Essay 05· 15 min read· Updated 2 June 2026
The Full Length of the System
From Clare's Law to conviction, domestic abuse cases fail at every stage. Attrition, misidentification, and the data nobody is collecting.
2.4 million people experience domestic abuse in England and Wales every year. Fewer than one in twenty cases ends in a conviction. This piece traces that journey from beginning to end, and examines what happens when the system not only fails victims but processes them as suspects.
- Domestic abuse
- Attrition
The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 was a landmark. It created the first statutory definition. It established the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. It created new protective orders, new pathways for support, new duties on local authorities. The system is still failing.
- People experiencing DA each year, England and Wales
- 2.4m
- Reports that result in charge or summons
- <24/100
- CPS charge rate for recorded rape, 2024
- 3.1%
- DVPOs per 1,000 DA crimes (national average; Suffolk: 1.1)
- 11.4
Clare's Law: the first intervention
Clare's Law gives any member of the public the right to ask police whether their partner may pose a risk. It was named after Clare Wood, murdered in 2009 by a man with a history of violence never disclosed to her. In May 2026 HMICFRS issued Suffolk Constabulary with an accelerated cause of concern, the most serious mechanism short of special measures, specifically for its failure to operate Clare's Law. There were more than 500 outstanding applications, including one submitted in January 2025. The force was leaving identifiable digital records of police contact on victims' devices.
The attrition pipeline
Of every 100 domestic abuse incidents reported to police, fewer than 24 result in a charge or summons. Of those charged, fewer than half result in conviction. Attrition happens at three main points: the police or CPS decision not to charge; victim withdrawal; the court stage. The dominant assumption is that victims withdraw because they change their minds. The evidence is more complex.
“When bail conditions are not applied for, protective orders not sought, and the offender retains access, the victim faces a choice between the system and their safety. Many choose their safety.”
When withdrawal is not a choice
HMICFRS data collected from forces found 304 full Stalking Protection Orders granted at court in the year to March 2023, against 116,323 stalking offences reported in the same period. Wiltshire's 2025-27 PEEL inspection found the force has no proactive system to monitor protective orders or breaches, relying on victims to report breaches themselves. When the system does not protect, withdrawal is recorded as a data point. The cause, the system's failure, is recorded nowhere.
When the system goes in the wrong direction
Attrition describes cases that fall out of the system. There is a third category the data does not capture at all: cases that proceed in the wrong direction. When an offender successfully misidentifies their victim as the perpetrator, through false allegations, fabricated digital evidence, or the tactical use of the criminal justice system as a mechanism of continued control, the system does not fail to process the case. It processes it correctly according to its own logic. The person it is processing is the victim.
R v Kavanagh: reporting as a weapon
A stalker created a fake online account in his victim's name and reported her to police for uploading intimate images, with the aim of having her arrested and prosecuted for an offence she had not committed. The fabricated report generated a police investigation against the victim. He was subsequently convicted of stalking and perverting the course of justice. The mechanism is precise: the offender did not evade the system. He used it.