Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) action plan - summer 2024 updates

We will look outside the Met for ways to improve our response to Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and we will be innovative and precise. We will test new approaches, learn what works and tackle gaps in our data.

Summer 2024 updates

Learning from wider policing

We are trialling rapid video response to domestic abuse victims based on the work done in this area by Kent Police with findings due in August 2024.

We have spent time with colleagues from West Yorkshire to learn from their approach to external scrutiny of VAWG cases and this has influenced our new proposals.

We are working closely with the national VAWG Team at the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and other forces who are creating a stronger 'firewall' approach to ensure victim-survivors with uncertain immigration service feel confident to report.

Academic research

We are working with leading academics, researchers and doctoral research students to improve effectiveness and cultural competence and in our response to VAWG. This includes in several national pillars of Operation Soteria (supporting officers to conduct investigations which are suspect, rather than victim focused) and research projects at various stages of development:

1. Operation Soteria Bluestone: Design of Pillar 6 (Digital Investigation) national Continuous Professional Development (CPD) 

This strand of the national programme improves investigative awareness of digital investigation opportunities. By fostering a better understanding of reasonable lines of enquiry in a digital context it ensures investigation strategies are more focussed and intrusion on victim-survivors is minimised.

2. Operation Soteria Bluestone. Pillar 3 (Procedural Justice and Improving Victim Survivor experience and outcomes)

One aspect of the Pillar 3, Soteria National Operating Model is the creation of a Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO) victim impact assessment. This is intended to ensure any changes to policing practice, process, and policy is risk assessed, so that the potential impact on survivors of sexual violence is appropriately considered and mitigated. The Met is a pilot force in testing and development of the product.

Other academic research

In order to improve our response, we are studying the findings of the following research:

• an academic research project Language Matters, Northumbria University: The language of police and prosecutors in domestic abuse reports
• a doctoral research project, Bournemouth University: Escalation in sexual offences: examining the verbal, physical and sexual behaviours from indecent exposure to rape
• a doctoral research project, Bournemouth University: An exploration of the interplay between victim and offender behaviours in rape and its potential in aiding crime linkage
• an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded project, University College London: digital device triaging practices across policing, within the context of homicide and stalking and harassment
• a doctoral research project, University of Chichester: Collapsing the Canteen: Encouraging and empowering police officers to report sexual misconduct amongst their colleagues, investigating barriers to reporting sexual misconduct amongst police officers and staff
• a postdoctoral research project Met Strategic Insight Unit -  analysis of individuals charged with stranger 1 Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO), to review their offending history and behaviour to help inform tactical management of offenders in support of front line policing, and strategic understanding of this area
• an MSt research project Met Lead Responsible Officer: A combination of deterrence and 'moral persuasion' text messages sent to stalkers to reduce re-offending: a randomised controlled trial
• stalking learning packages
• an MSt research project Met Officer - Nudge text messages to offenders subject to preventative orders (VAWG offences): A Block Randomised Controlled Trial

Trying new things  

Operation Atlas 

The Met conducted a pilot of applying high-end processing software, routinely used in county lines investigations, to domestic abuse with a specific focus on stalking – Operation Atlas. This reflects the Met’s commitment to provide the right tools and training to the frontline to deliver justice for victims of VAWG. 

Since the pilot in 2022-23, more than 300 cases have been investigated by the Operation Atlas pilot team. We have seen time taken to investigate reduce from 137 to 92 days on average and charge rate increase from 12% to 66%. Critically, we have seen 96% of Atlas cases convicted, and 88% of defendants enter a guilty plea at court.

This year, we have been working to deliver these same benefits to victims of domestic abuse and stalking across London with the aspiration to have Atlas teams operational across the capital by spring 2025.

Forensics 

We continue to use innovation and to prioritise VAWG in our forensic strategy.  

We have developed and are testing new equipment to enable the improved visualisation of bruising and injuries for photography for evidential purposes, supporting victims of violence. Following an initial proof of concept and field test, we will shortly be embarking on a trial to test this across a small selection of boroughs, monitoring usage feedback and judicial outcomes.  

We are using biometrics opportunities to identify the most dangerous individuals by systematic implementation of the Proactive Biometric Enhanced Service, (ProBES), which will be supported by an IT system developed within the Met’s Forensic Services.  The system and process will allow us to manage the biometrics of individuals who pose high risk to the people of London. 

We will be ensuring we lawfully hold all biometrics available, and have exploited all searching capabilities for high risk offenders.  This service will commence on VAWG 100 nominals as a pilot, and progress through these offenders in a staged approach based on the risk individuals pose.  This will ensure that when biometrics are obtained from a crime scene and match to an individual on ProBES, a consolidated intelligence package of the suspect’s biometrics history is delivered to the investigator .

Spiking research

Spiking research is developing under Operation Lester which was set up to look at incidents of spiking. Rapid testing of samples has now been operational for over two years and provided forensic results for nearly 1,500 urine samples nationally.  

Operation Lester has identified over 150 different drugs types (including over the counter, prescription and controlled).

There are a variety of drug spiking test kits available to purchase commercially. However, such kits only declare testing capability for a limited range of drugs.  A research study will be conducted this year to better understand the capability of such drug testing kits.

Research is currently being conducted on Met submissions looking at potential trends, expected to be completed by end of September 2024.

More precision and transparency in our data 

We have now published the Open Data Strategy we completed in partnership with the Open Data Institute. We know that we do not hold all the data we need to target VAWG and, in the last six months, the strategy is already bringing confidence to third parties to share more data with us. For example, we have been working with a range of third parties to enable us to receive anonymous reporting feeds so we can truly understand the reality of VAWG in the capital. We expect this data to be shared from July 2024. 

In March, we supported the release of preliminary analysis from a survey conducted by Women in Data (WiD) called 'The Hidden Reality of Violence Against Women and Girls in the UK' (Women's Safety Preliminary Analysis: Women In Data Registration (swoogo.com). This aims to quantify and understand the gap between reported and unreported experiences. We will continue to work in partnership with WiD to utilise their expertise in how we can improve our service to women and girls.

In May, we delivered a new way of identifying locations of highest risk for VAWG. The technique is called 'risk terrain modelling'. The model aids us in prioritising interventions and informing the deployment of frontline policing resources to the areas that present the highest risk to women and girls and understand the factors contributing to these risks. This technique is now part of our 'business as usual' for tasking activity.