Domestic Abuse – 451/23

Date Responded 27 March 2023

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

1. Please can you provide the number of victims of domestic abuse aged under 18 that have been referred into victims support services for the following time periods:

a. 30 January 2021 – 29 January 2022

b. 30 January 2022 – 29 January 2023

2. What changes have been made to the force’s approach to recording offences as a result of Part 3 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 (children as victims) coming into force on 30 January 2022?

In Response:

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Safeguarding Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held in part by Northumbria Police.

I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

1. a. 157

b. 195

The above data is for victims aged 16 and 17 years, from Domestic Abuse incidents for those periods. As a force we do not record additional crimes for children involved in DA incidents so we are unable to provide the data for those under 16 years old.

2. No changes have been made to our crime recording systems as a result of the amendments to the Domestic Abuse Act.

Disclaimer

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.