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
Wolverhampton review
CSP: Wolverhampton
Published: March 2024
Year of death: 2013
Extracted: 16 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 identified systemic failures in multi-agency responses to a high-risk domestic abuse case involving reciprocal violence and severe alcohol/mental health issues. Concerns included inconsistent risk assessment, poor information sharing, lack of engagement with services, and ineffective criminal justice interventions, leading to a predictable tragic outcome.
Extracted recommendations
| # | Recommendation | Addressed to |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | That an independent review of the Wolverhampton MARAC is undertaken after systemic, organisational and staffing issues have been addressed, to ensure compliance with best practice. | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership |
| 1a | Escalation policies for both the MARAC and the agencies contributing to it when interventions or safety plans are judged ineffective. | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership | Agencies contributing to MARAC |
| 1b | Appropriately funded MARAC coordinator | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership |
| 1c | Actions to be linked to risk, with agencies to be more accountable for completion of actions and escalation of the case where appropriate | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership | Agencies contributing to MARAC |
| 1d | Link MARAC protocol with escalation policy | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership |
| 1e | Ensure that the presence of offender managers at future MARACs leads to SMART offender management actions | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership | West Midlands Police |
| 1f | Identify a lead practitioner in complex repeat cases | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership |
| 1g | Ensure MARAC minutes are CAADA compliant and that they are available to agencies involved in the safety plan. | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership |
| 1h | Ensure that in cases with reciprocal violence a different IDVA is available for each party | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership | IDVA services |
| 1i | Monitor attendance of agencies with recommendations regarding representation at MARAC | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership |
| 1j | Promote use of DASH by all agencies with training where necessary | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership | All agencies |
| 1k | A learning event to be delivered to all attendees at MARAC, coordinator, IDVAs, Support workers and WMP domestic abuse and safeguarding teams, specialist DV teams and agency frontline practitioners across all agencies represented on safeguarding Boards | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership | West Midlands Police | IDVA services | Safeguarding Boards |
| 1l | Repeat the CAADA self-assessment to ensure that all outstanding areas for development have been addressed. | Safer Wolverhampton Partnership |
| 2 | Wolverhampton CSP to highlight the need for sufficient IDVA capacity to be provided by city-wide commissioners in line with CAADA recommendations that IDVA teams should have specialisms across the team in the criminal justice system, family courts, substance use, mental health, young people, safeguarding, sexual violence, housing, and BME and male victims. | Wolverhampton Community Safety Partnership |
| 3a | Wolverhampton Community Safety Partnership to ensure domestic violence features as part of the Safeguarding Adults and Children Board’s development of a multi-agency early alert system | Wolverhampton Community Safety Partnership | Safeguarding Adults Board | Safeguarding Children Board |
| 3b | That Wolverhampton Community Safety Partnership highlight gaps in academic research on reciprocal violence where identifying the primary victim/offender is problematic. | Wolverhampton Community Safety Partnership |
| Recommendations extracted from the published report. Source: Home Office DHR Library. View full report ↗ | ||