The Victims and Courts Act 2026

Recognition Without Structural Reform?

By Samantha Avril-Andreassen

Founder — SAFECHAIN™

Introduction

A Significant Legislative Moment — But Is It Enough?

The passage of the Victims and Courts Act 2026 marks a significant moment within the evolution of victim rights and criminal justice reform in England and Wales.

The legislation arrives after years of:

• public pressure,

• high-profile failures,

• safeguarding criticism,

• institutional review,

• and growing recognition of the long-term impact of domestic abuse, coercive control, and procedural trauma.

The Act promises:

• stronger victim participation,

• improved transparency,

• expanded procedural rights,

• and greater recognition of the experience of victims within the justice system.

On paper, these reforms matter.

But the central question now facing policymakers, safeguarding professionals, and institutional systems is this:

does recognition alone create protection?

Because while the legislation strengthens certain procedural rights, it does not fundamentally redesign the fragmented institutional architecture through which most domestic abuse survivors are actually forced to navigate their lives.

The issue facing modern safeguarding systems is no longer simply legislative.

It is operational.

What the Act Promises

The Victims and Courts Act 2026 introduces a number of significant procedural reforms intended to strengthen the position of victims within the justice system.

These include:

• enhanced victim participation rights,

• greater transparency surrounding sentencing and judicial process,

• expanded information rights,

• stronger mechanisms for challenging certain outcomes,

• and reforms connected to offender accountability.

The legislation reflects an important recognition:
that victims should not feel invisible within systems designed to deliver justice.

This matters.

For many years, survivors and victims have described experiences of:

• exclusion,

• procedural confusion,

• lack of information,

• and emotional detachment from institutional processes that profoundly affected their lives.

The Act therefore represents an attempt to strengthen:

procedural recognition.

However, recognition alone cannot resolve structural fragmentation.

The Structural Limitation

Victim Rights Without Institutional Interoperability

The fundamental challenge facing domestic abuse systems is not merely whether rights exist.

It is whether institutions can apply those rights coherently across interconnected systems.

Domestic abuse survivors rarely navigate:

• one institution,

• one legal pathway,

• or one procedural environment.

They frequently move simultaneously across:

• criminal justice systems,

• family courts,

• housing authorities,

• healthcare systems,

• safeguarding teams,

• financial institutions,

• social services,

• workplace environments,

• and local authority structures.

Yet these systems still largely operate:

• independently,

• sequentially,

• and with limited safeguarding continuity between them.

This creates:

institutional fragmentation.

The Victims and Courts Act improves aspects of victim treatment within existing procedural environments.

But it does not fundamentally redesign:

• safeguarding interoperability,

• documentation continuity,

• cross-agency participation protection,

• or institutional coordination architecture.

This is the gap many survivors continue experiencing.

Because while the law increasingly recognises vulnerability:

• institutional systems often remain operationally disconnected.

Recognition Does Not Automatically Create Protection

One of the most important lessons emerging from modern domestic abuse policy is that:

legal recognition alone does not guarantee operational protection.

The United Kingdom already possesses:

• domestic abuse legislation,

• coercive control offences,

• safeguarding guidance,

• judicial vulnerability frameworks,

• equality duties,

• and human rights protections.

And yet many survivors still report:

• repeated trauma disclosure,

• procedural exhaustion,

• safeguarding inconsistency,

• participation destabilisation,

• financial collapse,

• housing insecurity,

• and institutional contradiction across systems.

Why?

Because safeguarding systems remain fragmented.

The current crisis is therefore not simply a crisis of:

• awareness,
  or:

• legislation.

It is increasingly a crisis of:

institutional operability.

The Human Cost of Fragmentation

The greatest weakness within current safeguarding environments may be that systems continue treating institutional processes as separate when survivors experience them as interconnected.

A survivor does not experience:

• court,

• housing,

• healthcare,

• debt,

• safeguarding,

• and trauma

as isolated categories.

They experience them simultaneously.

A family court decision may affect:

• housing security,

• mental health,

• financial stability,

• safeguarding access,

• workplace participation,

• and physical wellbeing all at once.

Yet institutional systems continue operating through:

• compartmentalisation,

• siloed chronology,

• disconnected databases,

• and fragmented accountability pathways.

The result is that survivors frequently become:

• the evidence carriers,

• the chronology keepers,

• the safeguarding coordinators,

• and the continuity mechanism between disconnected institutions.

The system remains fragmented.

The survivor becomes the infrastructure.

The Challenge Facing the Domestic Abuse Commissioner

The Domestic Abuse Commissioner faces a structural challenge that legislation alone cannot resolve.

The evidence already exists.

The reports already exist.

The recommendations already exist.

The statistics already exist.

What remains unresolved is:

operational implementation across systems.

