Handbook on Sexual Violence (35 page)

• Introduction
  

  I have been asked to provide commentary on the first five chapters of this book from a practitioner perspective and will concentrate specifically on domestic rather than stranger sexual violence, although there are fundamental similarities for the management and investigation of all serious sexual offending.
  

  The chapters on the legacy of sexual violence in history, historical literature and legal heritage I have taken together. Each chapter is extremely emotive and thought-provoking in its own right but nevertheless they prompt similar responses in their usefulness in relation to contemporary policing. The chapters provide context to the journey, along a social, political and legal course, to understanding current attitudes and practices. The chapters also provide an explanation for society’s present response to domestic and sexual
  

  violence, how some of the earlier attitudes still prevail and what needs to be done for continuous improvement. Bringing together such a wealth of learning and knowledge over time into one read should prove essential to professionals hoping to specialise in these areas of investigative practice. Traditionally, police training has had little input from external sources but the availability of this material as a pre-read to police training for specialist sexual violence investigation will be extremely beneficial.
  

  Improvements in the police response to sexual violence, in partnership with other agencies, including sexual assault referral centres (SARCs),
  2
  the CPS and other support services, are outlined in Chapter
  5 by Miranda Horvath and Mark Yexley and provide a welcome relief after the preceding chapters, which present a particularly daunting and somewhat adverse description of the
  

  treatment of victims of sexual violence. Horvath and Yexley explain that now when a victim decides to disclose a sexual assault to police, the response by the criminal justice system is less oppressive and more supportive throughout the process. They discuss the importance of partnership working alongside SARCs and Havens to encourage victims to access support, particularly when they might be at a point where they do not want to report to police. Recent joint working with the Haven in Paddington has involved the training and implementation of the DASH 2009 risk assessment tool for domestic cases to be completed with victims who are present at the service, with referral to an IDVA (independent domestic violence adviser) service in high-risk cases or in other cases where this is requested by the victim. However, their chapter does not emphasise sufficiently that prevention of domestic violence and sexual violence extends beyond the criminal justice system and cannot be the responsibility of any one agency alone; rather several agencies are needed in a co-ordinated community response, with the same key messages of intolerance to violence.
  

  Horvath and Yexley discuss the history of police training and I have distinct memories of dealing with calls in relation to domestic abuse in the early 1980s when our response as police officers was limited to providing details of local solicitors. We rarely recorded allegations and in cases where there had been an assault, if the response to the question ‘Are you willing to go to court?’ was ‘No’, then we would do no more than perhaps ask the perpetrator to stay elsewhere for the night. Training in domestic violence was limited to the process of dealing with civil disputes. Early courses established for sexual offences investigative techniques officers (SOITs) for dealing with victims of sexual abuse were confined to victim care and statement taking with little training for officers in relation to investigation. Chapter
  5 outlines how the police response has changed since the 1980s with the role of the STO pivotal to the investigation. The STO is now expected to respond to a report of serious sexual offending in London within an hour of the contact and will be expected to remain in contact with that victim throughout the investigation and beyond. They are the conduit between the investigator and the victim, providing a two-way flow of information on the progress of the investigation and the victim’s wishes.
  

  In the 1990s, prompted by women’s support groups and academic research, the Home Office issued a circular (60/1990)
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  for domestic violence, encouraging police services to:
  

take a more interventionist approach in domestic violence cases – with a presumption in favour of arrest;

ensure that domestic violence crimes are recorded and investigated in the

same way as other violent crimes;

adopt a more sympathetic and understanding attitude towards victims of domestic violence.

Early initiatives included the establishment of units, generally consisting of one or two female officers developing links with partner agencies and providing a support role, with cases being dealt with by response officers or appointed investigation officers. However, there was still an absence of in- depth training for police on this subject.

It was not until 1997 that the MPS introduced Community Safety Units
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responsible for the investigation of hate crime and domestic abuse. Systems were developed to enable the recording and flagging of cases. Multi-agency forums were developed to ensure that the support of victims was paramount in the local response across stakeholder agencies. The introduction of these units has served to professionalise the police response in the protection of victims of domestic violence and ensure that perpetrators are held to account. The MPS works to the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)

definition of domestic violence as:

Any incident of threatening behaviour, violence or abuse (psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional) between adults who are or who have been intimate partners or family members, regardless of gender.

This definition was updated in 2004 to define adults as over 18, define family members and include any sexual orientation, and remains current.
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Early communication strategies with our partners, from both the voluntary and the statutory sector, were aimed at encouraging reporting. They included:

introducing referral processes;

launching various media campaigns;

setting up third party reporting sites;

holding London conferences (specifically the launch of the MPS domestic violence (DV) strategy ‘Enough is Enough’ 2001 conference);

publication of academic research, e.g.
The Day to Count: a snapshot of the

impact of domestic violence in the UK on September 28, 2000
(Stanko 2000).

