Women’s Aid statement in response to HMI Probation report

Lucy Hadley, Head of Policy at Women’s Aid, said:

‘These findings are alarming. It is unacceptable that so many women and children are put at risk of further domestic abuse from perpetrators who are on probation.

“The Probation Service has been found to lack understanding of the complexities of domestic abuse, in particular when assessing risk and coercive control. We know from our work with survivors that domestic abuse doesn’t stop when the relationship ends. Domestic abuse is insidious and has devastating and long-lasting impacts on the lives of survivors and their children. The Probation Service play a critical role in managing the ongoing risk of harm survivors face – but this inspection found less than a third of risk assessments for domestic abuse were adequate and there are serious issues with workloads and current practice.

“The scale of change required is significant and urgent. Improving training, which must be designed and delivered by specialist domestic abuse services, is a vital first step for improving the Probation Service’s response to survivors. Perpetrators must be held to account and prevented from inflicting further harm while serving probation.”