Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Dame Nicole Jacobs, said: “I cannot stress the lack of consideration for victims’ safety and how many lives are being put in danger because of this proposed change.
“You are not sent to prison for four years if you do not pose significant risk to your victim or the wider public. Perpetrators of domestic abuse know everything about their victim – where they live, where they work, where their children go to school – they are also extremely willing to breach orders intended to protect victims, time and time again. Re-releasing them back into the community after 28 days is simply unacceptable.
“What makes this worse is that ministers cannot safely exempt all perpetrators of domestic abuse from this proposal, because they do not know how many domestic abusers are serving time in prison or are currently being monitored by probation.
“Until government can confidently exempt all offenders with a known history of domestic abuse from this measure, it is critical for victims’ safety that this proposal is scrapped.”