Police contact with woman prior to her death - Dorset Police, August 2018

In 2018, Dorset Police attended a report of domestic abuse from a third party. Officers attended the home address and established that it was a verbal domestic incident and no offences were 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 record.

A few weeks later, Dorset Police received a third-party Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) referral after the woman attended hospital and disclosed that the injuries she had sustained had been caused by her partner, and that she had been assaulted by him, five or six times prior to that incident.

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

The victim 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 her back to her home address, On the second occasion, police officers left her in the care of the ambulance service.

Later in the year, Dorset Police received a call to attend the home address, where they found her dead. A murder investigation commenced, and a suspect was charged with her murder. 

During our investigation there was no indication any police officer may have behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings or committed a criminal offence.

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.

We did not identify any organisational learning.