Our new research uncovers shocking levels of domestic abuse perpetrated by serving police officers, says Harriet Wistrich. It’s time for systemic reform to keep women safe.
Over the past four years, the emergence of the phenomenon of police officers perpetrating violence towards women has become the subject of national news coverage, catapulted into the headlines after the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Metropolitan Police officer in 2021. This was followed by the usual police response that this was a wholly exceptional case or, in the words of the then commissioner, Cressida Dick, Wayne Couzens was a ‘bad ‘un’.
However, the
Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ), a legal charity I founded in 2016, knew that while the rape of a woman culminating in her murder by a serving police officer was rare, it wasn’t unpredictable. The previous year, in March 2020, we had submitted a wealth of evidence on police-perpetrated domestic abuse (PPDA) for a police super-complaint.
Following Sarah Everard’s murder, multiple news stories emerged of police officers being charged with rape and domestic violence, and of misogynist ‘banter’ between police officers. Then came the prosecution of Met Police officer David Carrick, serving in the same elite armed unit as Couzens. Carrick was given 36 life sentences for multiple counts of rape and other offences of violence against 12 women, many of whom he had formed relationships with. During the 22 years Carrick was on the force, he had been reported to the police by multiple women for offences involving violence and domestic abuse. He had also been the subject of several complaints from members of the public, including for allegations involving excessive use of force. Despite such reports, he was accepted to train as a police officer, passed his probation, passed later vetting, and was approved to carry a firearm.
Police super-complaint
When the new system for making police super-complaints was announced in 2018, CWJ applied to become a designated body, which would enable us to complain if a particular feature of policing appeared to be harming the public interest.
CWJ based
our 2020 super-complaint (authored by CWJ solicitor Nogah Ofer) on case studies of 19 victim/survivors of domestic abuse by police officers as well as from professionals working in the field. Many described their fear of reporting the abusers potentially to their police officer friends and colleagues. The officer may have warned the woman that she wouldn’t be believed and threatened that he had the power to make her life a misery. If she did take the step of reporting, then many of his warnings were borne out – the police failed to investigate, he used his powers to victimise her, particularly if she was herself an officer or employed by the police, and sometimes he got her arrested. For many, their efforts to hold their abusers to account failed, and sometimes the men would go on to abuse others.
We worked with the
Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which had gathered data on PPDA through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests to all 43 police forces across the country. The results revealed poor data collection, but where it was available, it showed very poor outcomes, with a lower prosecution and conviction rate than even for non-police-perpetrated domestic abuse.
We made a series of proposals for systemic change including: the introduction of a bespoke reporting channel for PPDA in order to secure the trust of victim/survivors; the investigation of PPDA cases by an external force; and the introduction of an external disciplinary process with oversight from the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
We argued that all cases involving PPDA should be treated as falling within the mandatory criteria for referral to the IOPC as behaviour aggravated by discrimination on grounds of sex, given that domestic abuse is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women. We also argued for restricting the roles of officers facing allegations, and for much clearer and stronger policies for tackling and penalising such behaviour, whether it occurred on or off duty.
Following publicity around the submission of the super-complaint, CWJ was approached by many more victim/survivors of PPDA and the numbers increased exponentially after media reporting on the Sarah Everard murder. Having explored the issue and understood the shortcomings of the legal framework for tackling it, we decided it would be useful to obtain further accounts where possible from the women who contacted us, as well as providing legal advice where we could, while we awaited the response to the super-complaint.
Centre for Women’s Justice findings on police perpetrated domestic abuse
In
Police perpetrated domestic abuse: has anything really changed since the 2020 super-complaint? (18 September 2024), our new report written by Doughty Street Chambers barrister Ruth Brander, we wanted to track whether things had improved for victim/survivors in light of various new initiatives. By the time of writing it, we had been approached by over 200 new victim/survivors of PPDA and we have drawn on themes of some of the recent cases brought to our attention by victim/survivors of PPDA and professionals working in the field. We have identified new themes as well as repetition of issues previously identified that continued to resurface from the accounts of women who spoke to us. We have also analysed the numerous policing initiatives that have been announced and recommendations for change made since we lodged out super-complaint and go on to highlight ongoing problems setting out our further proposals for change.
