Victims minister Davies-Jones says courts will flag domestic abuse at conviction, reports suggest

Courts in England and Wales are to be required to record when an offence involves domestic abuse, formally flagging perpetrators on criminal justice records at the point of conviction for the first time, according to a report published by Brit Brief on Sunday evening.

The report said the measure would make a domestic abuse marker visible to frontline staff, including police and probation officers, on an offender's profile, with the stated aim of managing the risks perpetrators pose and identifying patterns of repeat offending. It lands three days into the first wave of the Government's early prisoner release scheme, which has drawn warnings from survivors and opposition parties.

Alex Davies-Jones, the victims minister and a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, was quoted by Brit Brief on 4 October saying the change addressed a gap in how abuse is tracked.

"Too many victims have suffered because patterns of abusive behaviour have not always been recognised across the justice system. This is an important step towards better identifying dangerous perpetrators, protecting victims and delivering on our commitment to halve violence against women and girls."

The accounts of the policy, carried by the Mirror and Brit Brief, use near-identical wording and appear to rest on a single underlying source. Neither set out when the requirement on courts would take effect, which offences or courts would be covered, whether it would apply to people already convicted, or on which system the flag would sit. Neither stated that the measure had been introduced in response to the releases.

Both reports described the flag as a first. Domestic abuse is already an aggravating factor at sentencing in offences including assault and stalking, and a police-recorded domestic abuse flag has been in use for years. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales's report Shifting the scales: Transforming the criminal justice response to domestic abuse, published in January 2025, sets out police recorded crime figures for domestic abuse flagged offences and charging decisions in cases where such a flag has been recorded. The reported novelty is therefore a flag applied by the court after conviction rather than by police at the recording stage.

Around 700 prisoners were freed in the first wave of the early release scheme on Thursday 1 October, ITV News reported. Reform UK has attacked the scheme over a projected total of 4,500 early releases by June 2027, according to IBTimes UK, with the party warning that dangerous sexual offenders would be among those freed. The Government confirmed in August 2026 that rape, serious child sexual, grooming and indecent assault offences are among those excluded from the scheme, alongside manslaughter and death by drunk or dangerous driving, though other offence categories remain eligible.

Alex Norris, the Justice Secretary, was unable to say how many prisoners released early have been fitted with electronic tags.

Women's Aid has published guidance for domestic abuse survivors on the releases, and local authorities including Arun District Council have issued public information on the scheme. Survivors have told LBC they fear the releases will put lives at risk.

The reported flag would sit alongside Domestic Abuse Protection Orders, legislated for in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and piloted in selected areas from 27 November 2024 ahead of a national rollout from 25 November 2026, which can be imposed by family, civil and criminal courts and carry up to five years in prison for a breach. The Home Office and Ministry of Justice said in November 2025 that more than 1,000 victims had been protected through the orders since their rollout.

Davies-Jones told the Commons on 17 March 2026 that the Government was "putting victims first with a record £550 million investment in victim support services", telling MPs in the same answer that the money would be invested over the next three years.