Commentary on Parts
3.The Act’s overarching objective is to improve how the justice system responds to abusive behaviour, including domestic abuse and sexual harm, helping to improve public safety by ensuring that perpetrators are appropriately held to account for their conduct.
4.The Act is in three Parts.
5.Part 1 (Abusive behaviour) includes provision for a new specific “domestic abuse” aggravator, for a specific offence concerning the non-consensual sharing of private, intimate images (often called “revenge porn”) and makes provision to allow courts to make a non-harassment order in cases where the court is satisfied that a person did harass another person but a conviction does not take place due to the mental or physical condition of the person.
6.Part 2 (Sexual harm) makes provision to require juries in sexual offence cases to be given specific directions about how to consider the evidence, ensures that sexual offences against children committed in England and Wales by Scottish residents are capable of being prosecuted in Scotland and reforms the system of civil orders available to protect communities from sexual offences.
7.Part 3 contains general and ancillary provision.