Professor Betsy Stanko, when Director of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Programme on Violence at the Royal Holloway, University of London, organised a census of agencies around the United Kingdom to analyse how much of their work was related to domestic violence.

This activity served to build trust and confidence in victims to report to police. Rates of reporting in the MPS increased from 9,000 incidents in 1997 to a little short of 100,000 incidents in 2001. It was established that 25 per cent of homicides in London were as a result of domestic violence.

The demand placed on key service providers by domestic violence cases

(one contact every six minutes within the MPS alone (Stanko 2000)) meant that it was important to find ways to respond appropriately to the different typologies of cases, nature of need and levels of risk. A multi-agency review process for domestic homicide in London was developed in 2001 with a view to establishing whether there were lessons to be learnt from the cases about the way in which local professionals and agencies worked together to safeguard victims of domestic violence, identifying clearly what those lessons were, and how they would be acted upon, and what was expected to change as a result and as a consequence to improve inter-agency working and provide better safeguards for victims.

In addition, research and analytical work on domestic serious violence and sexual assaults recorded by the MPS identified recurrent factors that were indicators to serious harm and homicide. This research,
Findings from the Multi- agency Domestic Violence Murder Reviews in London
(Richards 2003), and academic research were the main drivers for the development of the MPS DV risk assessment model (SPECSS+ model) and other strategies for prevention.

The research identified sexual assault as a high-risk factor with the following findings:

Analysis of four months of domestic sexual assaults (2001) demonstrates that those who are sexually assaulted are subjected to more serious injury.

Those who report a domestic sexual assault tend to have a history of

domestic abuse whether or not it has been reported previously.

One in 12 of all reported domestic sexual offenders are considered very high risk and potentially dangerous offenders (Richards 2003).

Men who have sexually assaulted their partners and/or have demonstrated

significant sexual jealousy are more at risk for violent recidivism.

(Stuart and Campbell 1989)

Implementation of the SPECSS+ model was underpinned by the publication of standard operating procedures for the investigation of domestic violence and introduction of an investigation booklet for response officers encouraging early evidence gathering, risk assessment and management and victim advice and support. The MPS embraced the need for training for domestic violence, introducing mandatory training for all response officers up to the rank of inspector.

Training and guidance on matters of domestic violence and sexual violence has improved dramatically in the past decade with forces developing training based on academia and learning, reviews of internal working practices, early national guidance for police, and more recently guidance and packages provided by the NPIA (National Police Improvement Agency). This training has now been incorporated into foundation training, specialist and leadership courses. Horvath and Yexley explain that in London, specialist teams were introduced in the late 1990s, known as Sapphire units, dedicated to the investigation of rape cases. These have now developed and been incorporated into the Specialist Crime Directorate alongside murder investigation teams, which gives a sense of how seriously rape is regarded within the MPS. In addition, a dedicated Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) charging unit for

serious sexual assault works alongside those investigative teams to encourage early consultation to establish best evidence and appropriate charging decisions.

The ethos of police policy in relation to the domestic and serious sexual assault policies is that victims have a fundamental right to be believed; their safety and protection must remain paramount throughout the investigation; perpetrators must be held to account through the criminal justice system; and where a prosecution is deemed unfeasible then alternative courses of action, in consultation with partner agencies, to support victims aims to stop the violence and keep victims and their children safe. This activity is in addition to ensuring a focus on intelligence in relation to the perpetrator.

Specialist training for sexual violence for officers does not and should not concentrate solely on subjects of legislation, evidence gathering, case preparation, and so forth but, in order to professionalise the role of the investigator should discuss matters such as:

dispelling urban myths and avoiding assumptions (e.g. rape myths);

understanding why victims withdraw;

appreciating the effects of experiencing sexual and domestic violence on victims and children;

risk identification, assessment and management (specifically the DASH 2009 model, an amalgamation of existing DV ‘risk tools’);

partnership working through Havens,
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independent domestic and sexual

violence advisers (IDVAs/ISVAs), multi-agency risk assessment conferences (MARACs)
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and other specialist DV and SV agencies;

typology of rapists;

forensic strategies;

advanced interviewing skills.

Where teams specialise it is important that there is ‘cross-pollination’ of training across areas of domestic, sexual and child abuse and other forms of violence against women, as they are intrinsically linked.

In London, local example studies of cases are used to make the training ‘real’ for officers, particularly when discussing risk assessment and management. Here Kelly’s continuum of violence comes to the forefront when looking at high-profile offenders such as Levi Bellfield, Mark Dixie and Karl Taylor, where their violent and sexual offending started at home with their girlfriends and family, went unchallenged and escalated into homicide. (Interestingly it is reported that these three offenders met while remanded in Belmarsh prison and formed a gang called the Ladykillers (
The Sun
, 5 April 2008)). Cases are used to impress the importance of effective early intervention and how that might prevent escalation.

