1. Domestic Abuse (DA) Roundtable Event
DCI Jim Foley
Metropolitan Police

2. Agenda 1. The difficulties of investigating Domestic Abuse.
2. The difficulties of investigating Domestic Abuse Rape offences.
3. Stalking and harassment

3. Context & Challenges

4. What is Domestic Abuse?
… any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are, or have been, intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality.
The abuse can encompass, but is not limited to psychological; physical; sexual; financial or emotional.

5. Coercive and controlling behaviour
Controlling behaviour is certain acts designed to make a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating them from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the means for independence, resistance and escape and regulating their everyday behaviour.
Coercive behaviour is acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm punish or frighten their victim.
These could include:
isolating victim from friends/family 
depriving them of basic needs
monitoring their time
monitoring a person via online communication tools or spyware
controlling aspects of everyday life: where they go, who they see, what they wear, when they sleep
depriving access to support services, specialist support or medical services
control of finances - punitive allowances
threats to harm or kill
threats to harm another e.g. a child
threats to reveal, share or publish private information
assaults, rape
criminal damage – destruction of household goods
preventing access to transport or from pursuing a working life.

6. National Statistics
Will affect 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men in their lifetime
Equivalent to an estimated 1.4 million female and 700,000 male victims
Leads to, on average, two women being murdered each week and 30 men per year
Accounts for 16% of all violent crime however it is still the violent crime least likely to be reported to the police
Has more repeat victims than any other crime
Is the single most quoted reason for becoming homeless (Shelter, 2002)
Approximately 400 people commit suicide each year who have attended hospital for domestic abuse injuries in the previous six months
200 of these attend hospital on the day they go on to commit suicide
Estimated that domestic abuse costs the public £23 billion per annum
Each domestic abuse murder costs over £1 million
On average the police receive an emergency call relating to domestic abuse every 30 seconds

7. Domestic Abuse Victim Behaviours
The most commonly asked question: Why don’t they just leave?
What does a victim hope to gain from leaving?
Safety for themselves and any children
Self respect
Self confidence
A chance for a new start
Control over their life
Improved health

8. What does a victim face losing if they leave?
Home
Possessions
Job (either because they have moved or because it is an easy way to be found)
Father/mother for the children
Status (as a wife/husband, particularly important in religious communities where divorce still carries a stigma)
Any hope that things will work out
A partner that at one time at least, they loved and for whom they may still have feelings of care
Finances
Friends and family
Pets
Their routine (this includes all the things that make up your day-to-day life - your exercise class, the children's school, the garden you have lovingly tended, your GP, dentist, the local shops where you are known etc)
Children (this is statistically unlikely but they will invariably have been threatened with this by the abuser and so it will form part of their decision-making process)
The decision to leave an abusive relationship is not easy
Victims are likely to blame themselves having endured significant emotional abuse which involves manipulation and distortion of the events.
What this means is that when an abused person leaves, they frequently face nothing but loss for quite some time. The single biggest gain ‘safety' may not be gained for weeks, months and in some cases years.
It is also important to remember that victims are likely to be making the decision to leave within the context of her abuser begging for forgiveness, pleading for another chance and promising to change.

9. Offender Behaviour
Perpetrators often seek to down play the impact of their abuse and fail to
admit or acknowledge the extent of the harm that they cause. This can take
many forms:
Complete denial;
Inclusion (perpetrators include only abuse that has become public)
Forgetting, blanking out and ‘not knowing’;
Normalising (presenting behaviour as if it was not important)
Using the children as part of coercive control
Denying the impact on children (evidence suggests that in 90 percent of
domestic assaults, children are in the same or next room)
Denying that they have responsibility, instead blaming the victim or other problems, such as substance misuse, stress, or mental illness
In a HMIC review of 600 domestic assault case files, there was a counter-allegation made in 30% of the cases. Often the women the HMIC spoke to described how calm and plausible the perpetrator appeared to be on arrival of the police

10. ‘Positive’ Action and DA Rape
Arrest and Deterrence Theory
Professor ‘Larry Sherman’ The ‘Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment’ (MDVE) by Sherman and Berk (1984)
Replication studies.
Decrease in Violence vs Increase in harm
Dame Elish
Rt Hon Dame Elish Angiolini DBE QC (30th April 2015) - Recommendation 5;
The impact of the question concerning previous experience of sexual abuse in Form 124D (completed when complainants report domestic violence) be researched and reviewed to assess whether it is the most appropriate mechanism for encouraging disclosure of rape offences (MPS).
The question referred to within the report is part of the national ‘DASH’ (Domestic Abuse, Stalking and Harassment) risk assessment tool completed for allegations of domestic abuse and the question specifically asks;
‘Do they say or do things of a sexual nature that make you feel bad or that physically hurts you or someone else?
A positive response to this question will lead to a crime report of rape or sexual assault, whether the victim wishes to report the matter for investigation or not……..Why? 
‘Positive’ action vs Victim care
Survivors group
The group felt that the way the question was asked and by who was very important to the response they would give.
All women in the group agreed that the biggest issue for police was that they needed more training in understanding the issues faced by victims.
They also wanted police to understand that;
If I say that I don’t want to give a statement right now and I don’t want him to be arrested for rape then that does not mean I never will
I still wanted him to be arrested for ……. (the original offence the police were called for)