Violence Against Women and Girls: are the police doing enough?
Almost four years on from Sarah Everard’s horrific murder, have the police done enough?
Content warning: rape, sexual assault, domestic and sexual abuse.
“I wonder when she realized she was in mortal danger; I wonder what her murderer said to her. When he strangled her, for how long was she conscious, knowing she would die? It is torture to think of it. Sarah was handcuffed, unable to defend herself and there was no one to rescue her. She spent her last hours on this earth with the very worst of humanity.” – Susan Everard, mother of Sarah Everard, in Part One of the Angiolini Inquiry.
The nation was horrified in 2021 when it discovered that Wayne Couzens, a serving Metropolitan Police officer, had used his position to kidnap, rape and brutally murder Sarah Everard.
In 2022, when another serving officer in the same force, David Carrick, was found to be a serial rapist with an offending period of 17 years, it became clear that it was not just one bad apple. The revelations that numerous police failings in both cases resulted in missed opportunities to catch predators in the police’s own ranks meant that the police approach to Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) desperately and urgently needed revaluation.
So, almost four years on from Sarah’s horrific murder, have the police done enough?
Operations and Initiatives
With VAWG now a national emergency, according to the police national lead for VAWG Maggie Blyth, and an estimated 2 million women victims of violence perpetrated by men every year, there has been an effort to improve policing to reduce such crimes.
Operation Soteria, set up in 2021, led to the first National Operating Model for the investigation of rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO), which was rolled out across all police forces in July 2023. Now, it is a joint unit which involves the National Police Chief’s Council, College of Policing and Home Office and was welcomed by charities, organisations and researchers alike.
Following the first report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) into Operation Soteria, Chief Constable Sarah Crew - who is the operation’s Senior Responsible Officer - said:
“I am pleased to see that this first HMICFRS report found Soteria to be a true ‘game-changer’ for policing.
[…] in fact, within our own evidence gathering, we have seen more cases being referred to prosecutors and we are seeing more suspects being charged.
For example, in the year ending December 2023, charges for sexual offences were up by 18% compared to the previous year, while adult rape charges increased by 38% in the same period.”
There are also local examples including Project Vigilant, rolled out by the Thames Valley Police in 2019 - but used force-wide in 2022 – which focuses on the night-time economy. By stationing plain-clothed police offers in areas in which vulnerable women may be targeted, such as outside bars and clubs, it aims to prevent VAWG crimes before they happen by approaching those exhibiting potentially predatory behaviour.
So far, the initiative has demonstrated promising success in intercepting such behaviour, finding that 65% of females who were in the company of a suspected predatory male who was approached, once separated, “expressed fear and unwillingness to accompany him”. The initiative also found that 71% of people stopped during these patrols had a Police National Computer identification number and of this number, 35% had a VAWG-related history. Project Vigilant has since been adopted by other forces across the country, including the Metropolitan Police, the Gloucestershire Constabulary and Hertfordshire Constabulary.
Super-complaints, reports and research
Whilst the police undertaking research and investigations into VAWG is in itself a positive step towards improving policing, it has also revealed the disheartening reality of current failures in their responses.
In September last year, the findings of a super-complaint – which allows organisations to highlight concerns in the interest of the public - lodged by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust on how the police handle stalking and harassment were published and, concerningly, it identified numerous problems within police responses. These included victims being left potentially at serious risk due to poor safeguarding, a lack of understanding about the nature of stalking itself and problems with the quality of investigations. It is therefore unsurprising that the report also found that not being taken seriously was a factor for some victims in not reporting stalking and that most victims are dissatisfied with the police response.
Whilst the report made 29 recommendations to improve the police’s stalking approach, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s response emphasises that these “should be seen as the minimum forces should do” and that the report is “just the start of the journey”. They provided several additional suggestions, including for the Government to publish a national Tackling Stalking Plan which mirrors that of the 2021 Violence Against Women and Girls strategy.
In August last year, the College of Policing also published a review of research evidence looking at the link between sexual exposure and contact sexual offending, the largest of its kind in a decade. The report’s implications called for sexual exposure to be taken more seriously, a review of reporting mechanisms and found that further research is urgently needed, especially regarding online offences.
One of the authors of the report, Dr Fiona Vera-Grey, explained:
“The gap in the evidence base has made it hard for policing, particularly given the ways in which an offence like exposure is so commonly dismissed or minimalised by both the police and the general public.
“Given that cyberflashing has only recently been made a criminal offence there is definitely a need there for officers to upskill themselves to learn how to better support victims, investigate offences, and disrupt offenders.”
She added that “the police have done a lot recently to try to improve their response and we’ve worked with some really good officers and forces as part of Operation Soteria.
