Sandwell review

Sandwell Community Safety Partnership should write to the Women's Aid Federation (enclosing a copy of the final report) to ask them to consider strengthening the Women’s Aid Quality Standards concerning evictions from refuges. This should ensure that when a woman is evicted from a refuge, she will still have an exit plan tailored to her individual need and access to ongoing appropriate support. In addition, she should be provided with information on how she can make a complaint or challenge the decision to evict her.

Sandwell Community Safety Partnership should request further detailed information about the training on domestic abuse that is currently provided to staff working in the West Midlands National Probation Service, West Midlands Police, the Crown Prosecution Service, HM Courts Service and the Judiciary. The information should include: a. The number of staff who have accessed both single agency and multi-agency domestic abuse training b. Demonstrate how this training has improved the outcomes for victims of domestic abuse

Sandwell & West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group to sustain funding for Sandwell IRIS domestic abuse intervention until 2022 and beyond, to maintain the current level of 96% uptake by Sandwell GPs.

This domestic homicide review should be used as a case study for domestic abuse training (and other training e.g. substance misuse training). The training should give professionals the confidence to: a. Understand how attitudes of professionals can undermine a victim's ability to escape domestic abuse b. Recognise the specific barriers facing domestic abuse victims from the Irish Traveller community c. Recognise victim-blaming, worthy and unworthy victims, and 'minoritised' victims and how these impact on the lived experience of women d. Challenge organisational culture so that agencies move away from victim-blaming to focus on ways to disrupt perpetrators' activity thus preventing men from being invisible to services e. Identify the local pathways that are in place for victims to access services f. Appreciate how perpetrators can use drugs as a mechanism to control victims

When considering safety planning for victims and children, the West Midlands MARAC (multi-agency risk assessment conference) processes should clearly consider the need for relevant partner agencies to seek to make applications for restraining orders/injunctions/domestic violence protection orders as appropriate. The Chair of the conference and wider attendance should be clear where the responsibility lies for each order, and the thresholds for application.

The Crown Prosecution Service should consider strengthening its guidance in cases where victims object to the making of an order. The guidance should include the need for a prosecutor to consider the principles arising from the caselaw42, namely the need to balance respect for the wishes of the victim and her right to autonomous decisions about her life, with consideration of whether she is in fear, has been coerced, or does not have capacity to make the objection. Such guidance should include a requirement for the prosecutor to set out those legal principles to the court as well as the available evidence on either side of that equation, whilst remaining in a neutral position with regards to the granting of an order, which remains a matter for the court.

A judge making a decision on whether to grant or decline a restraining order where the victim objects to the making of the order should hear oral evidence from the victim in order to explore whether she is in fear, has been coerced, or does not have capacity to make the objection.