Domestic abuse and stalking charges in Scotland 2023 – 2024

In 2023-24, 30,100 charges were reported to COPFS with a domestic abuse identifier.

This is a very slight decrease (0.1%) compared to the 2022-23 total of 30,139.

Most of the charges reported with a domestic abuse identifier are prosecuted. The proportion resulting in court proceedings has increased over recent years and remains at a consistently high level. At the time the data was extracted, an initial decision had been made to proceed to court with 93% of charges reported in 2023-24 (94% in 2022-23).

Other prosecutorial actions are available using Direct Measures, including warnings and diversion from prosecution. Direct Measures are used in fewer than 2% of overall charges reported.

The number and percentage of charges where No Action was taken have decreased over the last few years from 3,900 (11%) in 2014-15 to 1,225 (4%) in 2023-24.

Where the decision was to take No Action in 2023-24, the most common reason recorded was “Insufficient Admissible Evidence” (59%).

Table 1: Charges reported with a domestic abuse identifier, by year reported and initial decision on how charge will proceed

Most of the charges that are prosecuted in court are at sheriff summary level. In 2023-24, 82% of charges prosecuted were at sheriff summary level.

The proportion of charges prosecuted at solemn level increased from 13% in 2014-15 to 23% in 2021-22 and has since fallen back slightly, to 18% in 2023-24.

In 2023-24, 26,347 charges were reported with a statutory aggravation under the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016, accounting for 88% of all domestic abuse charges reported. This shows a marked increase in comparison with 82% in 2022-23. Since 2019-20, some charges which might previously have been reported with a statutory aggravation may instead have been reported under section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018.

Table 2: Charges with a statutory aggravation

The most common types of offences reported in 2023-24 with a domestic abuse identifier were threatening and abusive behaviour offences (27%), crimes against public justice (25%, includes bail offences) and common assault (24%).

Table 3: Charges reported to COPFS with a domestic abuse identifier 2023-24

Table 4: Charges reported to COPFS with a statutory domestic abuse aggravator 2023-24

The majority of those accused of domestic abuse are male. In 2023-24, 25,825 (86%) of the charges reported with a domestic abuse identifier were in cases where the accused was male.

The majority of those reported with a charge with a domestic offence identifier in 2023-24 were aged 31-40 years (36%) or 21-30 years (26%).

Table 5: Age of accused

Table 6a: Location of charges with a domestic abuse identifier 2023-24, Glasgow and Strathkelvin

Table 6b: Location of charges with a domestic abuse identifier 2023-24, Grampian, Highland and Islands

Table 6c: Location of charges with a domestic abuse identifier 2023-24, Lothian and Borders

Table 6d: Location of charges with a domestic abuse identifier 2023-24, North Strathclyde

Table 6e: Location of charges with a domestic abuse identifier 2023-24, South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway

Table 6f: Location of charges with a domestic abuse identifier 2023-24, Tayside, Central and Fife

In 2023-24, 1,831 charges were reported under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 (DASA), accounting for 6.1% of all domestic abuse charges reported. This is a slight increase compared with the 2022-23 total of 1,753 (5.8% of all domestic abuse charges reported). This legislation came into force on 1 April 2019.

Court proceedings were commenced in 94% of the DASA charges reported. This is slightly down in comparison with 2022-23 where court proceedings were commenced in respect of 96% DASA charges.

The majority of charges prosecuted in court proceed at sheriff summary level. The proportion prosecuted at this level has fallen from 69% in 2020-21 to 58% in 2023-24. The corresponding proportion prosecuted at solemn level has increased from 31% in 2020-21 to its highest level of 42% in 2023-24.

A statutory child aggravation under section 5 of DASA was recorded against 382 (21%) of the DASA charges reported (compared with 350 or 20% in 2022-23). Court proceedings were commenced in 94% of charges with a child aggravation.

95% (1,736) of the DASA charges reported were in cases where the accused was male.

The majority of accused in DASA charges fell into the age group 31-40 years (36%) or 21-30 years (29%).

