Domestic homicide review legislation consultation

1. Are you responding as an individual or on behalf of an organisation?

Individual
Organisation

2. If you are responding as an individual, please select the option which best describes your status.

Family member or friend bereaved by domestic homicide
Family member or friend bereaved by another type of domestic abuse related death (not a homicide)
Academic/researcher/student
Other (please specify):

3. If you are responding on behalf of an organisation, please select the option which best describes your affiliation.

Law enforcement agency (police, policing body, Crown Prosecution Service)
Healthcare organisation
Local Authority
Community Safety Partnership
Educational institution or student body
Violence against women and girls charity / service provider
Other (please specify):

Legislation on a domestic homicide review

Current domestic homicide review (DHR) legislation specifies that a DHR should be considered in instances where ‘the death of a person aged 16 or over has, or appears to have, resulted from violence, abuse or neglect by (a) a person to whom he was related or with whom he was or had been in an intimate personal relationship, or (b) a member of the same household as himself’.

The DA Act 2021 introduced a statutory definition of domestic abuse that incorporates a range of abuses beyond ‘violence, abuse and neglect’ to include controlling or coercive behaviour, emotional and economic abuse. Explicitly including this definition in the DHR legislation would ensure that DHRs continue to contribute to our understanding of DA, and capture learnings to prevent fatal domestic abuse.

4. Are you in favour of updating DHR legislation so that a DHR is considered for all deaths that have or appear to have been the result of domestic abuse, as domestic abuse is defined in the DA Act 2021 (see below)?

Yes
No
Don't know

Please comment:

Existing legislation

Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, Section 9, Part 1 states a domestic homicide review should be held when:

“the death of a person aged 16 or over has, or appears to have, resulted from violence, abuse or neglect by—
(a)a person to whom he was related or with whom he was or had been in an intimate personal relationship, or
(b)a member of the same household as himself,
held with a view to identifying the lessons to be learnt from the death”

Section 1 of The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 defines domestic abuse as:

(2)Behaviour of a person (“A”) towards another person (“B”) is “domestic abuse” if—
(a)A and B are each aged 16 or over and are personally connected to each other, and
(b)the behaviour is abusive.

(3)Behaviour is “abusive” if it consists of any of the following—
(a)physical or sexual abuse;
(b)violent or threatening behaviour;
(c)controlling or coercive behaviour;
(d)economic abuse (see subsection (4));
(e)psychological, emotional or other abuse;
and it does not matter whether the behaviour consists of a single incident or a course of conduct.

(4)“Economic abuse” means any behaviour that has a substantial adverse effect on B’s ability to—
(a)acquire, use or maintain money or other property, or
(b)obtain goods or services.

(5)For the purposes of this Act A’s behaviour may be behaviour “towards” B despite the fact that it consists of conduct directed at another person (for example, B’s child).

(6)References in this Act to being abusive towards another person are to be read in accordance with this section.

(7)For the meaning of “personally connected”, see section 2.

Section 2 of The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 defines “personally connected” as:

(1)For the purposes of this Act, two people are “personally connected” to each other if any of the following applies—
(a)they are, or have been, married to each other;
(b)they are, or have been, civil partners of each other;
(c)they have agreed to marry one another (whether or not the agreement has been terminated);
(d)they have entered into a civil partnership agreement (whether or not the agreement has been terminated);
(e)they are, or have been, in an intimate personal relationship with each other;
(f)they each have, or there has been a time when they each have had, a parental relationship in relation to the same child (see subsection (2));
(g)they are relatives.

(2)For the purposes of subsection (1)(f) a person has a parental relationship in relation to a child if—
(a)the person is a parent of the child, or
(b)the person has parental responsibility for the child.

(3)In this section—
“child” means a person under the age of 18 years;
“civil partnership agreement” has the meaning given by section 73 of the Civil Partnership Act 2004;
“parental responsibility” has the same meaning as in the Children Act 1989 (see section 3 of that Act);
“relative” has the meaning given by section 63(1) of the Family Law Act 1996.