Statement in response to ONS crime figures (2025)

The latest ONS figures show what survivors and frontline services have been telling us for years: violence and abuse remain a daily reality for millions of people across the UK. 

An estimated 5.1 million adults experienced domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking in the past year. That’s one in ten people — and nearly one in eight women. The scale is staggering. 

Domestic abuse alone affected 3.8 million adults, with no significant change from the previous year. These are not just numbers — they represent people living in fear, often behind closed doors, often unseen. 

Between April 2024 and March 2025, police in England and Wales recorded 815,941 domestic abuse-related offences — a 4% decrease from the previous year. But this figure is still dramatically lower than the 3.8 million people estimated to have experienced domestic abuse. We know that four in five victims never call the police. And when they do, too many are let down — with only a small proportion of cases leading to charges or protection. 

We welcome the ONS’s new combined measure of violence against women and girls (VAWG), and the updated Crime Survey questions that now reflect the full reality of abuse, including coercive control, economic abuse and post-separation harm. These are important steps towards better understanding and accountability. But data alone doesn’t keep people safe — action does. 

At SafeLives, we’re calling for a whole-system response: 

• Support earlier, for both adult and child survivors 

• Work with perpetrators, so harm stops before it starts 

• Training and accountability across police, health, education and justice 

• Consistent, disaggregated data, used to drive smart commissioning 

• Survivor voice at the heart of system reform 

Too often, survivors are still the ones doing all the work — navigating fragmented services, telling their story again and again, seeking justice that never comes. That has to change. 

We must close the gap between harm and justice, and build systems that survivors can trust — systems that listen, act, and protect.