Specialist serious and complex investigative interviewing training is essential for officers to understand what we know of the ‘psyche’ of offenders. Input on this training is provided by external experts who have worked with or researched offenders to give some understanding on how they might react to certain questioning, how they might try to manipulate professionals, how they might view women based on personal or cultural effects of their

upbringing and so on. Most important is the ability for investigating officers to use the detailed victim statement obtained by the STO (discussed at length by Miranda Horvath and Mark Yexley in Chapter
5) and any other corroborative evidence to ‘close down’ the defence of consent in rape cases. If the victim’s statement covers in depth how the victim felt, reacted, what they were thinking, rather than just ‘did they say yes or no’; and, similarly, if the behaviour of the offender from the victim’s perspective is detailed within that statement, then this can have an extremely beneficial effect on the course of the interview.

The use of ‘bad character’ evidence (Criminal Justice Act 2003) or similar factual evidence and how to cover this in interview is also taught. This area of training is essential to many cases involving domestic and sexual violence where there may not have been many previous convictions, to ensure that the case is supported and appropriate sentencing is considered.

One case comes to mind whereby an officer discovered that despite just one conviction for harassment, an offender being dealt with for raping his current girlfriend and assaulting her young son had been the subject of civil court non-molestation orders
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for rape and violence against several previous

partners. The affidavits from the civil court formed the basis of a bad character application to the court. The victim in this case was extremely fearful of giving evidence at court and subsequently withdrew her support. Despite this, the case went ahead due to the seriousness and the risk posed by the offender. He was convicted and a pre-sentence report
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requested. The allocated probation

officer commented that had he not had sight of the report regarding the offender’s previous unconvicted history, he might have been convinced that the offender was a victim of injustice, was a hard-working man, had many women who were infatuated by him and that this particular one was jealous, which was why she had brought the charge – as the offender would try to make him believe. After the offender was sentenced to four years in prison, his victim informed the officer that while the offender was in custody he had forced one of his ex-girlfriends to write a letter of withdrawal to the police, to visit the victim and force her to sign it and threaten her that if she did not drop the case she and her son would suffer severe consequences.

Advances in forensic technology and application have proved essential in the support of domestic violence and sexual violence cases, again clearly outlined by Horvath and Yexley. References to the historical requirement for corroboration, mentioned on more than one occasion in Chapter
3 by Joan McGregor and regarded as negative, are understandable because that probably related to the corroboration of an eyewitness. However, corroborative evidence can take many forms including the ability to ‘match’ forensic findings to a victim’s statement, in order to refute any defence forthcoming in the perpetrators interview, and to interpret scenes (which includes the victim, offender and venue), CCTV footage, 999 call recordings, medical evidence, photography, statements of attending officers’ observations, etc. Such evidence has enabled several cases to continue through the criminal justice system independently of the victim. Victims are more likely to feel supported through the criminal justice system if the case does not rely solely on their evidence, particularly in cases of domestic violence where the parties will be known to

each other. The presence of forensic material might be used for ‘interpretation’ rather than ‘identification’.

Routine DNA sampling of offenders on arrest is vital for identification, intelligence and prevention. The MPS cold case review team, discussed by Horvath and Yexley, were involved in an investigation in which a man arrested for assaulting his wife was swabbed for DNA. When the samples were submitted to the DNA database they were found to match samples recovered at the scenes of four stranger rapes some ten years previously. During a subsequent search of the offender’s home address a divorce petition from a previous marriage was discovered in which the grounds for divorce were cited as sexual abuse.

Nevertheless, despite the improvement in policing there are still many real and perceived barriers to reporting for victims. For example, media approaches are not always helpful where the focus remains on the behaviour of the victim rather than the offender. The MPS approach to the domestic violence campaigns in more recent years has been to target offenders rather than victims. Campaigns containing straplines such as ‘your partner’s silence no longer protects you’ and ‘there are no safe houses for men who commit domestic violence’ have been extremely successful in relaying the policing message. (See the example below.)

#
MPA 2005

For many victims the fear of attending court is real. ‘Special measures’, including video-recorded evidence, live link, screens, private sitting, use of intermediaries and other methods of enabling a victim to give their evidence, are available in accordance with the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act

1999.
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These must be utilised whenever appropriate. The introduction of

specialist domestic violence courts in London. where there is provision of advocacy for the victim, normally through an IDVA, trained district judges, police presence in court, secure seating areas, etc., has seen a significant increase in successful prosecutions.