Table 7: DASA Section 1 charges, by year reported and initial decision on how charge will proceed

In 2023-24, 859 stalking charges under section 39 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 were reported to COPFS. This represents a decrease of 7% compared with 2022-23. Of these, 456 (53%) contained a domestic abuse identifier (53% in 2022-23). These are included under the “Other non-sexual violence” category in Tables 3 and 4.

From 1 April 2019, if an offence that would previously have been reported as a stalking charge under section 39 of the 2010 Act was part of a course of conduct of domestic abuse, where appropriate it will have been reported as part of a charge under section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018. This will have contributed to the fall in the number of stalking charges reported since 2019-20.

Table 8: Stalking charges by year reported

Data source

1. The information in this publication is taken from the live COPFS operational database used to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by Police Scotland and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.

2. Reports to the Procurator Fiscal can include one or more persons. Each person within a report can be reported for one or more charges. The information in this publication relates to charges, rather than reports or people.

3. During the course of a case, the Procurator Fiscal may decide to amend the original charge reported. The COPFS database holds details of the amended charge only. The data for charges reported in 2023-24 was extracted in late June 2024 and therefore reflects the information held at that date. The figures may not therefore exactly match those previously published, or the number of charges initially reported by Police Scotland.

Definition of, and legislation on, domestic abuse

4. The definition of domestic abuse followed by COPFS and the Police Service of Scotland is set out in the published Joint Protocol.

5. The definition set out in the Protocol is “any form of physical, verbal, sexual, psychological or financial abuse which might amount to criminal conduct and which takes place within the context of a relationship. The relationship will be between partners (married, cohabiting, civil partnership or otherwise) or ex-partners. The abuse can be committed in the home or elsewhere including online”.

6. Police Scotland report a range of offences involving domestic abuse to COPFS, as set out in Tables 3 and 4. COPFS prosecute these offences using a range of different statutory and common law charges. A charge that fits the definition of domestic abuse in the Protocol will have a domestic abuse identifier. Most of the information in this publication relates to charges with a domestic abuse identifier.

7. On 24 April 2017, the statutory aggravation of domestic abuse was introduced by the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 section 1. The aggravation only applies to conduct that took place on or after 24 April 2017.  An offence is aggravated if in committing the offence the person intends to cause or is reckless about causing their partner or ex-partner to suffer physical or psychological harm. The aggravation can only be applied where there is evidence capable of proving it and evidence from a single source is sufficient to prove that an offence is aggravated.  All charges which carry the aggravation should carry the domestic abuse identifier, but the identifier may apply to charges to which the aggravation does not.

8. Charges with a statutory domestic abuse aggravation are separately identified in Table 4. This table is therefore a subset of the information in Table 3.

9. The Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 came into force on 1st April 2019. This Act created a new statutory offence of engaging in a course of behaviour which is abusive of a partner or ex-partner. A course of behaviour involves behaviour on at least 2 occasions where a reasonable person would consider this course of behaviour to be likely to cause physical or psychological harm and the person intended to cause or was reckless about causing their partner or ex-partner to suffer physical or psychological harm. The new offence only applies to conduct that took place on or after 1 April 2019.

10. The Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 section 5 also created a new statutory aggravation to the new section 1 offence, where a child was involved in the offending. The aggravation can only be applied where there is evidence capable of proving it and evidence from a single source is sufficient to prove that an offence is aggravated.

11. Charges under this legislation are included as a separate category of offence in Table 3.

12. Charges under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 will not have a statutory aggravation under the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016. The aggravation will be used with other statutory or common law charges if appropriate, for instance if a single incident of assault involving domestic abuse is prosecuted.

13. Some charges may have the domestic abuse identifier, or the statutory aggravation of domestic abuse, removed by the Procurator Fiscal during the processing of the case, where they considered it was not appropriate to apply this. Conversely, a domestic abuse identifier or statutory aggravation of domestic abuse may be added by the Procurator Fiscal, where appropriate, to charges that were reported without this.

Initial decision on how charge will proceed

14. Court includes charges where the initial decision is to prosecute in court at either solemn level (i.e. before a jury) or summary level (i.e. without a jury). The court figures also include charges which were not prosecuted in court, but where other charges for the same accused within the same case were prosecuted. In some cases, the charges which were prosecuted will have included details from the charges against the same accused which were not prosecuted.

15. Direct measures include fiscal fines, fiscal compensation orders, fiscal work orders, warning letters and referral to diversion from prosecution schemes. The direct measures figures include charges which were not actioned, but where the accused was given a direct measure in respect of other charges within the same case. In some cases, the charges which were given a direct measure will have included details from the charges which were not actioned.

16. No action includes charges where a decision has been taken not to proceed. This will include charges where, for instance, there is insufficient evidence to proceed or where further action would be disproportionate.

17. No decision includes charges where no decision has been taken yet, including those which have been reviewed but where more information is required before a final decision can be taken on whether to proceed.

18. Reporter includes charges where the accused is a child or young person, and they have been referred to the Scottish Children’s Reporter for consideration of action to be taken. The Reporter figures include charges which were not included in the referral to the Reporter, but where the accused was referred in respect of other charges in the same case.

19. The number and proportion of charges for which no decision had yet been taken at the time the figures were compiled varies slightly from year to year. This needs to be borne in mind when comparing the initial decisions made on taking charges forward in different years.

Figures for previous years

20. Tables providing figures for previous years are available in an Excel spreadsheet - Domestic abuse and stalking data tables

21. Figures for earlier years have not been revised. They therefore reflect the information available at the time they were extracted from the database – generally around 3 months after the end of the financial year to which they relate.

Classification of charges

22. Charges have been classified in tables 3 and 4 according to the crime classification system used by the Scottish Government. This classification was updated in June 2022. The first publication to use the new classification was the Scottish Government’s Recorded Crime 2021-22 bulletin. This included a description of the new classification and the main changes from the previous classification at Recorded Crime Annex 5

23. The breakdown provided in tables 3 and 4 is therefore not the same as that provided in this publication for 2020-21 and earlier years. Copies of these tables for all years are available in an Excel spreadsheet - Domestic abuse and stalking data tables.

Stalking

24. The publication includes some additional information on stalking. Offences of stalking are reported under section 39 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010.

25. Not all stalking charges relate to domestic abuse but those that do have been separately identified in the figures provided in Table 8.

26. After 1 April 2019, if stalking is part of a course of conduct of domestic abuse, where appropriate it will be included within the libel of a charge reported under section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018. As the stalking offence would previously have been reported separately, this is likely to lead to a decrease in the number of stand-alone stalking charges reported.

Use of terms sex and gender

27. 'Sex' can be considered to refer to whether someone is male or female based on their physiology, with 'gender' representing a social construct or sense of self that takes a wider range of forms.

28. Sex, as referred to in this report, is generally identified by a police officer based on their assessment of whether a person presents as male or female. In most cases this is based on the physiology of a person rather than self-identified gender. It is recorded for operational purposes, such as requirements for searching. It is also included in the information reported to COPFS. However, in order to prosecute crime, information regarding the sex or gender of accused persons is not essential. It should be noted that COPFS will respect and use the chosen pronouns of an accused person in all communications with them.

29. In this report we refer to 'sex' rather than 'gender' because this better reflects recording practices in relation to this information. In reality it is likely that recording includes a mixture of physiological and personal identity. The sex of a small number of accused is not recorded, where the police have not provided this information to COPFS.

Convictions

30. The publication does not include information on convictions or conviction rates. Many of the charges reported in 2023-24 will not yet have reached conviction stage. The Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database is the usual source for convictions data, and they have published figures for years up to 2021-22. They have also published a supporting document in Excel format which includes figures on offences convicted with a domestic abuse identifier recorded (at Tables 11 and 12) and figures on people prosecuted and convicted under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 (at Tables 3a, 3b and 3c).

31. Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.

An official statistics publication for Scotland

These statistics are official statistics. Official statistics are statistics that are produced by crown bodies, those acting on behalf of crown bodies, or those specified in statutory orders, as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

COPFS statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

Correspondence and enquiries

For enquiries about this publication please contact:

Tony McCartan
Management Information Unit
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
Email: ManagementInformationUnit@copfs.gov.uk