Essex Police gave us exclusive access to its Domestic Abuse Problem Solving Team, which is trying something very different.
“Social services came into my property and sat my partner down and told her, he will kill you.”
‘Eddie’ (not his real name) is on Essex Police’s Threat to Life Database.
Detectives believe he’s potentially capable of serious harm. Over the years, multiple women have made more than 90 reports of domestic abuse against him – he’s been convicted of some. He’s under a stalking protection order. He’s open about harassing a previous partner.
“A lot of mine was over the phone, malicious. I was horrible. Making threats to her, to people she said she was with. I was ruthless. I didn’t care. Drugs played a part in it. My emotions played a part in it.”
But how do you solve a problem like domestic abuse, which police chiefs warn is ‘deeply engrained’ in our society?
And how do you change the way men like Eddie behave?
Essex Police gave us exclusive access to its Domestic Abuse Problem Solving Team, which is trying something very different.
They’ve moved from a system which flagged up perpetrators based on the number of recorded offences they’d committed, to one which looks at allegations of behaviour, like controlling behaviour, harassment and stalking. Behaviours which evidence shows can lead to fatal violence. One in six homicides in England and Wales is linked to domestic abuse.
Plus, the police don’t wait for a crime to be committed. They want to prevent people – mostly women – being abused. In effect, detectives stage an intervention.
The team calls it proactive perpetrator management. It involves daily checks on what Eddie’s doing, monitoring his mobile phone and social media. His car is flagged on the police’s automatic number plate recognition system.
Acting Detective Inspector Hayley Lambert’s officers are keeping watch.
“We’ll need to know everything there is to know about that individual, including what other partners are working with them, so probation, social care. We would want to know where they work, what vehicle they drive, who they associate with, where they frequent. All of that to have a real understanding of their lifestyle, and their type of offending and who else might be involved in that. Unannounced visits as well are quite important to us, especially in terms of monitoring certain conditions and prohibitions that they might have.”
In return for submitting to strict supervision, Eddie was offered help. An opportunity to change.
He has weekly counselling sessions with a domestic abuse charity called The Change Project. Eddie says he’s learning to take responsibility for his actions, understand the impact of his abuse and, crucially, learn how to respond differently in relationships.
“It was hard for me to recognise, let alone control or understand my emotions. The work I do with the Change Project, I’ve learned to think more. My current partner, and me, we have a disagreement, I walk away, we calm down. We both respect our relationship. Whereas before, the relationships I’ve been in, there’s been no respect. The key is you need to have communication and a bit of respect for each other. My arrests compared to what they were before speaks volumes. I think it’s something like 97 investigations against me … and in the last 12 months there’s been nothing.”
The domestic abuse team is not naive. Abusers can be manipulative and they agree there’s a risk some will say what police want to hear, potentially just going through the motions. The team says if a perpetrator commits an offence while they’re on the programme, the police will deal with them. It’s not a free pass.
And they have safety plans in place for the men’s current partners. That’s why officers sat down Eddie’s current partner and told her bluntly, she was potentially in real danger.
Essex Police admit only a handful of people have agreed to join the programme. But they’re convinced it’s working. Eddie hasn’t had any allegations made against him in the last 12 months.
I asked the man behind the programme, Detective Superintendent Matt Cornish, whether it was right to invest time, support and money in men who’ve harmed women.
“We’re trying to break the cycle of domestic abuse and we’re using every tool at our disposal to do so. Ultimately we are trying to work with perpetrators to stop them abusing women and to stop them creating harm and hurting people. We’re giving them an opportunity to change their behaviour and outlook on life to hopefully help them move forward and stop being an abuser. I find it really difficult to think of anything else I want to spend my money on.”
It’s too early to draw definite conclusions about whether Essex Police’s approach is working. But DS Matt Cornish says there’s been a nearly 9% fall in calls reporting domestic abuse and 1,400 fewer repeat victims.
He’d like to achieve more convictions, but he says far better to protect women from being harmed at all.
And the National Police Chiefs Council also says the scale of violence against women and girls is so great that it can’t be addressed by law enforcement alone.
Prosecuting domestic abusers is complex and difficult. But the NPCC concedes too few perpetrators are brought to justice. Convictions are below 5%.
There are huge backlogs in the courts. The national police lead for violence against women and girls, Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth, told me the justice system in England and Wales is not functioning.
For Essex Police, successful prosecutions aren’t the only measure of success. Success also means stopping people from suffering violence.
Who can tell whether the perpetrators Essex Police is working with are now reformed characters? But DS Matt Cornish says “it’s not about creating model citizens, it’s about reducing harm”.