In April 2025, the Ministry of Justice began accepting applications for ‘qualified legal representatives’ in domestic abuse cases.
Solicitors and barristers can apply to take on the role, which owes its origins to the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. Sections 65 and 66 of the Act prohibit anyone charged with domestic violence from cross-examining the accuser themselves in court, if they do not have a lawyer representing them to conduct the questioning. The same restriction applies to the alleged victim of the abuse.
Who can cross examine in court
Section 65 explains, in clear language:
“…In family proceedings, no party to the proceedings who has been convicted of or given a caution for, or is charged with, a specified offence may cross-examine in person a witness who is the victim, or alleged victim, of that offence.
…In family proceedings, no party to the proceedings who is the victim, or alleged victim, of a specified offence may cross-examine in person a witness who has been convicted of or given a caution for, or is charged with, that offence.”
Instead, when either party is unrepresented in court, cross-examinations must now be conducted by local, court-appointed legal representatives. Lawyers interested in the work must have a valid practice certificate and have undertaken training in domestic abuse cases and in working with vulnerable witnesses. Alternatively, they can also commit to suitable training within the first few months of signing up.
Preventing cross examination becoming another from of abuse
Prior to the introduction of Domestic Abuse Act 2021, it was indeed possible for people without legal representation who had been charged with domestic abuse to personally cross-examine their accusers in person. This situation became increasingly controversial, with domestic abuse campaigners claiming the often intrusive questioning could easily become an extension of the abuse the accused party had already been charged with.
The entire topic is of domestic abuse is – understandably – an emotive one. Our homes are our refuge and we all expect to feel safe within those walls. But a dispiriting number of our fellow citizens do not. According to the most recent available figures from the Office for National Statistics, in the year to March 2024 close to five per cent of adults aged 16 or over experienced domestic abuse of some kind the previous 12 months.
Awkward realities: domestic abuse against women
Over the same time period the Police recorded 1,350,428 disturbances and crimes related to domestic abuse of various kinds. It’s a distressing picture, and one frequently highlighted by campaign groups and charities, with images of cowering wives and tearful children.
But as so often, reality is more complicated than convention might suggest. It will be no surprise to anyone to learn that the majority of domestic abuse victims are female – around 1.6 million in the year to March 2024, again according to the Office for National Statistics. Most men are physically larger and stronger than most women and testosterone encourages impulsivity and, unfortunately in some circumstances, aggression.
Defiance of stereotype: domestic abuse against men
Did you know that, in defiance of stereotype, 712,000 men over the age of 16 were victims of domestic abuse too? That’s 3 per cent of adult men versus 6.6 per cent of adult women. This is a reality that the police, courts, and support services have been slow to acknowledge. Such has been the hold of conventional ideas that, until relatively recently, male guilt was often assumed. Men who reported domestic violence by girlfriends and wives were often arrested themselves, and domestic violence support groups not infrequently turned abused men away or directed them to services for abusers! Then there were the more subtle inferences of official literature and media reports that labelled accusers “victims” and effectively presumed the guilt of those charged – not to mention the traditional tendency of family courts to see mothers as default caregivers and look with suspicion on fathers applying for custody of their children.
Thankfully, both the police and family law have finally begun to move away from old presumptions. Abusive wives and girlfriends have been charged with domestic abuse and coercive behaviour and family lawyers increasingly recognise that men can be on the receiving end on abuse, not solely women
Domestic violence legislation is also carefully drafted to be gender neutral. It is notable that the prohibition on cross-examination goes both ways in the Domestic Abuse Act: neither the accuser nor the accused are allowed to cross-examine the other, old assumptions notwithstanding.