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Clare's Law: Scottish police receive five domestic abuse requests every day

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Every day, police in Scotland process five requests from members of the public seeking to find out about their partner’s past.

The requests are made under Clare’s Law, a formal scheme that was first piloted in Ayrshire and Aberdeen but was implemented across Scotland at the beginning of October.

Named after Clare Wood, who was murdered by her former boyfriend in Salford in 2009, the scheme enables people to find out if their partner has a past conviction for domestic abuse.

An earlier scheme – the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme – offering the same service was launched in England and Wales in 2014.

According to the latest figures, which relate to Scotland, 109 disclosure requests were made between 1st and 21st October, while a domestic incident is handled by the police every nine minutes.

In total, 60,000 domestic incidents were reported in Scotland in 2014/15, and official figures indicate that while women remain to be the victims in 80 per cent of domestic violence cases there has been a dramatic rise in the number of men also suffering.

Domestic violence cases in which men are the victims have doubled in the country over the last ten years, while the abuse of women in the home has fallen.

Figures for England, which were released in January 2015, show that 1,300 information requests were made after the law came into effect.

Significant differences between polices forces, in relation to how many information requests are granted, were also highlighted.

In Greater Manchester, for example, 60 per cent of information requests led to information being released, compared with only 11 per cent in Merseyside.

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