Continuing themes that emerged from our research include:
•the failure of forces to identify and address multiple allegations against the same officer;
•missed safeguarding opportunities, including ineffective or non-existent vetting;
•loss of victim/survivor confidence;
•minimisation of offending and poor understanding of controlling or coercive behaviour;
•criminalisation of the victim/survivor;
•poor support for victim/survivors who are themselves police officers or civilian police staff, including problems with the Police Federation; and
•the improper influence, by police perpetrators, in family proceedings.
Among our cohort of women reporting PPDA, 45 per cent were police officers or police staff. These women face special difficulties: not only do they encounter victimisation in the workplace when they seek to report abuse by a colleague, but the law as it currently stands affords them lesser rights than ordinary members of the public. Police Reform Act (PRA) 2002 s29 precludes police officers and members of police staff from making formal police complaints against members of their own force. This means that in the common circumstances in which an allegation does not result in a criminal charge, a woman has no right to be informed about a subsequent police conduct investigation or the opportunity to appeal its outcome.
Despite the numerous reports, inspections, investigations and recommendations made by a range of bodies responsible for policing, there is very limited evidence of change on the ground to date. Our report makes a series of further recommendations. One fundamental problem is that until very recently, the police did not have any means of accurately monitoring the prevalence of PPDA. This means that there has been no effective monitoring as to whether policy changes have had any impact, and no reliable means of ensuring that relevant data was captured so that patterns of behaviour could be identified and acted on for the purposes of vetting and safeguarding. There is an urgent need for evidence-led, sustained scrutiny if there is to be any genuinely meaningful improvement in the way that PPDA is tackled.
We propose that there should be a clear and unambiguous statement, applicable across all forces, that PPDA discredits the police and undermines public confidence in policing, whether it occurs on or off duty, and whether it involves physical, psychological or other forms of domestic abuse. Evidence of coercive and controlling behaviour, in particular, is frequently dismissed. Many are told that the ‘bad behaviour’ that they report is part of the officer’s private life and not relevant to his professional role. This minimises the significance of such abuse; abuse of power and exploitation of vulnerability should be recognised as significant risk factors for policing, given the nature of the role.
We have proposed legislative reform including amendment of PRA 2002 Sch 3 and of the Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2020 SI No 2 to ensure that all allegations of PPDA are treated as recordable complaints or conduct matters, investigated and referred to the IOPC. PRA 2002 s29(4) needs amendment to ensure that police officers and members of police staff have the same right to make a formal police complaint of PPDA as do members of the public.
In relation to vetting, which is already the focus of several reports and consultations, we propose introducing an express requirement that evidence of misogyny, domestic abuse and/or controlling or coercive behaviour on the part of a police officer must trigger a review of vetting and give rise to a presumption against vetting being achieved/maintained.
While many have called for the automatic suspension of officers when an allegation of PPDA is made, we fear this may create a perverse incentive not to investigate. However, it is imperative that clear criteria are applied, both during the investigation and afterwards, when determining whether an officer accused of PPDA should be suspended, placed on restricted duties, or other mitigation strategies put in place to protect the public and the victim/survivor.
We have also asked for: clear guidance addressing the criteria and practical arrangements for referring PPDA cases to an external force for criminal and/or misconduct investigation; misogyny, domestic abuse and controlling or coercive behaviour to be factors that will trigger a review of vetting and that give rise to a presumption that vetting status will be refused; and a model of best practice for PPDA investigations, based on the principles of the
National Operating Model devised by Operation Soteria. However, if real change is ever going to be achieved, the victim/survivor experience should be placed front and centre of any understanding and approach to the problem, and the police will need to be held accountable for their failures to implement change.