Police officers less likely to be prosecuted for domestic abuse
POLICE officers accused of domestic abuse are almost half as likely to be prosecuted as people in general, a super-complaint by campaigners alleges.
The Centre for Women’s Justice said some officers alleged to have abused their partners were being protected, citing cases of police failing to investigate by not taking statements from those who said they had been abused, and investigators not listening to recorded evidence of a discussion relating to a rape.
Freedom of Information requests by the centre found there were 19 convictions for 493 reports against police officers, a rate of 3.9 per cent – compared with a 6.2 per cent rate for the general population.
The centre’s “super complaint”, lodged with the police inspectorate, seeks to allow victims to complain directly to the Independent Office of Police Conduct and have neighbouring forces investigate, rather than by the force where the suspect works.
“Many cases are closed by the police without referral to the Crown Prosecution Service,” said a spokesman for the centre. “Where cases are referred and the CPS decides to take no further action, the way in which the investigation was conducted may affect the amount of evidence collected, the quality of the evidence and how it is presented to the CPS, and affect the ultimate decision.”
The centre also refers to cases where no misconduct proceedings took place, with one woman who claimed she was raped being told that superiors would have a “quiet word” with the suspect.
Victims who are police officers also said they faced “bullying and open hostility” from other officers. One said she had her application to join the firearms section “blocked” by her “senior officer ex”, while another said colleagues simply accused her of lying.
One of the women said her exhusband physically, mentally and sexually abused her. She reported him to his force, Northumbria Police, but no action was taken. “He used to say to me, ‘I’m a police officer. No one is going to believe you’,” she said.
The woman, from Tyneside, said police “lost” evidence she provided and her husband was given her witness statement, which later went missing from the system.
Another woman described how a police investigator failed to take a statement from her, failed to contact a witness whose details she had supplied and failed to obtain a critical telephone recording until after the case was closed.
The investigator also failed to interview her ex-husband for over a year about the allegations, until the investigation was reopened following the intervention of a detective chief inspector.
The super-complaint will be investigated by HM Inspectorate of Police to decide whether to proceed with a full inquiry.
Since 2018, the super-complaint system has allowed certain organisations to raise concerns on behalf of the public about “harmful patterns or trends in policing”.
The 15 forces included in the complaint are: Cambridgeshire; Devon and Cornwall; Greater Manchester; Gwent; Hampshire; Hertfordshire; Leicestershire; Merseyside; Metropolitan Police; Northumbria; Police Scotland; Surrey; Sussex; West Midlands and Wiltshire.