Police contact with a woman before her death - Dorset Police, August 2018

On 22 April 2018 a member of the public called Dorset Police to report a disturbance between a man and a woman. Officers went to the couple’s home and established that it was a verbal domestic incident and there were no offences disclosed. This was the first domestic abuse incident between the couple to be reported to Dorset Police.

Dorset Police subsequently placed a ‘Domestic Abuse – standard’ warning flag on the woman’s record.

A few weeks later, Dorset Police received a referral after the woman had been to hospital and disclosed that the injuries she had sustained had been caused by her partner, and that he had assaulted her five or six times before that.

Following this, a Dorset Police Domestic Abuse Advisor (DAA) made several attempts to contact the woman by telephone over several weeks, but the woman did not answer. No answerphone message was left, as it may not have been safe to do so.

The woman was also discussed at a Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC), and a ‘Domestic abuse – MARAC’ warning flag was placed on her record.

The woman did come into contact with Dorset Police on two separate occasions during the time that the DAA was trying to make contact with her. On one occasion, police officers took the woman back to her home, and on the second occasion, police officers left the woman in the care of the ambulance service.

On 26 August 2018, after receiving a report by phone, Dorset Police went to the woman’s home and found she had received serious injuries. She was pronounced dead.

A murder investigation commenced, and the woman’s partner was charged with her murder. He was later convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 18 years.

Dorset Police identified that there had been earlier police contact with the woman prior to her death and referred the matter to us.

Our investigators obtained statements from Dorset Police officers and staff who were involved in the various incidents relating to the woman, obtained and analysed call recordings and police logs, and reviewed applicable national and local policies and guidance.

Based on the evidence available we were of the opinion that the actions undertaken in response to the initial call on 22 April 2018 appeared reasonable. Our investigation report found that genuine attempts were made to contact the woman in accordance with established practices and procedures.

The incidents span a period of some months and the evidence supports that there was some proactivity with a view to engaging with the woman following the MARAC referral. The report describes that alternative methods of contact were considered but ruled out as inappropriate.

Our investigation highlighted some areas of improvement for the force to consider, including updating their domestic violence (DV) policy to explicitly include that body-worn video (when available) should be used by officers attending DV incidents to enable enhanced evidence gathering, as well as increasing awareness for officers and staff to consider alternative methods of contact where attempts at telephone contact have been unsuccessful.

We completed our investigation in May 2019.

After reviewing our report Dorset Police advised that they would implement the learning arising from this investigation.