Protection Orders

Having in the last couple of years the motivation to discover more about how protection and harrassment orders work, I am extremely supportive of the review which slams the current system – and it is a shame Judges have rushed out to defend it.

Far too many women (yes I know it is not only women) especially live in fear of ex partners who routinely ignore protection orders, and face little or no sanction for it.  And some fo them are dead.

Putting aside for now, the situation where there are children involved (as I am aware false accusations can and do get made), I think the process should be much easier for someone to get a protection order, but most of all breaches of them should have near automatic penalties.

If someone breaches a protection order the Police should have it an assigned priority to go find the person, and lock them up overnight until they go before a Judge first thing.

And if they breach it a second time they should be given a custodial sentence to protect the protectee.

Now if kids are involved, one does need a different regime, because such orders can mean they block a parent from their kids – which should be a last resort.  But if there are no kids involved, then I would be very hard line.

The sad reality is so called protection orders rarely do protect, as this case study in the Herald shows.    The Herald editorial is not too far from my own views.