Many people do not know this and there is a possibility that in many instances, Protection Orders are not obtained because the party being abused feels that the abuse will intensify if they seek to legally protect themselves. Yet, if you really are the victim of abuse and perhaps crimes have been committed against you of either common assault; assault with intention to inflict grievous bodily harm; indecent assault; rape; incest; attempted murder; malicious damage to property; aiming a firearm; and abuse of your animals; then you may choose not only to apply for a Protection Order but you are also within your rights to lay a criminal charge or even both.
When you have the Protection Order, if your abuser breaks any of the conditions therein, then that person has committed a crime and can be charge with contempt of court. Further, if the actual incident that caused them to break the conditions was a crime, then they can also be charge with both contempt of court and the crime itself.
Protection Orders level the ‘playing fields’ because they give the person being abused the power to have the person doing the abusing, arrested the moment they commit another act of abuse.
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