About this page. This page summarises a Domestic Homicide Review published in the Home Office DHR Library. The full report is available at the source link below. Victim and perpetrator names are not included in extracted summaries on this page.
Source · Domestic Homicide Review
Wandsworth review
CSP: Wandsworth
Published: August 2023
Year of death: 2017
Extracted: 23 recs
Statutory domestic homicide review under section 9 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. Source: Home Office DHR Library.
View full report (PDF) ↗
Source: Home Office DHR Library
Summary
The review highlights the extreme vulnerability of an au-pair to modern slavery and domestic servitude, exacerbated by a lack of regulation and specific safeguarding advice. It also identifies systemic issues in multi-agency responses to a perpetrator's manipulative behaviour and repeated false allegations, which obscured the victim's abuse and caused emotional harm to children.
Extracted recommendations
| # | Recommendation | Addressed to |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Practice standards to be updated to include nannies and au-pairs | Wandsworth Children’s Services |
| 1 | Continue with Level 3 training on the ‘voice of the child’ | Local GP Practice |
| 1 | The WSCP should consider clarifying the role/status of nannies/au-pairs in the safeguarding children agenda | Wandsworth Children’s Safeguarding Partnership |
| 1 | Organise multiagency training to focus on the voice of the child in Domestic Abuse families | Wandsworth Children’s Safeguarding Partnership |
| 1 | Children’s services to raise the profile of domestic abuse and make it clear that it doesn’t have to be between partners – it is anyone in the house. Information on posters about what to do if you are concerned about an adult or if you are a victim of domestic abuse yourself should be visible in the community. Information should be given on where to get help and support. Information on how and where to report any concerns such as a help line that you have about friends or family should be readily available | Wandsworth Children’s Services | Wandsworth Community Safety Partnership |
| 1 | Department for Education to review the current guidance regarding employment of nannies/ au-pairs that protects them, children who may be in their care and their employers to reduce the risk of Modern Domestic Slavery through Domestic Servitude | Department for Education |
| 2 | Develop specific procedures to respond to parents who make continuous claims of child abuse | Wandsworth Children’s Services |
| 2 | Train clinicians to recognise ‘disguised compliance’ | Local GP Practice |
| 2 | Multi-agency domestic abuse procedures should consider the role of nannies/au-pairs in terms of their place in a domestic family home environment | Wandsworth Children’s Safeguarding Partnership | Metropolitan Police Service | Local GP Practice | South West London and St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust | School 2 |
| 2 | Continue to improve multiagency working by continuing to establish close liaison eg; 8 weekly health visitor meetings with GP practices , social care liaison, Joint training | Wandsworth Children’s Safeguarding Partnership |
| 2 | New regulations should be brought in to ensure that au-pairs and employers have DBS checks and are monitored to ensure their safety as well as the safety of the children in their care. New regulations should be brought in to ensure that all au-pairs need to be registered | Department for Education | Home Office |
| 2 | Community Safety Partnership is to use the learning of this review to raise awareness of the risks of Modern Day Slavery through Domestic Servitude | Wandsworth Community Safety Partnership |
| 3 | In complex parental behaviour cases, consider a separate chronology to record the child’s voice | Wandsworth Children’s Services |
| 3 | As nannies and au-pairs remain an unregulated, private family arrangement, consideration should be given to wider discussions across LSCB’s regarding their regulation and protection on a national and international level. Currently, no-one is looking after their interests or welfare and they remain very vulnerable to abuse and exploitation | Local Safeguarding Children Boards |
| 3 | Identify in training the need to be aware of professional manipulation by complex patients who have multiple vulnerability factors for abusing their children | Wandsworth Children’s Safeguarding Partnership |
| 3 | Robust systems for sharing information should be in place between agencies and boroughs | Wandsworth Children’s Safeguarding Partnership | Metropolitan Police Service | Local GP Practice | South West London and St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust | School 2 |
| 3 | To implement a robust awareness raising campaign and plan within the borough’s proposed new VAWG Strategy is to be overseen by a specific sub-group involving statutory stakeholders, schools and NGO’s | Wandsworth Community Safety Partnership |
| 4 | Review the threshold of case escalation | Wandsworth Children’s Services |
| 4 | To ensure that the ‘voice of the child’ and the learning from this review is used to reinforce Level 3 Child Safeguarding Awareness Training for front line Professionals across the Partnership | Wandsworth Children’s Safeguarding Partnership |
| 5 | Staff to be reminded of the fabricated illness procedures | Wandsworth Children’s Services |
| 5 | To ensure that learning in respect of ‘Professional Curiosity’ from local and national SCR’s and DHR’s is cascaded to front line professionals and those bodies | Wandsworth Children’s Safeguarding Partnership | Wandsworth Community Safety Partnership |
| MPS IMR | Senior officers of the local South West command unit should arrange to debrief the officers involved to identify individual and wider safeguarding training needs across the command. | Metropolitan Police Service |
| SWLSTG IMR | Embed ‘Think Family’ further across all services. | South West London and St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust |
| Recommendations extracted from the published report. Source: Home Office DHR Library. View full report ↗ | ||