National and local Context
Domestic abuse can happen to anyone regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, religion, income, or social background. Whilst many people have been and continue to be supported through their experiences of domestic abuse, much of the problem is underreported. The Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Domestic Abuse and Safe Accommodation Needs Assessment (2024), identified that only 37.5% of victims choose to report domestic abuse to the police, despite both national and local activity to raise awareness of domestic abuse and the support services available.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales 2025 provides a mechanism for understanding crimes that are not reported to the police and estimates for 2024/25 indicate that 9.5% of women and 6.5% of men will have experienced domestic abuse in the last year. Applying this to the expected population in Stoke-on-Trent in 2025 (Office for National Statistics Population Projections), this would mean around 12,500 women and 8,600 men in the city have experienced domestic abuse in the last year. Whilst Stoke-on-Trent has the highest rate of victims of police recorded domestics abuse incidents and crime within the Staffordshire Police Force area, this only represents 2.2% of the local population, whilst in neighbouring Staffordshire local authority this was 1.3%.
There are some difficulties with making comparisons across different local authority areas, due to potential differences in reporting practices. As domestic abuse continues to be underreported, a rise in reported cases could be viewed as a positive in more victims coming forward, as well as a potential escalation of the issue. Reporting can be lower in rural areas than in cities, but some societal challenges within parts of cities may correlate with higher rates of domestic abuse. Additionally, rates of domestic abuse nationally are reported by police force area rather than local authority.
The Stoke-on-Trent Strategic Needs Assessment for Domestic Abuse outlined that we expect the prevalence of violence and its impact to be higher within the city given high levels of deprivation, with the local authority being the 13th most deprived English local authority. Both local and national data indicates a higher prevalence of domestic abuse in younger age groups, we can see in Stoke-on-Trent that the highest crime numbers are for victims in their 30s, followed by those in their 20s. As age increases the crime numbers do decrease but there are still instances of domestic abuse in later life, and some of these concerns may be directed more towards adult social care.
The picture in terms of risk by different ethnicities is complex, as whilst the Crime Survey for England has indicated that rates are higher in white groups and this is also the case from police data, there have also been a large proportion of victims where ethnicity has not been recorded, and there is also evidence of underreporting of domestic abuse in some global majority groups.
Safe accommodation services are provided for both those from the local area and those from elsewhere. In 23/24, 18% of those in secure accommodation in Stoke-on-Trent had been referred from outside of Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. Of the 491 referrals to safe accommodation from inside Staffordshire for the 12 months to September 2024, 188 of these (38%) were from Stoke-on-Trent. This is higher than the overall proportion of the population, where the city makes up 23% of Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire as a whole, but it may be that more people from Staffordshire have accessed safe accommodation elsewhere. Overall, the victim profile for those accessing safe accommodation is similar in age to domestic abuse crimes, with most being women aged 25-34. However, both local and national data indicates that there are a higher proportion of global majority groups in safe accommodation compared to other domestic abuse services, and that these groups are also more likely to present as high-risk through the MARAC process.