Latest news with #PaulineJones
Straits Times
6 days ago
- Business
- Straits Times
Britain reassesses 'flawed' domestic abuse risk tool
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Pauline Jones, mother of Bethany Fields, holds a photo of her late daughter, who was killed by an intimate partner, at Horsforth Hall Park in Leeds, Britain, August 7, 2025. REUTERS/Sam Tabahriti LONDON - A month before she was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend, Bethany Fields walked into a police station in northern England to report his abusive and controlling behaviour. He had threatened to kill her, but she was not assessed as high risk. Fields is among many domestic abuse victims failed by risk assessments based on a form known as DASH used by Britain's overstretched police forces, social workers and others for more than 15 years, according to two academic studies, several women's charities and victims' relatives. "To get that form right literally means the difference between life and death," said Bethany's mother, Pauline Jones. The charity which co-developed the form, SafeLives, has now been tasked by the government with a project which its CEO Ellen Miller described as examining the way to see "how a review could work through, how a bigger rewrite could happen". "We know so much more now, that it needs to evolve, it needs to change," Miller said, confirming a project that is yet to be publicly announced. DASH had saved many lives, she said, adding that it should be rewritten rather than replaced and that it was up to police to use it properly. "The problem is not the DASH. The problem is police officers' values and behaviours," she said. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Business Singapore banks face headwinds in rest of 2025, but DBS is pulling ahead: Analysts Asia Mixed reactions among Malaysia drivers on S'pore move to clamp down on illegal ride-hailing services Asia Typhoon Podul slams into southern Taiwan; hundreds of flights cancelled Business Singtel Q1 profit soars 317.4% to $2.9 billion on exceptional gains of $2.2 billion Asia Diamonds, watches and shoes: Luxury items at heart of probe into South Korea's former first lady Singapore Yishun man admits to making etomidate-laced pods for vaporisers; first Kpod case conviction Sport New Hui Fen becomes first Singaporean bowler to win PWBA Tour Player of the Year Singapore SG60: Many hands behind Singapore's success story A report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) into Fields' murder, published online in April this year, said the officer conducting the assessment was inexperienced to undertake such a sensitive assignment and lacked supervision; it also questioned the DASH form. Those filling in the DASH (Domestic Abuse, Stalking and Honour-Based Violence Assessment) tick: "yes", "no", or "don't know" - sometimes labelled "other" - in response to questions about possible abuse. The IOPC said the third option reduced the chances of officers pinning down a potential yes. That in turn reduces the chances of getting enough ticks for the assessment of high risk that triggers a referral for extra support. Marsha Scott, chief executive of Scottish Women's Aid, said the DASH tool was "deeply flawed". Researchers from the Universities of Manchester and Seville found the DASH "performs poorly at identifying high-risk victims", with 96.3% of such cases being wrongly assessed as standard (low) or medium risk in their study of 350,000 incidents logged by an unnamed major UK police force. SafeLives did not respond to a request for comment on the statistic, published in Madrid-based journal Psychosocial Intervention in 2022. The British system is not the only one to come under scrutiny. Spain's interior ministry said in January it had updated its gender violence management system to make it more effective; in June, it said British officials had visited to find out more. Britain's interior ministry did not respond to a request for comment for this article. It has said reducing violence against women and girls is a priority and that it plans to publish a new strategy on the issue. MISTAKES In the year ending March 2024, there were 108 domestic homicides, of which 83 of the victims were female. Reuters was not able to establish how many of those deaths followed DASH risk assessments or what those had concluded but found other deaths in which an assessment had been undertaken. Seventeen weeks pregnant, Fawziyah Javed was pushed to her death from the top of the Arthur's Seat hill in Edinburgh in 2021. Her mother, Yasmin Javed, told Reuters her daughter had reported her husband's violent and controlling behaviour to the police. Officers told her she was medium risk and despite the risk factor of being pregnant and a visit from police six days before she died, she was never referred for high risk support, her mother said, adding: "These mistakes are costing lives." Contacted for comment, police said only that the IOPC is still investigating the force's response. Both Javed's husband and Fields' ex-partner were convicted of killing them. When asked about fatalities after DASH assessments, Miller said: "I think the DASH could always be better," adding that it was up to police to safeguard people from the risk of death in their recruitment and training. Her hope, she said, was that a "refreshed DASH" would be used adequately in every case. OTHER OPTIONS The interior ministry has asked other charities to help SafeLives "bring together insights" into the systems for assessing and managing risk in the country, a letter from the ministry to one of them who asked to remain anonymous showed. Several charities contacted by Reuters said they feared the project would not go far enough. Ngozi Fulani, CEO of Sistah Space, a charity supporting victims from African and Caribbean heritage, said the DASH may not be effective for many in those communities, due to mistrust of police linked to institutional racism. "They chose to leave us out, that speaks for itself," she said, referring to the fact they have so far not been asked to contribute to the project. The Spanish police and some organisations are using new technology to assess future risk: Berlin-based startup Frontline has a machine learning risk assessment and British data scientist and former police officer Tori Olphin has created an algorithmic model to predict future harm, for example. The College of Policing, a professional body for police in England and Wales, has developed its own tool, DARA, with Cardiff University Professor Amanda Robinson, to address what she says are some of DASH's flaws, particularly around coercive control, which only became a criminal offence there in 2015. A police representative said they would assess all the available tools. "Police officers must be supported with the right training and tools to identify offences and protect victims," said Assistant Chief Constable Claire Bell, Deputy Director of the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection. REUTERS
Reuters
6 days ago
- Reuters
Exclusive: Britain reassesses 'flawed' domestic abuse risk tool
LONDON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - A month before she was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend, Bethany Fields walked into a police station in northern England to report his abusive and controlling behaviour. He had threatened to kill her, but she was not assessed as high risk. Fields is among many domestic abuse victims failed by risk assessments based on a form known as DASH used by Britain's overstretched police forces, social workers and others for more than 15 years, according to two academic studies, several women's charities and victims' relatives. "To get that form right literally means the difference between life and death," said Bethany's mother, Pauline Jones. The charity which co-developed the form, SafeLives, has now been tasked by the government with a project which its CEO Ellen Miller described as examining the way to see "how a review could work through, how a bigger rewrite could happen". "We know so much more now, that it needs to evolve, it needs to change," Miller said, confirming a project that is yet to be publicly announced. DASH had saved many lives, she said, adding that it should be rewritten rather than replaced and that it was up to police to use it properly. "The problem is not the DASH. The problem is police officers' values and behaviours," she said. A report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) into Fields' murder, published online in April this year, said the officer conducting the assessment was inexperienced to undertake such a sensitive assignment and lacked supervision; it also questioned the DASH form. Those filling in the DASH (Domestic Abuse, Stalking and Honour-Based Violence Assessment) tick: "yes", "no", or "don't know" - sometimes labelled "other" - in response to questions about possible abuse. The IOPC said the third option reduced the chances of officers pinning down a potential yes. That in turn reduces the chances of getting enough ticks for the assessment of high risk that triggers a referral for extra support. Marsha Scott, chief executive of Scottish Women's Aid, said the DASH tool was "deeply flawed". Researchers from the Universities of Manchester and Seville found the DASH "performs poorly at identifying high-risk victims", with 96.3% of such cases being wrongly assessed as standard (low) or medium risk in their study of 350,000 incidents logged by an unnamed major UK police force. SafeLives did not respond to a request for comment on the statistic, published in Madrid-based journal Psychosocial Intervention in 2022. The British system is not the only one to come under scrutiny. Spain's interior ministry said in January it had updated its gender violence management system to make it more effective; in June, it said British officials had visited to find out more. Britain's interior ministry did not respond to a request for comment for this article. It has said reducing violence against women and girls is a priority and that it plans to publish a new strategy on the issue. In the year ending March 2024, there were 108 domestic homicides, of which 83 of the victims were female. Reuters was not able to establish how many of those deaths followed DASH risk assessments or what those had concluded but found other deaths in which an assessment had been undertaken. Seventeen weeks pregnant, Fawziyah Javed was pushed to her death from the top of the Arthur's Seat hill in Edinburgh in 2021. Her mother, Yasmin Javed, told Reuters her daughter had reported her husband's violent and controlling behaviour to the police. Officers told her she was medium risk and despite the risk factor of being pregnant and a visit from police six days before she died, she was never referred for high risk support, her mother said, adding: "These mistakes are costing lives." Contacted for comment, police said only that the IOPC is still investigating the force's response. Both Javed's husband and Fields' ex-partner were convicted of killing them. When asked about fatalities after DASH assessments, Miller said: "I think the DASH could always be better," adding that it was up to police to safeguard people from the risk of death in their recruitment and training. Her hope, she said, was that a "refreshed DASH" would be used adequately in every case. The interior ministry has asked other charities to help SafeLives "bring together insights" into the systems for assessing and managing risk in the country, a letter from the ministry to one of them who asked to remain anonymous showed. Several charities contacted by Reuters said they feared the project would not go far enough. Ngozi Fulani, CEO of Sistah Space, a charity supporting victims from African and Caribbean heritage, said the DASH may not be effective for many in those communities, due to mistrust of police linked to institutional racism. "They chose to leave us out, that speaks for itself," she said, referring to the fact they have so far not been asked to contribute to the project. The Spanish police and some organisations are using new technology to assess future risk: Berlin-based startup Frontline has a machine learning risk assessment and British data scientist and former police officer Tori Olphin has created an algorithmic model to predict future harm, for example. The College of Policing, a professional body for police in England and Wales, has developed its own tool, DARA, with Cardiff University Professor Amanda Robinson, to address what she says are some of DASH's flaws, particularly around coercive control, which only became a criminal offence there in 2015. A police representative said they would assess all the available tools. "Police officers must be supported with the right training and tools to identify offences and protect victims," said Assistant Chief Constable Claire Bell, Deputy Director of the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection.
