Woman assaulted after police attendance - Devon and Cornwall Police, June 2017

In June 2017, Devon and Cornwall Police received a call from a man saying he was at his partner's address and needed to be arrested. Officers were dispatched while the call handler continued to try to gather further information from the man and his partner. She added an entry a few minutes later saying the man was subject to bail conditions that prohibited him from contacting his partner or visiting her home. However, it appears that this information was not communicated to the officers.

When officers arrived, the man and the woman said that they could not remember calling the police. The officers waited outside and spoke with neighbours, who raised no concerns, before leaving.

A few hours later Devon and Cornwall Police received a report of a disturbance at the same address. One of the officers who dealt with this report had previously been to the woman’s home earlier. This officer entered the property and found the man sitting on top of the woman, applying pressure to her neck. The man said that he had been trying to kill his partner. The officer arrested him on suspicion of attempted murder. The officers saw bruises on the woman that were not there earlier.

The man later pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent and to assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Our investigators reviewed information from police systems including incident logs, police witness statements, audio recording of the call, and relevant policies and procedures. They also obtained witness statements from a number of police officers and staff who dealt with both incidents, as well as a member of staff responsible for the call handling system used by Devon and Cornwall Police.

The investigation found that the call handler did not add the information regarding the bail conditions to the main section of the incident log. This was in accordance with relevant procedure from the force. The investigation established that, as a result of this incident, the force updated its procedure to make it clear that bail conditions should be added to the main incident log.

The investigation found that the officers who initially attended the woman’s home did everything that could reasonably have been expected of them, bearing in mind that they were unaware of the bail conditions.

Based on the evidence available we found no indication that any person serving with the police may have behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings, or had committed a criminal offence.