Domestic Abuse Act 2021, Section 1 is up to date with all changes known to be in force on or before 28 March 2025. There are changes that may be brought into force at a future date. Changes that have been made appear in the content and are referenced with annotations.
(1)This section defines “domestic abuse” for the purposes of this Act.
(2)Behaviour of a person (“A”) towards another person (“B”) is “domestic abuse” if—
(a)A and B are each aged 16 or over and are personally connected to each other, and
(b)the behaviour is abusive.
(3)Behaviour is “abusive” if it consists of any of the following—
(a)physical or sexual abuse;
(b)violent or threatening behaviour;
(c)controlling or coercive behaviour;
(d)economic abuse (see subsection (4));
(e)psychological, emotional or other abuse;
and it does not matter whether the behaviour consists of a single incident or a course of conduct.
(4)“Economic abuse” means any behaviour that has a substantial adverse effect on B's ability to—
(a)acquire, use or maintain money or other property, or
(b)obtain goods or services.
(5)For the purposes of this Act A's behaviour may be behaviour “towards” B despite the fact that it consists of conduct directed at another person (for example, B's child).
(6)References in this Act to being abusive towards another person are to be read in accordance with this section.
(7)For the meaning of “personally connected”, see section 2.
Commencement Information
I1S. 1 in force at 5.7.2021 for specified purposes by S.I. 2021/797, reg. 2(1)
I2S. 1 in force at 1.10.2021 in so far as not already in force by S.I. 2021/1038, reg. 2(a)
All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. This site additionally contains content derived from EUR-Lex, reused under the terms of the Commission Decision 2011/833/EU on the reuse of documents from the EU institutions. For more information see the EUR-Lex public statement on re-use.