BBC News
04-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Domestic abuse review delays are 'hell', bereaved families say
Just 1% of reviews into domestic abuse-related deaths are being completed in the recommended time, BBC research Office guidance says these reviews, which make recommendations to help prevent people being killed by partners or family members, should be finished within six BBC analysis has found most are taking families say the review process is "hell on earth" and if it was speedier, further deaths could be by photos of her only child, Pauline Jones points to the wall where the final Mother's Day card she received from her daughter Bethany Rae Fields is pinned in a 21-year-old was killed by her former partner, Paul Crowther, in Huddersfield in September a university student, had repeatedly reported Crowther to police over threats he made to her and others in the weeks before her years on, Ms Jones tearfully recalls the moment she received news of her daughter's killing."I got taken into this room, and my poor Bethany's father was sat there, and I have never seen a man so broken and in such despair," says Ms Jones."I was told the words no mother ever, ever needs to hear or wants to hear: 'Your daughter didn't survive her injuries'." After Bethany's death, a domestic homicide review (DHR) was commissioned by a safety partnership, made up of organisations including the police, councils and health care domestic killing or suicide involving people aged 16 and over in England and Wales is subject to a DHR, recently renamed as a domestic abuse-related death review (DARDR).They examine the role of professionals who had contact with the victim or the perpetrator before an attack, but do not issue review into Bethany's death found there had been nine "missed opportunities" to arrest Crowther - in some cases when he had visited police stations - after she reported his abuse. He was jailed for life after admitting manslaughter with diminished responsibility in 2020. West Yorkshire Police has since apologised for its Jones, a school worker from Apperley Bridge near Bradford, says she was told the review would take nearly a year – six months more than the government's recommended timeframe – but it took almost three years to delay, and the process in general, has been "hell on earth", she says, leaving her "broken".Bethany's DHR was eventually made public in August 2024, almost five years after her Jones is one of a number of bereaved families the BBC has spoken to who have criticised the length of time the reviews take. More than 1,200 reviews have been carried out since their introduction in 2011, according to Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse, a charity which supports families affected by domestic analysis of all reviews in a government library, dating back to 2011, found almost every review was taking longer than it was supposed to. Of the 495 with sufficient data:Only seven were finished within the six-month timeframeOne in six took more than two years to be completedIn Yorkshire and Humber, where Bethany was killed, 97% of reviews were not completed within the six-month timeframeReasons given for the delays include the complexities of a police investigation or court proceedings, contact with family members or others to enable them to contribute to the review and safety partnership meetings. The delayed reviews are not the only concern bereaved families raise when they meet to discuss their experiences of the Daly's daughter Jessica Laverack, 34, took her own life at home in Beverley, East Yorkshire, in February 2018 after experiencing domestic a report found the number of victims of domestic abuse who took their own lives in England and Wales surpassed the amount of people killed by their partners, Ms Daly says she had to push for a review into her daughter's death."It's taken me away from my children, my grandchildren, my husband - everybody, because all I wanted to do was to be focused and try to contribute," Ms Daly years on, the family are still waiting for the review to be finished, something Ms Daly described as an "excessive time for emotional impact"."I just see that great massive cost and it is not going to serve a purpose because after seven years, no learning can come out of that now," she said. Jess Phillips, minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said the reviews were "a really important opportunity for agencies on a local and national level to consider each individual victim, improve their safeguarding practices and ultimately prevent these deaths from happening in the first place"."Every death related to domestic abuse is a devastating tragedy and should not be overlooked," she accepted that more needed to be done to ensure the process was "effective and timely".She said the government was creating a new oversight board with publicly appointed members to make the process of reviewing reports faster.A Home Office consultation last year suggested increasing the timeframe to complete a review from six to 12 months - but no change has yet been with the extension, BBC analysis suggests most would still miss the deadline - only 18% of the reviews were completed within one year. If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this story, support and advice is available via the BBC Action Line. Frank Mullane campaigned for domestic homicide reviews to be introduced after his sister Julia Pemberton and nephew William were murdered by Julia's estranged husband in Berkshire in Mullane, who set up charity Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse to help other families, admits he is "hugely disappointed and somewhat angry" to hear about the slow progress other grieving relatives have he praises the impact of domestic homicide reviews."Now we have evidence and detail of what it is like to live a life of domestic abuse, which then culminates in either homicide or suicide," he says."This is detail that never existed before." Prof Jane Monckton-Smith, a criminologist specialising in domestic homicide who has chaired several reviews, says when done properly they can bring about real change."They have been absolutely crucial in building our knowledge of intimate partner homicides, domestic homicides and suicides," she she says they could be improved by having fewer people involved and having a chair to run the Ms Jones, she still feels anger about the process of the review into Bethany's death."At the start of this, I was hoping that I'd get answers, some kind of clarification of what went wrong," says Ms Jones."The whole process has been horrendous, because you are reliving the most traumatic and painful experience of your life."Additional data journalism by Lauren Woodhead and Jonathan Fagg.
