Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing legislative proposals to ensure that it is not a reasonable excuse in defence of a charge of breaching a restraining order to assert that the order was not received because of a change of address.

Information on how many times the CPS has been unable to pursue charges relating to the breach of a restraining order in these circumstances is not available and could only be obtained by manually searching CPS case files, which would incur disproportionate cost. There has, however, been an overall rise in prosecutions commenced for breaches of restraining orders, especially for orders made on acquittal.

The defendant will usually be present in court when an order is made, following a guilty plea or when the defendant is acquitted or convicted at the end of a trial. In those circumstances it is not necessary for a written copy of the order to have been received by the defendant for him or her to be guilty of breaching it, even though in most cases a written copy of the order will be supplied and may be sent by post to the defendant.

The Criminal Procedure Rules require a prosecutor to give the defendant advance notice of the terms of any proposed restraining order and the court must not make an order unless the defendant has had the opportunity to see what is proposed and to make representations. I will ask the Criminal Procedure Rule Committee to consider whether any changes are required.