South Wales police put attack victim at ‘serious risk’
A woman, hit repeatedly in the face by her convicted rapist partner, and her children were put at “serious risk” by South Wales police finds the IPCC – as revealed by Channel 4 News.
On Tuesday, Channel 4 News told the story of Charmaine, who asked that her name not be revealed, who was seriously assaulted by her partner after repeatedly appealing to the police for protection.
No one took overall supervision and this failure to ‘join the dots’ effectively put this woman and her children at serious risk. Jan Williams, IPCC
As Channel 4 News revealed, an IPCC investigation into the incident found she had been “let down”.
On Wednesday, the IPCC released the findings of its investigation, which says Charmaine was “let down by a consistent thread of low level police officers by South Wales officers and members of staff”.
Charmaine had initially reported Christopher Veal to the police for assault three days before the final violent attack, as well as on the day itself, saying she didn’t want to “get beaten any more” and couldn’t return home.
‘Unacceptable’
IPCC Commissioner Jan Williams said: ”We found that, following the initial assault, the police did not give this case any urgency or priority.
“No one took overall supervision and this failure to ‘join the dots’ effectively put this woman and her children at serious risk.
“South Wales Police had the systems and intelligence in place to flag up the danger that this offender presented, but, at various stages, officers failed to access that information and to assess the risk properly.
“The force has accepted our findings and recognises that it placed the woman, and her young children, at unacceptable risk.”
Ms Williams added: ”We cannot say with any certainty what would have happened if the police had placed a higher priority on finding the offender after the initial assault; we can say that the lack of focus at the time placed the woman and her children at serious risk.”
‘Sincerely sorry’
Deputy Chief Constable Matt Jukes of South Wales police said in a previous statement: “It is clear that we did not provide the victim in this case and her children with the care and protection that she needed at a critical time and we are sincerely sorry for that.
“Over recent years we have worked incredibly hard to improve our response to incidents of domestic abuse and, whilst this has come too late to support the victim in this case, we have good evidence that it is providing a much-improved response to victims of domestic abuse now, helping to keep them safe.”
Watch the Channel 4 News report, below.