The Police Service of Northern Ireland acknowledges the publication of the third Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland (CJI) review of the implementation of Part 1 of the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (NI) 2021.

The report found positive progress had been made in raising criminal justice system wide awareness about domestic abuse as an offence.

It also recognised police officers face a number of difficult challenges on a regular basis when dealing with domestic abuse-related cases.

Commenting, Detective Chief Superintendent Zoe McKee, Head of Public Protection Branch said: “We continue to work with our partner agencies in the criminal justice system to ensure that we deliver a service that meets the needs and expectations of all victims and witnesses.

“We welcome the findings and the recommendations of the report. As an organisation, we have already commenced a body of work to ensure the voices of children who are impacted by domestic abuse cases are clearly heard and feature in investigations.

“This is year three of our delivery of Part 1 of the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (NI) 2021, which saw us equipped with new legislative tools to target those who perpetrate domestic abuse and protect the most vulnerable.

“Anything we can do to better safeguard victims and children who are impacted by domestic abuse, will be a priority.”

Detective Chief Superintendent McKee continued: “We have delivered specialised training in partnership with Women’s Aid – which has a focus on children as victims of domestic abuse cases and the new legislation that holds perpetrators to account.

“Officers from across different departments within the Police Service have attended a series of awareness sessions to ensure they have the required awareness and confidence that they need when dealing with such cases.

“We’re also working with our IT systems internally to help develop and implement a technical solution that assists officers in seamlessly adding child aggravators to case files.

“Training programmes for our custody sergeants have also been developed to ensure child aggravator awareness is captured on our internal systems prior to their disposal.

“We also continue to work with colleagues in the Public Prosecution Service to review and improve processes relating to victims, including developing a robust quality assurance process to monitor the appropriate use of aggravators.

“Domestic abuse remains a Service priority and we are fully committed to delivering for victims and bringing offenders to justice.”

Anyone suffering from domestic abuse is encouraged to contact their local police on the non-emergency 101 or in an emergency always call 999.

You can submit a report online using the non-emergency reporting form via http://www.psni.police.uk/makeareport/ or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at http://crimestoppers-uk.org/