Draft domestic abuse offence to be shared in coming weeks

Although the government previously sought views on the issue, after warnings from prosecutors the current law is inadequate, ministers did not include it in legislation introduced to the Scottish Parliament last month – owing to a lack of agreement on how to formulate such an offence.

Claudia Beamish, a Scottish Labour MSP, asked what is being done given as the introduction had been postponed.

However, Mr Matheson said: “It is not correct to say that a specific offence of domestic abuse has been postponed.

“In our Programme for Government in November 2014 we committed to consult on the principle of creating a specific offence of domestic abuse. We consulted between March and June 2015.

“The views received to that consultation revealed broad support for the principle of having a domestic abuse offence, but no consensus on how such an offence should be developed.”

He added: “In light of this, we committed in this year’s Programme for Government to consult on a draft specific offence of domestic abuse.

“We consider the right approach is to listen to key stakeholders and take forward the development of such an important new offence informed by their views so that a consensus can be achieved.

“A draft offence will be shared with stakeholders in the next few weeks.”