Craig Munro
Published November 25, 2025 6:00am
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DAPOs provide a new option for survivors of domestic abuse to stay safe (Picture: Shutterstock / fizkes)
A new protection order for victims introduced a year ago has been used to place stringent restrictions on more than 1,000 abusers so far.
Home Office statistics released exclusively to Metro show how Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs) have been rolled out across the UK since last November.
They place a range of limitations on perpetrators, such as electronic tagging and attendance on behaviour programmes – with breaches punishable by up to five years in prison.
Victims themselves are able to apply for one of the orders, while family members, friends, charities, social services, local authorities and the police can too.
Writing for Metro, Minister for Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Jess Phillips said DAPOs ‘combine the strongest protections we have into one comprehensive tool’.
She said: ‘This is exactly the kind of bold, practical action that I’m proud to take as the Minister responsible for tackling VAWG.’
DAPOs do not have a fixed end date, meaning they can last as long as necessary to protect victims.
They also cover all forms of domestic abuse, which can include non-physical abuse such as coercive or controlling behaviour.
However, the orders are currently only active in select parts of the UK: Greater Manchester; North Wales; Cleveland in North Yorkshire; and the London boroughs of Croydon, Bromley and Sutton.
More than half of the DAPOs secured to date were in Greater Manchester, while around a quarter were secured by Cleveland Police.
The British Transport Police are also able to apply for a protection order, limiting potential blind spots.
This Is Not Right
On November 25, 2024 Metro launched This Is Not Right, a year-long campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women.
With the help of our partners at Women's Aid, This Is Not Right aims to shine a light on the sheer scale of this national emergency.
You can find more articles here, and if you want to share your story with us, you can send us an email at [email protected].
Read more:
- Introducing This Is Not Right: Metro's year-long violence against women campaign
- Remembering the women killed by men in 2024
Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips wrote for Metro about the milestone (Picture: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire)
A nationwide rollout is expected to take place in the future, though the Home Office was unable to provide a timeline.
Minister for Victims Alex Davies-Jones said: ‘These protection orders are the first and strongest of their kind.
‘Victims need more than promises – they need real action, which is what we’ve delivered as part of our Plan for Change.
‘Over 1,000 DAPOs issued means over 1,000 victims protected from abuse. We will ensure the same for thousands more as part of our mission to halve the epidemic that is violence against women and girls in this country.’
Today also marks a year since Metro launched our This Is Not Right campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women.
In an op-ed to mark the launch, then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper cited the Labour government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.
She wrote: ‘It is time to back up words with action. So our streets, our communities and our homes are safer for all. ’
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A strategy for achieving this ambition was due to be published in summer 2025, but has been delayed several times.
In a parliamentary debate earlier this month, Phillips told MPs: ‘The delay is being caused by the fact that the work will be completely cross-governmental.’
Changes in the meantime include a number of measures in the landmark Crime and Policing Bill, with new offences of creating explicit deepfakes of people without their consent and publishing depictions of strangulation in porn.
Domestic abuse specialists are also beginning to be embedded in 999 control rooms, part of Raneem’s Law which aims to improve the way police respond to abuse victims.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
For more stories like this, check our news page.
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