Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) welcomes the government’s announcement today (23 April 2025) that they have created new powers enabling chief constables to sack officers if they fail vetting standards.
CWJ have repeatedly raised concerns about the number of serving police officers who have been accused, in some cases by multiple women, of domestic abuse and sexual violence. In our report on police perpetrated domestic abuse (PPDA) published in September 2024, we highlighted this as a key problem that needed addressing. Many of the two hundred plus women who spoke with us told us that the officers they accused had had previous allegations against them, which had not been properly addressed. Some told us that despite multiple allegations, their abusers were even promoted into senior positions. Our report highlighted the following cases:
‘Lorraine’: whose abuser has been promoted to the rank of Chief Inspector, despite having two entirely separate rape allegations against him, from two people who had no prior knowledge of one another.
'Niamh’: a police employee, who told us that after making a complaint of rape and controlling and coercive behaviour against her police partner, she learnt that his previous partner had also made a complaint of rape against him.
‘Suzanne’: who is herself a serving police officer, told us that both she and her ex-husband’s subsequent wife made allegations of domestic abuse against the same man. Both sets of allegations were NFA’d and the man continues to work in a frontline role which brings him into contact with vulnerable victim/survivors.
These accounts are illustrative of findings in Baroness Casey’s excoriating internal review of the Metropolitan police and sadly in keeping with the revelations of previous serious allegations against Met officers Wayne Couzens, found guilty of the murder of Sarah Everard and David Carrick jailed in 2023 for multiple allegations or rape and domestic violence.
In a judgment of the High Court in February 2025, an attempt to dismiss an officer after he failed vetting clearance following multiple allegations of sexual violence and domestic abuse recorded against him, was held to be unlawful. It is hoped that the new regulations will provide a way to ensure that such officers can be sacked in future. It is hoped that they will be drafted in such a way as to ensure that this will apply to those who could not be dismissed under the previous system, despite the Forces knowing that these officers pose a risk to women – both members of the public and their female colleagues.
Whilst an allegation does not amount to proof of a crime, an important finding of our police super-complaint and subsequent work around PPDA is the existence of many barriers to reporting police officer perpetrators and multiple failings in the investigation process which mean many allegations result in No Further Action. We complained also of very poor data management but in our super-complaint, we found that the conviction rate of police officer perpetrators of domestic abuse was only two thirds of the poor figure for domestic abuse convictions for the general population. The lack of conviction, therefore does not mean that these men are not a risk to women and where Forces are aware of this, they require a lawful method of dismissal.
Harriet Wistrich, Director of Centre for Women’s Justice, stated:
“Over the last five years since we launched our police super-complaint on police perpetrated domestic abuse, there have been repeated scandals and evidence of police officers still serving despite serious and often repeated allegations against them of domestic abuse and sexual violence.
“Officers are given significant powers and status to enforce the law, which is why it is crucial that the highest standards of integrity apply to such people. In our work we have seen that power and status be misused by many bad actors. We are pleased to see the government taking forward some of the reforms that we have recommended, aimed at preventing some of the worst scandals in the history of policing being repeated.”
ENDS
Notes:
CWJ’s 2020 super-complaint can be accessed here
CWJ’s report ‘Police Perpetrated Domestic Abuse: Has anything really changed since the 2020 super-complaint?’ can be found here
The College of Policing’s announcement of the introduction of more robust vetting standards in December 2024.
BBC News article from February 2025: Met officers who fail vetting scheme may keep jobs