures would give the police and courts the powers to remove a domestic abuser from the home of any person at risk immediately following an incident.

The Scottish Women’s Rights Centre has warned that delays to implementation mean victims and their children “remain at serious risk of further abuse and harm”.

A letter written to Mr Swinney by Mr Cole-Hamilton and justice spokesperson Yi-pei Chou Turvey states: “As you will be aware, sexual crime is now at its highest level since 1971. Separately, domestic abuse crimes rose by 23 per cent compared to the previous year, increasing from 2,573 to 3,170. Despite the growing prevalence of these crimes, however, important domestic abuse protections passed by the Scottish Parliament five years ago are still not in place.”

It adds: “While we appreciate that operational and financial challenges may be at play in the reasons for non-implementation, we cannot accept that this is a reasonable justification for the persistence of delays, especially when the Scottish Parliament passed this Act five years ago. We worry that such delays only serve to give victims very little confidence in laws designed to protect them.”