Judges Must Now Name Domestic Abuse in Court

From 5 October 2026, when a court in England and Wales passes sentence for an offence it considers involved domestic abuse, the judge must say so out loud in open court.

That is a new legal duty, and it has just come into force. The Sentencing Council changed its guidelines on the same day to match it. If you or someone close to you is being sentenced, or has just been sentenced, here is what it actually means.

What changed on 5 October 2026

Section 6(1) of the Sentencing Act 2026 inserted a new section 56A into the Sentencing Code. It applies where a court is passing sentence for an offence and "the court is of the view that the offence involved domestic abuse".

Where that applies, the law says: "The court must, in open court, state that in its view the offence involved domestic abuse carried out by the offender."

Two points about the wording are worth noticing. First, the duty is not limited to particular offences. It is triggered by the court's view of the facts, whatever the offence on the indictment. Second, the duty sits alongside the court's existing obligations, not instead of them. Section 56A is expressly without prejudice to the court's duties on following sentencing guidelines.

What counts as domestic abuse in law

Section 56A uses the definition in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. As the Sentencing Council's guideline sets it out, that statutory definition covers five categories of behaviour:

• physical or sexual abuse
• violent or threatening behaviour
• controlling or coercive behaviour
• economic abuse, meaning behaviour that affects someone's ability to get or use money, goods or services
• psychological, emotional or other abuse

It applies between people aged 16 or over who are personally connected: partners or former partners, people who are or have been married or civil partners, people who each have or have had a parental relationship in relation to the same child, and relatives.

That is a wider definition than many people expect. It is not restricted to violence, and it is not restricted to couples who live together.

What the Sentencing Council changed the same day

On 5 October 2026 the Sentencing Council amended its guidelines to reflect the new duty. The changes were:

• the "Reasons" step in all guidelines now sets out the section 56A duty
• the explanatory text behind domestic abuse aggravating factors has been expanded to refer to the duty and the statutory definition
• guidelines that mention domestic abuse now cross-refer to the Reasons step and to the overarching domestic abuse guideline
• paragraph 2 of the overarching guideline on domestic abuse has been expanded to include the statutory definition and the requirement to declare the finding in open court

The guidelines themselves already treated domestic abuse as making an offence more serious. The overarching guideline explains why: it is a breach of the trust and security that normally exists between people in an intimate or family relationship, there may be a continuing threat to the victim's safety, abuse tends to escalate, and the harm reaches the wider family, particularly children.

What the new duty does not do

This is where honesty matters more than reassurance, so here are the limits.

It does not create a new offence. Nobody is charged with or convicted of "domestic abuse" because of section 56A.

It does not change the maximum sentence for any offence, and it does not change the sentencing guideline ranges.

It does not change how a sentence is served, or release dates, or licence periods. None of that is touched by this provision.

What it does is make the court's view explicit and spoken, rather than left to be inferred from the rest of the sentencing remarks.

Why a spoken finding can still matter

Sentencing remarks are the clearest account of what a court found and why. They are what probation, prison staff and, later, the Parole Board look at when they go back over a case. Until now, whether an offence was treated as involving domestic abuse sometimes had to be read between the lines of those remarks. From 5 October 2026 it is stated.

That cuts both ways. If the court takes that view of the facts, it will now be unambiguous on the record. If the facts are genuinely disputed, the point at which that dispute needs to be put to the court is before sentence is passed, not afterwards.

It is also worth being clear about what is already true, and unchanged: the fact that an offence involved domestic abuse is treated by the guidelines as making it more serious. That was the position before 5 October and it remains the position now.

What this means for you

• If you are waiting to be sentenced, expect the judge to state a domestic abuse finding out loud if the court takes that view of the facts.
• The definition in law is broad: controlling or coercive behaviour and economic abuse count, and the relationship can be a family one, not only a partner.
• The new duty does not add to the sentence by itself, and it does not alter release or licence rules.
• If the factual basis of the sentence is wrong, or something was said in court that does not match the evidence or the papers, that is a matter about the sentencing itself, and it is worth having the documents read by someone independent.
• Sentencing remarks and the record of what the court found are documents worth getting hold of and keeping. Other people read them long after the hearing.

Nobody can tell you from a headline whether a particular sentence was right, or whether anything can be done about it. That takes reading the papers.

An independent view of the case

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This article is general information about the law in England and Wales. It is not legal advice on any individual case, and a case review is not a substitute for a solicitor.