PAST child contact and residency decisions involving domestic abuse allegations will not be reviewed – despite concerns they may have placed victims and children at risk.
The government’s latest progress report on action on violence against women and girls revealed that the Family Court said it lacked the “capacity” to carry out such a review and warned it could “renew trauma and harm” for those involved.
The recommendation – to examine decisions made over the past five years – was aimed at establishing whether Family Court rulings had prioritised parental contact over safety in cases involving alleged domestic abuse.
However, the court dismissed the proposal, stating it would be “time-consuming, potentially harmful” and “unlikely to yield useful data”.
“It is important to look to the future and make changes so as to affect current and future cases,” the report said.
Home Affairs Minister Mary Le Hegarat said she believed it was “important not to go back too far anyway”, adding that “five years ago, things could be very different to what they are now”.
She also pointed to concerns about the impact on victims, saying there was a risk of “having to revisit their experiences”, and acknowledged the court “doesn’t have a huge amount of capacity in relation to staffing”.
A broader independent review of the Family Court system is still ongoing. Deputy Le Hegarat said that review – being carried out by a UK barrister – would take a “holistic approach” and focus on how cases involving domestic abuse are handled, including whether the court system can be used by perpetrators to maintain contact with victims.
The progress report also revealed that plans to introduce legislation to combat public sexual harassment have been pushed back until 2028, while new laws to regulate online harms are not expected before 2027.
A review into whether Jersey’s domestic abuse law is effectively prosecuting economic abuse – a key concern raised by campaigners in 2023 – has “not started” and is not scheduled until 2028.
At the same time, legal reforms passed by the States Assembly earlier this year – including new offences covering stalking, non-fatal strangulation and intimate image abuse – are still not in force.
The report makes clear these laws cannot be implemented until “appropriate funding and resourcing” is secured – alongside guidance, training and operational preparation for police and courts.
Deputy Le Hegarat acknowledged the delay, saying the laws would not come into force before the election and stressing the need to ensure services are properly funded.
“You need to always make sure that you are providing the necessary resources so that this work can be done,” she explained.
The minister said earlier approaches had failed to fully account for costs, and warned it would be “not appropriate” for crimes of this nature to go uninvestigated due to lack of funding.
Meanwhile, key recommendations from an independent review into how the criminal justice system handles domestic abuse and sexual offences – published in February – are still being implemented.
And the long-awaited review of the Family Court system will not conclude until after the election, pushing any potential reforms onto the next government.
Deputy Le Hegarat said that, given the scale of the work, “there is always going to be further work to do after into the next government”, adding that efforts to tackle violence against women and girls would need to continue “indefinitely”.
Work to develop a centralised dataset to track violence against women and girls – seen as essential for understanding the scale of the issue – is also incomplete.
Overall, while ministers highlight that 68 out of 109 actions have been completed, 37 remain in progress, and work on four recommendations is yet to begin.
Deputy Le Hegarat added: “I would urge the next Council of Ministers to continue to maintain a focus on addressing the taskforce recommendations to ensure that we achieve the long-term changes that are needed.
“In particular, ensuring that our system is appropriately resourced to deliver outcomes for victim survivors will, in my opinion, need to be addressed as a priority.”
