Investigation into police safeguarding after woman murdered by her partner – Sussex Police, May 2023

A man called the police to report that a woman had overdosed. Officers arrived at the property and found evidence indicating that the woman had been murdered by someone in the house, which included her partner and two friends.

Officers reviewed the woman’s history and found she had had police contact as a victim of domestic abuse frequently in the months before her death. The woman had ongoing addiction issues and had become homeless while in a relationship with her partner of three months. Her partner was convicted of her murder in July 2024 and sentenced to 21 years in prison.

Officers had encountered the woman on many occasions, grading the risk posed to her as medium despite her partner being classed as a high-risk serial perpetrator of domestic abuse.

We received a death or serious injury referral from the force and decided to independently investigate the nature and extent of police contact before the woman’s death and whether the police may have caused or contributed to her death.

We examined whether previously reported incidents were appropriately risk assessed, progressed, reviewed and linked. We also considered whether officers appropriately safeguarded the woman as a victim of potential domestic abuse and took positive action, including signposting her to appropriate support services and making referrals as needed. 

We analysed whether the police response was in-line with the law, and relevant national and local policies, procedures and guidance.

Our investigators reviewed body worn video footage and took statements from officers who had encountered the woman before her death. We reviewed relevant policies and guidance, and obtained information from the force, including recordings of 999 calls, occurrence logs and material the police had shared with West Sussex Domestic Abuse Services about the woman.

We concluded there was no indication that a person serving with the police committed a criminal offence or behaved in a manner to justify disciplinary proceedings.

We found that the situation was challenging, and the woman had found it difficult to recognise or mitigate the risk against her on some occasions. Officers tried to protect her from harm, recording the actions they had taken when they had encountered her, producing assessments on the risk of harm and making referrals to West Sussex Domestic Abuse Services.

We did find some shortcomings and recommended that officers’ line managers address these with individual officers and the wider team to make sure they did not happen again. These included the importance of wearing and using body worn video, particularly in situations where someone may be unwilling to give a statement, recording a rationale if body worn video was not used, and reminding officers about the detail within domestic abuse policies.

We carefully considered whether there were any learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.

We made four recommendations which can be viewed here:

Recommendations - Sussex Police, September 2024 | Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC)

Recommendation - Home Office, September 2024 | Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC)