Sir Andrew McFarlane, president of the Family Division, issued the Guidance 2026: Non-Molestation Orders, which replaces the 2023 guidance, last month. The revised guidance takes effect on 12 January.
The Family Justice Council has issued 'Family Justice Council Best Practice Guidance for Practitioners on Making an application for a Protective Injunction'. This guidance includes a model witness statement, and also comes into effect on 12 January.
The guidance aims to ‘reduce the burden on an over-strained system and improve the application experience for victim survivors’ by simplifying, standardising and modernising the processes involved.
It notes that extra strain has been placed on the system by a rise in applications in the past few years, partly due to the widened statutory definition of abuse ‘coupled with a growing awareness within society of more nuanced forms of abuse such as coercive and controlling behaviour’.
