Response to reports of harassment - Dorset Police, September–October 2017

On 14 October 2017, a woman reported to Dorset Police that her former partner had been to her home and assaulted her. Dorset Police identified that the woman had previously reported domestic incidents relating to her former partner on 4 September, 17 September and 13 October (approximately nine hours before the assault on 14 October).

Our investigators obtained recordings of the woman’s calls to Dorset Police, reviewed police logs, obtained accounts from a number of witnesses, and considered relevant policies and procedures. We interviewed under misconduct cautions the officer responsible for investigating the incident reported on 17 September and the call handler who responded to the call from the woman on 13 October.

We were of the opinion that the evidence indicated that the officer pro-actively responded to the initial occurrence, but did not arrange for the woman to voluntarily attend a police station or progress arrest enquiries, due to workload pressures affecting them and their supervisors. We suggested that management action would be an appropriate and proportionate outcome in these circumstances.

Based on the evidence available, we were also of the opinion that the call handler had no case to answer for misconduct and that there were no issues with their performance.

After reviewing our report the force agreed and confirmed that the officer would receive management action to enable them to consider potential options in future similar cases for minimising or mitigating the potential risks posed.