Source · IOPC Learning Case

Police contact with a woman before her death and a subsequent complaint about the handling of linked allegations – Cleveland Police, August 2018

Cleveland Police Ref: 2018/108250 Recommended 9 Oct 2020 Response due 4 Dec 2020

Welfare and vulnerable people

On 29 August 2018, Cleveland police commenced an investigation into the death of a woman. Cleveland Police arrested the woman’s partner on suspicion of murder who has since been convicted of this offence. Cleveland Police reviewed the police contact involving the woman and her partner and located the first report of concern for the woman recorded on 22 May 2018. From this time, up to the date of the woman’s death, several more incidents were located involving her and her …

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Recommendations

1 total

Recommendation 1

The IOPC recommends that Cleveland Police should implement a formal process for feeding back relevant information from Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) meetings to staff within the Protecting Vulnerable People (PVP) unit. During the misconduct interviews for two officers working within the Domestic Abuse unit within the PVP, it became apparent that they were not aware of the discussions at MARAC meetings relating to the complainant and the suspect of one of their domestic abuse investigations. Neither officer were aware of a formal process of obtaining feedback from the MARAC. The APP recommends; “Forces should create a MARAC flag on their local system, to be used when a victim is made subject to a MARAC. This is key information for any future risk assessment”. It appears that the force uses MARAC flags to identify perpetrators although there does not appear to be a system for formally identifying MARAC victims. A MARAC flag for a victim could prompt a formal process for feeding back from the MARAC meetings. This information from the MARAC would be beneficial to those investigating domestic abuse offences. Do you accept the recommendation? Yes

Addressed to: Cleveland Police

Linked bodies: Cleveland Police

Accepted

Force response

Accepted action: This recommendation is accepted and we already have a number of activities underway to address this. The MARAC process is currently under review in its entirety with a view to streamlining the process, ensuring that officers have ready access to relevant MARAC documents. The MARAC standard operating procedure (SOP) is currently under review as part of that process. Once complete the SOP will be updated. The SOP remains under the command of DCI, Domestic Abuse and the refreshed document will include the IOPC recommendation as it is published, verbatim, under a new heading “record keeping”. The MARAC guidance document for the PVP Hub is also currently under review. That document will merge with the MARAC SOP in the near future to ensure a single reference point exists for all MARAC matters. All Hub staff who upload MARAC documents have been briefed as has their supervisor. Markers of Interest flags (MOI) (MARAC) are added to both the victim and perpetrator on NICHE. The Niche MARAC marker will signpost officers where to go for further MARAC information which is not recorded on Niche. The start date for the flag is the date the MARAC form is completed and the expiry date is 12 months from the date of the relevant MARAC meeting. Where a flag already exists for a repeat case, the existing flag is edited and extended. The PVP Hub supervisor has been tasked to monitor performance and compliance. The above changes has not necessitated the amendment of any role profiles or job descriptions as the responsibility for record keeping has not changed and remains part of the PVP Support Hub Clerk role profile.