Only 6% of domestic abuse reports have led to a charge or summons in West Yorkshire since 2018
In the last 3 years there's been more than 256,000 reports to West Yorkshire Police
In the last 3 years, only 6% of domestic abuse reports have led to a charge or summons in West Yorkshire.
From the 31st March 2018 until the 1st October 2021, there's been 265908 reports.
Of this, 16012 resulted in a charge or summons to court.
The deputy mayor for police and crime, Alison Lowe, said:
"Many, many victims chose to give up, to not enter the system in the first place.
"There's huge factors contributing to the huge wait, covid has had a massive impact, all the courts were closed."
"Additional courts that are opening on weekends, and out of hours in order to catch up on the back log. I think we are nearly a year behind, that's not acceptable, because victims and vulnerable witness are bearing the brunt of that."
Although the system is working 'flat out' now, we're still around a year behind.
Alison Lowe explains what they're doing to support victims to give evidence, through a pilot scheme:
"We can video with prosecution, defence and the judge, they're present in court, our witness is in a safe building, where they can give evidence to court.
"Women's centres you can go to give evidence, this needs rolling out further once the pilot is over. So, we do recognise how hard it is, for victims to wait, and wait, and wait."