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2 Jan, 2014

Christmas spike in domestic violence keeps courts busy on New Year’s Eve | The Guardian

Most of the courtrooms across England and Wales shut up shop between Christmas and new year. But not court six. Along with football derby days, the festive period is prime time for domestic abuse, according to Greater Manchester police (GMP). Tensions over money and unrealistic expectations about having the “perfect” Christmas, combined with excessive alcohol, consumed in an enclosed space, are thought to lie behind the annual spike, which is repeated across the country.

So many domestics kicked off in Manchester on Christmas Day this year – 35 incidents in the north Manchester division, compared with around 20 on a normal day – that Court six had to open for business on Saturday to deal with the backlog. It was still wading through cases on Tuesday as the clock counted down to 2014. To cope with the increased demand, GMP allocated more officers to attend incidents, backed up by specialist domestic violence investigators. “Domestic violence tends to go hand in hand with alcohol,” said DC Sarah Harris, a domestic abuse officer with GMP. “So we brace ourselves at this time of year.”

Read the rest: Christmas spike in domestic violence keeps courts busy on New Year’s Eve | The Guardian.