Domestic violence can be described as an incident or incidents' pattern of coercive, threatening or controlling behaviour, abuse or violence between people aging 16 or over who have been or are intimate partners or members of family regardless of sexuality or gender. Domestic violence includes various types of abuse including psychological, sexual, physical, emotional or financial abuse. However, it is not limited to these types of abuse only (UK Government, 2013).
Crime and Victim Bill
Crime and Victim Bill has made many changes to the previous legal framework of dealing with domestic violence by courts. The main points of the act are as follows:
It made the breaches of non-molestation order a criminal offence and added the couples of same-sex in the definition of “Cohabitants”.
The act has introduced an offence of causing or allowing a cause of a child's death.
An establishment of multi-agency homicide reviews following a person's death that result from neglect or violence within an intimate personal relation or by a relative.
Common assault has been made an arrestable offence
Amendments in the protection from the Harassment act 1997 enabling courts to acquittal in protecting the victims or extending the accessibility to restrain orders on conviction.
It made modifications to authorities pursing a discovering of insanity or unfitness to appeal.
It made amendments to the custody of intermittent.
It made it mandatory for the home secretary to issue a code of practice for witnesses or victims of crime which is supposed to be pursued by people having functions relate to the whole criminal justice system or victims.
The act has created a commissioner for witnesses and victims (Ward and Bird, 2005, pp.1).
The Bill extends to Wales, England and some parts of Northern Ireland (House of Commons Library, 2004, pp.3).
The Essential Elements of the Sexual Offenses Act
The parliament of United Kingdom has passed the Sexual Offenses Act in 2003 in order to replace the older laws of sexual offences by more explicit and specific wording. The act has also introduced various new offences like assault by penetration, non-consensual voyeurism, penetration of one or more element of corpse, and causing children for watching an act of sexuality. The essential element of the act includes redefining of rape. The sexual offences act of 1956 did not take into account the penetration of mouth under rape. The new act defines penetration as penetrating with any kind of object to the vagina or anus. The act also includes stipulations against sex tourism. Those tourists who move from one place to another in order to satisfy the sexual needs would have their passport cancelled or travel restricted. The act has also redefined the definition of child. It has changed the restriction of children to watch pornography from under 16 to 18. Other basic elements include the prohibition of child prostitution, prohibition of pimping for the gain of money. It also made modifications of consent's legal definition. Other elements of the act involves child abuse from pornography and prostitution, ...