“Sadly, there is also evidence of bad practice, and we know that a lot needs to change to ensure that all victim-survivors experience procedural justice if they report – which means that during the process of actually reporting they experience just and fair treatment, irrespective in some ways of the criminal justice outcome.”
The catalyst of it all - misconduct
Despite police misconduct being the catalyst for recognising reform was needed to address VAWG, little further action seems to have been taken to tackle the problem of police-perpetrated VAWG itself.
Currently, there is still no requirement for police to suspend officers or staff being investigated for VAWG. Data collected by domestic abuse charity Refuge revealed that of 1,124 VAWG-related cases from May 2022 to May 2023 across 26 police forces in England and Wales, on average just 24% of those being investigated were suspended whilst awaiting outcomes.
It was also revealed in an IOPC dip-sampling report in February last year that when investigating police conduct and complaints, police “do not consider patterns of behaviour in cases where it would be relevant to do so”. In fact, they only did in 35% of cases that the IOPC looked at.
Such problems remain largely unaddressed as we await the findings and recommendations of part two of the Angiolini Inquiry, which will provide a comprehensive investigation into how the police as a whole handle VAWG, including policing values and culture, methods of recruitment and vetting, and how fit for purpose the processes for dealing with misconduct are.
From the foreword of part one, which focussed on Wayne Couzens, we do know that VAWG-related misconduct is recognised as a national problem, as Lady Elish Angiolini highlighted that “these problems are by no means unique to the Metropolitan Police Service.”
The Thames Valley Police is just one recent example of this, with several misconduct outcomes just since January last year finding individuals with worrying attitudes towards women and girls within the force, which include:
- an officer who had conversations of sexual nature with someone purporting to be a 13-year-old girl
- a former Sergeant found with indecent images on his device who also took and shared pictures of a junior’s colleague’s cleavage
- a former Special Constable who admitted that explicit images and videos on his employer’s computer were of him exposing himself in public and committing sexual acts in his employer’s office
- a trainee officer found to have told a female officer as a joke that he would rape her if she did not hurry up collecting her bags, among other instances of inappropriate comments
On top of these hearings, PC Jay Callen was found to have raped and sexually assaulted a woman, and another two officers – Jake Wilson and Nathan Budd - have been charged separately with sexual assault.The Thames Valley Police were contacted for comment on misconduct and VAWG, but no response was received.
Such cases seem unlikely to aid police trust in the Thames Valley region which – despite Project Vigilant - has seen an increase of 4.8% in sexual offences from November 2023 to October 2024 compared with the year before, jumping to a 12.2% increase when looking at April to October 2024 compared to the year before.
In fact, across 8 areas of Oxford - included in the Thames Valley area - the monthly average percentage of crimes listed as ‘violent and sexual offences’ from January to October last year is almost a third at 32.6%.
Survivor Space, an Oxfordshire charity that supports survivors of sexual abuse, rape, domestic abuse and harassment, said:
“In our experience in the Thames Valley, our independent advocacy service is needed by survivors more than ever.
“We continue to see cases resulting in NFA (no further action) decisions (meaning the perpetrator isn’t charged), lack of communication from investigating officers on live cases and numerous court adjournments that damage the wellbeing of survivors.
“Nationally, adult survivors of rape are now waiting 710 days on average from the point of complaint to proceedings being concluded, with many waiting far longer than that.”
They also explained that “after years of chronic underfunding, half of rape crisis centres were already anticipating making cuts earlier this year, and a third have said they are at risk of closure. Our own funding is insecure and short-term, which impacts our ability to plan effectively, and respond to increasing demand.”
They added that rape culture is a problem for society and the police:
“Rape culture can also affect how survivors are treated by services and organisations that should be there to help them, like the police and the criminal justice system.
“We need these institutions to reflect seriously on how they are contributing to the problem, act in a trauma-informed way and increase their accountability to survivors.”
However, they did welcome the introduction of Operation Soteria and said that as part of the Thames Valley RASSO strategic partnership:
“We can see goodwill and determination to create a more joined-up approach and better outcomes for survivors.”
Progress, but not enough
Undeniably, the police have made improvements in their VAWG policing with new initiatives, reports and co-operation with other organisations. However, with research gaps, a lack of training and understanding of the issue and - crucially - continuing misconduct problems, it is equally undeniable that there is still a massive amount of action needed before the public can trust the police to adequately respond to VAWG.
Though we may anticipate and welcome further change after part two of the Angiolini report, we cannot forget that the negligence of the issue up to this point means that for many women, including Sarah Everard, it will still be too little too late.
If you have been affected by anything in this article and want support, visit the End Violence Against Women’s find help directory.