Our barristers Jeni Kavanagh and Jessica Mortimer, together with Oliver Kavanagh of 15NBS Chambers, have written for the New Law Journal on the enforcement of non-molestation orders in domestic abuse cases.

Non-molestation orders are intended to provide immediate protection. They are made where the family court has already found behaviour serious enough to justify intervention, and they are designed to prevent further harm before it escalates.

The article examines why that protection can fall short in practice. Although breach of a non-molestation order is a criminal offence, enforcement often depends on whether the behaviour meets a high criminal threshold. As a result, conduct that clearly breaches an order may still not lead to criminal consequences.

This is significant because domestic abuse often consists of repeated, controlling or intrusive behaviour rather than isolated incidents. When enforcement focuses on how extreme the behaviour appears in isolation, it risks overlooking the cumulative harm these orders are meant to prevent.

The authors argue that breach of a non-molestation order should be treated as a serious violation of a court-imposed protective boundary, not something that needs to be re-litigated through a different legal test. Without that approach, the protective purpose of these orders is undermined.