Commissioners can:

• publish findings,

• raise awareness,

• identify safeguarding failures,

• recommend reform,

• and shape public conversation.

But reports alone cannot repair:

• fragmented safeguarding systems,

• procedural silos,

• disconnected institutional databases,

• adversarial procedural culture,

• participation collapse,

• or operational inconsistency between agencies.

The system already knows people are being harmed.

The deeper question is whether institutions possess:

• the operational infrastructure,

• behavioural literacy,

• safeguarding continuity,

• and interoperability mechanisms necessary to respond coherently.

Procedural Fairness vs Lived Fairness

One of the greatest structural tensions within modern justice systems is the growing gap between:

procedural fairness

and:

lived fairness.

Institutions frequently assess fairness through:

• procedural completion,

• hearing attendance,

• filing compliance,

• and technical legal process.

But survivors experience fairness through:

• safety,

• participation,

• stability,

• dignity,

• continuity,

• and whether systems remain survivable over time.

A process may be procedurally lawful while still producing:

• exhaustion,

• retraumatisation,

• financial attrition,

• housing instability,

• and participation collapse.

This is where many safeguarding systems remain structurally underdeveloped.

Because systems still frequently measure:

• whether process occurred,
  rather than:

• whether vulnerable individuals could meaningfully survive participation within that process.

Why Structural Reform Is Now Necessary

The next phase of domestic abuse reform cannot rely solely upon:

• additional reports,

• procedural amendments,

• or awareness campaigns.

The issue is no longer whether society recognises domestic abuse.

The issue is whether safeguarding systems possess the operational coherence necessary to prevent vulnerable individuals falling between them.

This requires:

• safeguarding interoperability,

• documentation continuity,

• trauma-informed procedural systems,

• participation integrity protections,

• cross-agency visibility,

• behavioural literacy,

• and accountability structures capable of functioning across institutional environments.

Without structural redesign:

• fragmentation will continue,

• procedural harm will continue accumulating invisibly,

• and vulnerable individuals will continue carrying the burden of institutional continuity themselves.

The SAFECHAIN™ Perspective

Infrastructure Rather Than Commentary

SAFECHAIN™ was developed in response to this exact structural problem.

The framework recognises that safeguarding systems cannot function effectively where:

• chronology fragments,

• participation destabilises,

• documentation disappears between agencies,

• and institutional systems fail to communicate coherently.

SAFECHAIN™ therefore focuses upon:

• Participation Integrity™,

• Documentation Continuity™,

• behavioural literacy,

• trauma-informed compliance,

• safeguarding interoperability,

• and institutional continuity architecture.

The objective is not institutional hostility.

The objective is:

structural integrity.

Because safeguarding is not merely:

• policy,

• awareness,

• or procedural aspiration.

It is infrastructure.

And where infrastructure fails:

• participation weakens,

• trauma deepens,

• trust deteriorates,

• and justice becomes operationally inaccessible for the people most in need of protection.

Conclusion

Beyond Recognition

The Victims and Courts Act 2026 represents an important acknowledgement that victims deserve:

• greater visibility,

• stronger procedural rights,

• and improved recognition within the justice system.

But recognition alone cannot repair fragmented institutional architecture.

The future challenge facing safeguarding systems is no longer simply:

“Do rights exist?”

The challenge is:

“Can institutions apply those rights coherently across the real complexity of human vulnerability?”

Because domestic abuse survivors do not experience:

• one institution,

• one hearing,

• or one safeguarding interaction.

They experience systems.

And until safeguarding systems become:

• interoperable,

• trauma-informed,

• participation-aware,

• and operationally coherent,

many survivors will continue experiencing the gap between:

protection promised in law

and:

protection experienced in practice.

About the Author

Samantha Avril-Andreassen is the founder of SAFECHAIN™, a safeguarding interoperability and institutional continuity framework examining:

• participation integrity,

• trauma-informed procedural systems,

• behavioural literacy,

• safeguarding governance,

• institutional fragmentation,

• and operational accountability across multi-agency environments.

Her work explores how:

• justice,

• housing,

• healthcare,

• safeguarding,

• finance,

• and procedural systems

intersect within domestic abuse environments.

© 2026 Samantha Avril-Andreassen. All rights reserved.

SAFECHAIN™, Participation Integrity™, Participation Capacity Variability™, PCV™, Documentation Continuity™, Chain of Custody™, Structural Spine™, The Biopsychosocial Bridge™, The Intelligent Repository™, Rebuild Compass™, Threshold™, MØPIT™, CPIT™, R.I.S.E.™, S.A.F.E. C.H.A.I.N.™, and all associated safeguarding frameworks, behavioural literacy systems, governance structures, interoperability architecture, operational doctrines, institutional continuity models, implementation pathways, educational programmes, and policy concepts are protected intellectual property.