Victims of domestic abuse have lost confidence in Britain’s biggest police force after a series of scandals, a senior officer has admitted.
Det Supt Andrew Wadey, the Metropolitan police’s lead for domestic abuse and stalking, acknowledged the force had “let women and girls down badly in the past” but insisted they were committed to rebuilding trust.
Domestic abuse accounts for about 12% of reported crime in London. In the past year the Met recorded 13 domestic abuse-related murders, 11 of which were against women. It also recorded six suicides – all women – in which there was a history of domestic abuse, though Wadey said the true number was probably higher.
Wadey said an additional 550 officers would be placed in public protection roles across the force over the next year, including 180 detectives dedicated to investigating domestic abuse.
The drive comes after high-profile scandals involving the former Met police officers Wayne Couzens, who raped and murdered Sarah Everard, and David Carrick, who was convicted in January of 85 rapes and assaults, making him one of the worst sexual offenders in modern times.
Wadey said he and his colleagues were “absolutely devastated and disgusted” by the cases, which had made officers’ jobs more difficult.
“It’s certainly not helpful for our jobs,” he said. “We’ve got to go through a period now in which we very publicly go through a process in which we root out those officers and do all of the work that I and my colleagues are doing to try and restore the faith of women and girls by improving our response to domestic abuse, to controlling and coercive behaviour, towards all of these really harmful and appalling behaviours that we see across society.”
He said the scandals had had an impact on women’s confidence in reporting domestic abuse. “We know we have let women and girls down badly in the past and we must improve our service and behave with respect and compassion to earn back trust.”
Wadey said: “I engage very closely with colleagues who work in the VAWG [violence against women and girls] sector, who work with charities, NGOs etc, and they absolutely have given their feedback in terms of their concerns following those really high-profile cases. But I think crucially though, they are working with us to try and restore that confidence with victim-survivors.”
He said there were just under 100,000 reports of domestic abuse in London each year, and the volume of offences had risen every year since 2018, from about 6,000 to 8,000 a month.
Despite the numbers going “up and up”, domestic abuse was under-reported, he said. “It is a staggeringly high number and we know it’s under-reported as well, so there’s work to be done to increase the confidence of victim-survivors to report. So as volume goes up, that’s not necessarily a bad thing from a policing perspective, because hopefully that means people are accessing the police and other services better than they have been able to before.”
Wadey described domestic abuse as “the largest driver of crime demand within London and probably across the country”. He said domestic abuse services were struggling to cope with caseloads and “creaking under the demand”.
“We know across the network they are struggling to cope and manage the demand that’s coming in, and that’s across the system. From our perspective, we’ve recognised that, and as a result we’re increasing the number of resources dedicated to investigating domestic abuse.”
He said that as well as bringing the number of officers investigating domestic abuse up to 1,100, 7,500 frontline officers had received domestic abuse training focused on controlling and coercive behaviour.
The Met also launched its VAWG action plan this month, detailing 10 new commitments, which include building trust and confidence and making safer spaces for women and girls.
The government is seeking to overhaul punishments to protect women from domestic killers. Proposals announced in July seek to lengthen the prison sentences for abusers who kill by creating a new aggravating factor for murder at the end of a relationship.
The government is also seeking to increase the minimum sentence for murders inside the home where a knife or weapon is found at the scene. Currently, if a killer uses a weapon found in the home the tariff is 15 years, whereas if a killer murders a woman in a park with a weapon brought from elsewhere they can get 25 years.
Wadey said the scandals involving Couzens and Carrick were “an appalling and very, very difficult thing to witness playing out” but his message to his team was to avoid being defensive.
“I think the instinct when you come across that is to say: ‘That’s a minority, it’s nothing to do with us, blah, blah, blah,’” he said. “My message to the teams were: ‘Fine, but how have these people been amongst us without being detected?’ And as a result, we’ve got to look at ourselves and look at the way in which we challenge behaviour or not challenge behaviour and take some responsibility for that.”
