Domestic abuse should be punished more severely because it is more serious than other offences, according to new sentencing guidelines.
Physical or psychological attacks on partners and family violate the ‘trust and security’ of intimate relationships and should usually bring a prison term, courts have been told.
Under the advice issued yesterday by the Sentencing Council, the judge-dominated body that recommends court penalties, the risk of jail will apply not only to incidents of violence but to emotional and psychological offences.
In future, risk of jail for domestic abuse will apply not only to incidents of violence but to emotional and psychological offences
Domestic abuse will include offences such as threats or humiliation through phone calls, texts, email and social networks. The guidelines say such abuse must be intended to harm, punish or frighten the victim.
The council is likely to set down more detailed advice on abuse carried out through social media – in particular revenge porn – later this year.
Those convicted under the new rules will not be able to get a lighter sentence by saying they were provoked by the violent or abusive behaviour of their partner. Courts were told to ignore allegations of provocation except in rare circumstances.
The Sentencing Council warned that someone convicted of a dangerous offence in the home – a category that can include rape – may be sentenced to prison for life.
The rules set up a new and contentious legal principle that judges and magistrates will have to follow from today unless they can show good reason why they have decided differently.
Until yesterday the guidance was only that domestic offences were ‘no less serious than those in a non-domestic context’.
Jill Kirby said the new guidelines will mean the courts ‘invade people’s home and decide what’s happening’
Another legal departure is that the term domestic violence has been dropped by the courts in favour of the phrase domestic abuse.
This reflects a 2011 Supreme Court ruling that domestic violence could include non-violent behaviour, made in a case in which a husband was said to have shouted at his wife and refused to give her money.
The Sentencing Council said: ‘The domestic context of the offending behaviour makes the offending more serious because it represents a violation of the trust and security that normally exists between people in an intimate or family relationship. There may be a continuing threat to the victim’s safety, and in the worst cases a threat to their life or the lives of others around them.’
Lawyer a former head of the Centre for Policy Studies, said: ‘Domestic violence is a serious problem, but these guidelines mean the courts need to invade a couple’s home and decide what was happening.
‘There is a risk that people will be locked up without proper evidence on the say-so of another person.’
Criminologist Dr David Green, of the Civitas think-tank, said: ‘This is part of a legal trend making criminals of us all. It is drawing the clumsy instrument of the law into private relationships where the law has no place.’
He added: ‘When has there ever been a marriage when a husband or wife have not shouted at each other? People often shout as a substitute for violence. [It] makes violence less likely. The guidance also ignores the fact that couples can forgive each other, and often do.’