Five Requests A Day Since Abuse Disclosure Scheme Rolled Out

Members of the public have made about five requests a day for information on the potentially-abusive past of partners since the roll-out of a government scheme.

The scheme was introduced at the start of October after a successful trial period and 109 disclosure requests were received between October 1 and 21 from people who feared their partner may have a history of domestic abuse.

Known as Clare's Law after Clare Wood, who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in Salford, Greater Manchester, in 2009, the scheme offers a formal route to men and women who wish to discover if their partner has been convicted of a domestic abuse crime.

It was introduced after a six-month trial of the scheme in Ayrshire and Aberdeen during which 86 requests were made to police, with 35 disclosures granted.

Speaking at the Tackling Domestic Abuse Conference in Edinburgh, Deputy Chief Constable Rose Fitzpatrick said: The first few weeks of the scheme have been very positive and it continues to highlight the everyday challenges we face in tackling domestic abuse in Scotland.

In 2014/15, Police Scotland attended nearly 60,000 reports of domestic incidents - every nine minutes our officers will be attending a report of a domestic incident somewhere in Scotland.

We will attend every reported domestic incident and carry out a full and thorough investigation, but if we can prevent a person, female or male, becoming a victim of domestic abuse in the first place then we have taken a step in the right direction. The disclosure scheme helps us do this.

Police Scotland will not tolerate domestic abuse, it has to stop. There is no place for abusers to hide.

We will pursue them, we will remove the risk they pose and we will bring them to justice, and by working with our partners we will proactively seek to prevent them destroying the lives of their victims.''

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