Lie detector to stop domestic abuse thugs re-offending

THUGS who beat up their partners will have to take lie detector tests when they leave prison in a bid to prevent them re-offending.

Freed attackers will be hooked up to monitors and questioned about their activities to prove they have not broken strict parole conditions.

Offenders’ breathing, blood pressure and heart rate will be monitored.

If the results of the cross examination on the polygraph ring alarm bells, further investigations will check if they have broken rules – such as contacting a victim or entering an exclusion zone.

Under the Government crackdown, culprits could be sent back to prison if the £4,000 machines help uncover fresh evidence that they have re-offended.

Since 2014, the Ministry of Justice has made serious sex offenders take lie detectors after they are freed. More than 160 have been sent back to prison.

Now the Government wants to extend the scheme to domestic abusers sentenced to at least 12 months in custody.

Ministers will today set out the measure as part of the flagship Domestic Abuse Bill to tackle the problem, which costs a staggering £66billion a year.

Two women a week are killed through domestic violence. Research shows 30 per cent of women – about five million – and 16 per cent of men, or 2.5million, experience domestic abuse.

The Bill, which aims to support victims and their families and pursue offenders, has been personally championed by Prime Minister Theresa May.

Other measures include a pledge to give men and women the right to check a partner’s background.

The ‘Clare’s Law’ proposal – named after Clare Wood, 36, who was murdered by an ex-boyfriend with a violent past – has been demanded for years.

Justice Secretary David Gauke said: ‘Domestic abuse destroys lives and warrants some of the strongest measures at our disposal.’

The MoJ will carry out a pilot study for the lie detectors before expanding the programme out nationally.

‘Strongest measures at our disposal’