Adult Intervention / Protection & Domestic Abuse Teams (728A/22)
Request
Regarding any team based at Coventry Central Police Station which is charged with adult intervention / protection or specialises in allegations of domestic abuse against adults:
- Please confirm the names of the teams.
- Please confirm the percentage of staff within those teams who have undertaken any course in relation to emotional domestic abuse.
- Please confirm the names of the courses.
- Please confirm the specific topics covered within those courses.
- Please confirm whether those courses are compulsory or voluntary.
- Please confirm if any of these courses highlight the fact that emotional domestic abuse can manifest in false or exaggerated criminal allegations, or situations deliberately engineered, in order to make criminal allegations.
- Please confirm if any of these courses highlight the issue of ‘reactive abuse,’ that is to say where a victim is abused so much and so often that they eventually react, an act which is then held up as abuse itself and used against the victim in criminal allegations.
- Please confirm what guidance is issued to officers with respect to number 6 and 7, above and how they are expected to bear such concepts in mind when investigating?
- Are officers expected to keep an open mind when faced with allegations of domestic abuse that they might not, in fact, be true and could be part of a concerted campaign of abuse itself? What I mean by this is, is it supposed to cross the officers’ minds that, regardless of how good the evidence, such could be being manipulated in order to pursue a campaign of abuse? How does West Midlands Police ensure that such a standard is maintained?
- Are officers expected to act on the report of a possible criminal offence, regardless of how that report is made, who makes it and in what context it is made? What action are they expected to take? Does this apply to all offences, including those made as counter allegations by a suspect?
Where relevant please provide any written guidance in support of any answers.
Response
Questions 6 to 10 – No specific recorded information held by West Midlands Police. All officers are taught in line with College of Policing guidance and current legislation, however course content is held by the College of Policing and with regard to student officers, Staffordshire University. Therefore, you might wish to approach these two bodies to see if they can assist in providing you with the information you require.
Questions 1 to 5 – Please see attached (728A_22_attachment1.pdf).
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.