Cultural matters across many different racial, ethnic and faith backgrounds have a significant part to play in the reluctance to report domestic or sexual violence. There may be mistrust in the police in people who come from countries where there is corruption or sexism within the police service. Victims may be isolated due to language barriers, insecure immigration status, no access to public funding, pressures to conform to patriarchal codes of behaviour, etc. For some, being raped is seen to bring shame on the family and wider community, and there are many examples where victims have reported and asked that no one in their family or community is made aware that they

have been a victim of sexual assault because they will be ostracised or otherwise punished for bringing shame onto the family or community. This is concerning. The MPS has experienced significant success in increasing reporting, at the same time reducing seriousness in domestic violence (homicide rate for 2003/4 was 43 and decreased to 25 in 2009/10)
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, of the 25

domestic homicides in 2009/10, the majority of the 15 cases which were not known previously to police, or apparently any other agencies, involved those who were not British nationals. In addition, the practice of forced marriage often results in rape, and this brings to mind the references in Chapter
3 by Joan McGregor in relation to the historical requirement to prove force, which required evidence of physical force. In forced marriage the definition provided in the Government Multi-Agency Practice Guidelines for the Handling of Forced Marriage cases states:

A forced marriage is a marriage in which one or both spouses do not (or, in the case of some adults with learning or physical disabilities, cannot) consent to the marriage and duress is involved. Duress can include physical, psychological, financial, sexual and emotional pressure.
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The use of the word duress and accompanying forms of behaviour is distinctly more appropriate than the word ‘force’, particularly in cases of rape where fear overcomes the victim’s reactions. Agencies must work together to ensure that violence within isolated communities is being recognised and given an effective response. For the police, this responsibility is as much to do with neighbourhood policing to identify isolated victims, as it is with specialist units.

Finally, in
Chapter 4, Sylvia Walby, Jo Armstrong and Sofia Strid discuss the various forms of measuring sexual violence and how data are presented in different ways. The recording of data in relation to domestic violence and sexual violence is crucial to inform strategy, intelligence, resourcing, performance, budgeting and many other aspects of policing, and yet this chapter demonstrates how difficult it is to obtain consistent and reliable data. How do we understand where the gaps in our service are and whether our prevention approach is effective, if a common data set for all domestic and sexual crime types, across services, is not available? The MPS has developed their recording practices for domestic violence significantly over the past few years, assisted by the clear definition outlined earlier in this
chapter. Strategists and analysts with expertise in the area have worked closely with IT departments to ensure that crime-reporting systems have mandatory fields in areas such as equalities data, risk assessment, outcomes, repeat victimisation, methods and other information that can be easily retrieved using various formatted searches. However, the interface with CPS data remains problematic and there is still difficulty in retrieving the data for measuring ‘offender brought to justice’.

When compiling business cases for new initiatives or commissioning services, data and cost benefits are important to the success of the bid, and ready access to this information, whether through academic research or local systems, should be available. Sylvia Walby’s previous research on the
Cost of

Domestic Violence
(Walby 2004, updated 2009) has been particularly beneficial to the prevention work for domestic violence in the MPS, especially the cost to policing. Further breaking down of the cost of a homicide investigation sends the message to senior officers that the resourcing of the initial response, and further risk management, could make savings, when lives are saved as a result.

Conclusion

These first five chapters provide us with an exceptional, if not depressing, insight into the historical cultural attitudes towards sexual violence. Change has been slow and there is still much to be done to create a society in which there is a distinct intolerance to all forms of violence against women. The overview in Horvath and Yexley of the improvements within the legal system in response to sexual violence is heartening. Communication among professionals working to prevent and respond to such cases is vital; we can learn so much from each other to advance our work and to ensure a co- ordinated community response when victims come forward. Media and other social networking facilities have an important part to play to ensure that the legacies of the past, as outlined in these
chapters, do not continue to be promulgated and that the onus of responsibility for domestic and sexual violence is transferred from the victims of sexual violence to the perpetrators. Educating children from a young age to treat each other with respect and to develop healthy and equal relationships has an important part to play in eliminating such attitudes towards women, and to ensure a future healthy society where women are free from violence from partners, family members and strangers alike.

Notes

1. The views expressed in this chapter are solely those of the author. They do not represent those of the Metropolitan Police Service.
   

2. http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicy AndGuidance/DH_107570
   

3. http://ndvf.org.uk/files/document/1032/original.pdf
   

4. http://www.met.police.uk/csu/
   

5. http://www.acpo.police.uk/documents/crime/2008/2008004CRIIDA01.pdf
   

6. http://www.thehavens.co.uk/
   

7. http://www.caada.org.uk/
   

8. http://www.womensaid.org.uk/domestic-violence-survivors-handbook.asp?section= 000100010008000100330002
   

9. http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/provision_of_pre_sentence_report_information
   /
   10 http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/special_measures/