Police contact with a woman before her death and a subsequent complaint about the handling of linked allegations – Cleveland Police, August 2018
On 29 August 2018, Cleveland police commenced an investigation into the death of a woman. Cleveland Police arrested the woman’s partner on suspicion of murder who has since been convicted of this offence.
Cleveland Police reviewed the police contact involving the woman and her partner and located the first report of concern for the woman recorded on 22 May 2018. From this time, up to the date of the woman’s death, several more incidents were located involving her and her partner.
Cleveland Police also located a report of two sexual assaults and a report of rape made by another woman against the deceased woman’s partner in January 2018 and March 2018. As a result of their review, Cleveland Police identified concerns in these instances of contact between police, the deceased woman, her partner and the third woman.
Cleveland Police made a conduct referral to us on 30 August 2018.
On 3 September 2018, we decided to independently investigate the conduct matter, however, our case decision maker decided to suspend the investigation due to the ongoing criminal proceedings.
On 31 January 2019, Cleveland Police received a complaint relating to their contact with the woman who reported the rape and sexual assault allegation and made a complaint referral to us on 1 February 2019. The complaint was linked to the conduct matter and remained suspended until the criminal proceedings.
On 10 July 2019, we resumed our investigation into the linked complaint and conduct matter.
During the investigation, we interviewed four subject officers under misconduct caution, obtained statements from several witnesses, obtained compliance reviews relating to the force and department which dealt with the investigation and compared the actions undertaken against local, national policy and legislation.
There were four subject officers as part of this investigation. One sergeant and one police constable who responded to concerns for welfare for the deceased woman.
We found the police constable facing misconduct had no case to answer but determined that management action would be appropriate.
The management action related to the guidance on updating a Public Protection Notice (PPN). The officer mistakenly believed that another officer had done this as he saw a PPN on the system. He also did not read the previous officer’s PPN. Consequently, that PPN related to another matter involving the rape victim and the subject officer should have completed a PPN following his visit.
We found the sergeant facing misconduct had no case to answer.
The remaining two officers, a detective constable and a detective inspector, were both investigated in relation to their involvement in the rape investigation involving another woman. We found no case to answer for misconduct for both officers.
We carefully considered whether there were any learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.
In this case we identified an area for improvement and progressed this under Paragraph 28A of the Police Reform Act 2002.
IOPC reference
Recommendations
The IOPC recommends that Cleveland Police should implement a formal process for feeding back relevant information from Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) meetings to staff within the Protecting Vulnerable People (PVP) unit.
During the misconduct interviews for two officers working within the Domestic Abuse unit within the PVP, it became apparent that they were not aware of the discussions at MARAC meetings relating to the complainant and the suspect of one of their domestic abuse investigations. Neither officer were aware of a formal process of obtaining feedback from the MARAC. The APP recommends;
“Forces should create a MARAC flag on their local system, to be used when a victim is made subject to a MARAC. This is key information for any future risk assessment”.
It appears that the force uses MARAC flags to identify perpetrators although there does not appear to be a system for formally identifying MARAC victims. A MARAC flag for a victim could prompt a formal process for feeding back from the MARAC meetings. This information from the MARAC would be beneficial to those investigating domestic abuse offences.
Do you accept the recommendation?
Yes
Accepted action:
This recommendation is accepted and we already have a number of activities underway to address this. The MARAC process is currently under review in its entirety with a view to streamlining the process, ensuring that officers have ready access to relevant MARAC documents.
The MARAC standard operating procedure (SOP) is currently under review as part of that process.
Once complete the SOP will be updated. The SOP remains under the command of DCI, Domestic Abuse and the refreshed document will include the IOPC recommendation as it is published, verbatim, under a new heading “record keeping”.
The MARAC guidance document for the PVP Hub is also currently under review. That document will merge with the MARAC SOP in the near future to ensure a single reference point exists for all MARAC matters. All Hub staff who upload MARAC documents have been briefed as has their supervisor.
Markers of Interest flags (MOI) (MARAC) are added to both the victim and perpetrator on NICHE. The Niche MARAC marker will signpost officers where to go for further MARAC information which is not recorded on Niche.
The start date for the flag is the date the MARAC form is completed and the expiry date is 12 months from the date of the relevant MARAC meeting. Where a flag already exists for a repeat case, the existing flag is edited and extended. The PVP Hub supervisor has been tasked to monitor performance and compliance.
The above changes has not necessitated the amendment of any role profiles or job descriptions as the responsibility for record keeping has not changed and remains part of the PVP Support Hub Clerk role profile.