There has been a fall in reports of domestic abuse reports to the PSNI in the past six months according to new figures heard at last week’s Fermanagh and Omagh District Council’s Policing and Community Safety Partnership (PCSP) meeting.

However, PSNI analysts believe the decrease is due to changes in the way crimes are recorded.

A report provided by the PSNI to members of the PCSP at the meeting stated: “This decrease in reported domestic crimes/incidents is reflected across the province with domestic motivated crime decreasing by 6.4 per cent across Northern Ireland.

“Our analysts believe that the decrease is due to changes in the Home Office Crime Counting Rules. This means that only the highest offence recorded in an incident is used for crime-counting purposes. For example, if an incident involves an assault and criminal damage, only the assault will be used for Home Office Counting Rules as it is the higher offence. Previously it would have been counted as two crimes – assault and criminal damage. The PSNI are committed to increasing reports of domestic abuse and work is ongoing internally across various departments to address this.”

Data shows a 15.2 per cent decrease in the total number of domestic motivated crimes, so far this financial year in Fermanagh and Omagh with 414 incidents of domestic-related crimes recorded by PSNI.

For the same period in 2022, there were reports of 488 domestic-related crimes.

A rolling 365-day figure also shows a decrease in domestic-related crimes with 834 incidents recorded in the last 12 months compared to 910 incidents in the 12 months prior, a decrease of 8.4 per cent in domestic-related crime in Fermanagh and Omagh area.

However, during the same period there has been an increase in domestic incidents with a 1.7 per cent increase of these crimes recorded by the PSNI.

In the last six months there were 884 domestic incidents recorded compared to 866 for the same six-month period in 2022.

The report also detailed the PCSP’s work with both Fermanagh Women’s Aid and Omagh Women’s Aid and detailed some of the work that is taking place within the community including work with local Churches.