Reports of domestic abuse have increased by more than 10% in Hertfordshire over the last year, according to figures from Herts Constabulary.

Hertfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Jonathan Ash-Edwards sat down with Chief Constable Andy Prophet at the force's monthly accountability and performance meeting on Thursday, May 14.

The first of the items on the agenda was domestic abuse, which Mr Ash-Edwards described as "a significant amount of workload for policing".

He then asked the chief constable for statistics on how well the force had responded to domestic abuse incidents within the last financial year.

Chief Constable Prophet said: "Domestic abuse, as you rightly say, is the biggest cause of harm in Hertfordshire and probably in counties up and down the country, largely but not exclusively affecting women.

"The constabulary has a really sharp eye on this in terms of prevention, safeguarding, investigating, supporting victims and as you would expect, tackling perpetrators.

"In the last year, we have recorded more domestic abuse crimes than in previous years. An increase of just over 10 percentage points – 12,716 crimes between the period of April 1, 2025, and February 28, 2026. That's, as I say, up 10% over the previous year.

"Some of that, as we've spoken about a number of times, is as a result of us now properly recording crime, which we had previously been identified for not doing so.

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"Some of that… may be an increase in some levels of crime and harm that are happening. So, there's a challenge there for us to continue to crack down and focus on driving down domestic abuse.

"On the upside, I'm pleased to report, however, in the same period I've just reported, the amount of crimes that we have solved successfully, either through court or other means of disposal, has increased by just short of 28% – 814 successful resolutions up to 1,041.

"We still, however, do not solve enough of the domestic abuse offences reported to us. There are still, for me, too many cases where we know who the offender is because the victim has told us, and we don't manage to secure the evidence or the victim's support to get that individual to a court or through an out-of-court disposal.

"So we have much work to do, even though I'm pleased to say we're better at recording it, and we are solving more. We have a very high conviction rate in court, so when we do lay charges with the agreement of CPS, in the last 12 months, the conviction rate was nearly 90%."

The PCC describe the Chief Constable's summary as "welcome progress" and added: "You're right to highlight the high rates [of conviction] when charges are being brought.

"Indeed, the arrest rate for Hertfordshire on domestic abuse is higher than the national average, I understand as well. That's positive."