When Domestic Abuse Is Everywhere but Treated as Nowhere

THE DIRECTIVE™

When Domestic Abuse Is Everywhere but Treated as Nowhere

Why Recognition, Not Awareness, Is the Next Challenge for Family Justice

The publication of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner's Everyday Business report marked a significant moment in the ongoing discussion about family justice in England and Wales.

Its findings were difficult to ignore.

The review found evidence of domestic abuse in 87% of the private law family court case files examined, yet abuse was frequently not treated as an active safeguarding issue during proceedings. Survivors also described being discouraged from raising allegations of domestic abuse by Cafcass, the courts, and, in some cases, their own legal representatives because they believed it would make little difference to the outcome.

More recently, the Commissioner's Domestic Homicide Project continued to demonstrate that domestic homicide remains a serious and persistent public protection concern, reinforcing the importance of learning from repeated patterns of harm rather than isolated incidents.

Taken together, these findings present a profound governance question.

It is no longer sufficient to ask whether institutions recognise domestic abuse as a social problem.

The evidence suggests they do.

The more important question is whether institutions consistently recognise domestic abuse as an operational safeguarding issue within the decisions they make.

Awareness Is Not the Same as Recognition

Over the past decade, awareness of domestic abuse has increased significantly.

Legislation has evolved.

Training has expanded.

Coercive control is increasingly understood.

Economic abuse has entered the statutory framework.

Trauma-informed practice has become part of professional discourse.

Yet awareness alone does not guarantee institutional recognition.

Recognition requires organisations to identify how abuse influences the specific decisions before them.

Within family proceedings, this may include:

• child arrangements;

• risk assessment;

• participation measures;

• disclosure;

• financial remedies;

• fact-finding;

• contact arrangements; and

• long-term safeguarding.

Awareness is cultural.

Recognition is operational.

The distinction matters because institutions may acknowledge that domestic abuse exists while simultaneously failing to assess how it affects a particular case.

The Recognition Gap

One of the most significant findings of the Everyday Business review was not simply the prevalence of domestic abuse.

It was the inconsistency with which that information influenced proceedings.

The report noted that there was no single reliable source within the case files for determining whether domestic abuse was an issue, and that court forms did not consistently capture the nature or extent of abuse.

This points to a broader governance issue.

If information is fragmented across forms, safeguarding letters, witness statements, police records, and professional assessments, recognition becomes dependent upon individuals successfully connecting those pieces together.

Where that does not occur, risk can remain underestimated despite substantial information already existing within the system.

Structural Challenges

The report also highlighted continuing structural barriers identified in earlier reviews, including:

• a pro-contact culture;

• adversarial processes;

• silo working between institutions; and

• resource pressures.

These findings should not be understood as criticism of individual professionals alone.

They raise questions about institutional design.

Can systems designed around procedural progression consistently identify cumulative behavioural patterns such as coercive control?

Can fragmented information systems adequately recognise escalating vulnerability?

Can safeguarding function effectively where relevant information remains dispersed across multiple agencies?

These are governance questions as much as legal questions.

The SAFECHAIN™ Perspective

SAFECHAIN™ approaches family justice through the lens of institutional capability.

The challenge is no longer simply to increase awareness of domestic abuse.

The challenge is to strengthen institutional recognition.

Recognition requires more than recording allegations.

It requires systems capable of:

• identifying behavioural patterns;

• connecting information across agencies;

• recognising cumulative harm;

• supporting meaningful participation;

• integrating safeguarding into decision-making.

Protection depends upon institutions recognising not only that domestic abuse exists, but also how it shapes risk, vulnerability, participation, and long-term outcomes.

The Directive™

The findings of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner should not be viewed solely as a critique of family justice.

They should be understood as a call to improve institutional capability.

Where domestic abuse is present but not consistently recognised within operational decision-making, safeguarding inevitably becomes less effective.

The future of family justice will depend not only upon stronger legislation or greater awareness.

It will depend upon whether institutions develop the capability to translate information into recognition, recognition into action, and action into protection.

Because domestic abuse cannot remain both everywhere in the evidence and nowhere in the assessment.

That is the governance challenge.

And increasingly, it is the challenge that modern family justice must address.

© 2026 Samantha Avril-Andreassen. All rights reserved.

SAFECHAINN Ltd (Company No. 12038453)

Part of The Directive™ and the SAFECHAIN™ Global Governance Series™.