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

We will do much more to identify and tackle the most dangerous and prolific perpetrators of VAWG.

Summer 2024 updates

A whole Met effort to tackle VAWG offenders

V100 

We have committed to targeting the most harmful predators. Through the VAWG 100 approach, 199 subjects have been tasked in total (the V100 changes every month) and the data is constantly changing.

Many different parts of the Met have worked to achieve these results from intelligence professionals to highly specialised detectives and covert proactive units.

Positive action (conviction, charge, arrest or remand) has been taken against 54% (108) of subjects since they were tasked.

As of end of May 2024:  

• 76 subjects have been arrested for a total of 163 offences (59 subjects were arrested for VAWG offences. 21 subjects have been arrested for rape, 3 for grievous bodily harm (GBH) and 5 for non-fatal strangulation)
• 51 subjects have been charged with a total of 80 offences (32 of these subjects were charged with VAWG offences, including 10 for rape, 3 for GBH and 1 for attempted murder) 
• 45 subjects have been convicted since becoming a V100 nominal (18 were convicted of VAWG offences)   

Live Facial Recognition (LFR)

Since January 2024, the use of LFR has enabled the Met to stop around 290 registered sex offenders and check that they are abiding by the conditions placed on them. Of these, 17 have been arrested due to breaches and a further 8 there has been follow up action taken.  

Through the use of LFR, the Met has made 253 arrests of wanted offenders, of whom 17 were wanted for VAWG related offences. This includes 3 males who were deemed high risk Domestic Abuse (DA) suspects.

LFR case study 1

A male convicted child sex offender was stopped by LFR with a new girlfriend. Officers formed the opinion that his new girlfriend was not aware of his previous offending history. She also had a younger sibling whom she lived with. Following a swift review of the case, a Child Sex Offenders Disclosure Scheme (Sarah’s Law) disclosure was made. This took place within 24 hours of the LFR stop. 

LFR case study 2

A convicted paedophile was stopped with a much younger person and her young baby. The stop identified a potential relationship. Following a swift review of the case, a Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (Clare’s Law) disclosure was made. This took place within two hours of the LFR stop. 

Specialist resources targeting VAWG 

Operation Bassano is a matrix which allows the prioritisation of nominals that are considered most at risk of committing sexual harm (wider than the target group in V100). The aim of this list is to aid police decision making about who should be the focus of enforcement or preventative interventions and civil disruptions, prioritising specialist resources to tackle VAWG offenders.  

The identification of and running of effective 'manhunts' of Bassano nominals is tracked as is the overall impact of Specialist Crime teams on VAWG.  

• Since the launch of the action plan, Specialist Crime (including Operation Bassano) has secured 68 arrests of VAWG nominals, 59 charges and 16 convictions.   
• For the last six months, Specialist Crime units in the Met have secured 565 disruptions where a VAWG threat is present (increasing by 11% quarterly).

Specialist Operations (specifically our SO15 proactive unit) has supported local basic command units (BCU) with specialist resources to tackle 235 wanted VAWG offenders. This number continues to grow: 

• 147 have been directly arrested or supported
• 52 have been identified abroad, 
• 30-plus subjects have active plans 

SO15 is also sending skilled officers to train other Met staff on more specialist techniques using phone data, covert methods, automatic number plate recognition (ANPR), and geolocation data.  

Better performance for VAWG crimes*  

We are showing improvements in some aspects of VAWG performance although we are not making fast enough progress overall.

*Data handling note: As of July 2024, we were in the first weeks of a new IT system (Connect) which improves data capture and precision. The data shown below includes relevant crimes for all victim gender types because our data on gender is still in transition. In our new system, positive outcomes are recorded at a later stage of supervision and this is likely to have created a lag in some outcome data. Future versions of this data will have resolved these factors.

Below are examples of our recent performance data, as of summer 2024:

• We have increased the number of rape positive outcomes by a further 441. This means that in the last 12 months, we have made 780 charges compared with the previous year’s total of 665. Our current positive outcomes rate over the last 12 months is 8.9% compared with 7.4% 12 months ago.  
• We have increased the number of domestic abuse positive outcomes by a further 4,360, and the most recent data shows a small improvement of the overall % cases with a positive outcome. However, our current positive outcome rate over the last 12 months is 8.5% compared with 9.2% 12 months ago.  
• We have secured 6,002 new positive outcomes for VAWG cases overall (all types of VAWG using the nationally agreed definition) but this is a decrease in the overall positive outcome rate year on year. We are determined to improve. 
• We have increased the number of Section 4a stalking positive outcomes by a further 389 (this is the most serious of all stalking offences). The positive outcome rate is broadly static over the last year and we are determined to increase it.  
• We monitor how quickly we respond to domestic abuse calls. We have improved our domestic abuse emergency (I grade) response. For example, over the last two months, the average time it takes to attend I calls is 11min.02 seconds, which is a 3% improvement. We attend 76.3% of DA I calls within 15 minutes, which is a 1.5% improvement.  
• Domestic abuse non-emergency (S grade) remains relatively static. Half of our BCUs have improved, and half have not in the last 12 months. This is not good enough and we are determined to improve.
• We are working to understand the data that indicates disparities in our service or in victimisation and we are adjusting to a new system of data collection (Connect). We need much higher levels of ethnicity recording than we are currently achieving in our data and we will set a target for improvement to ensure even better interpretation 
• We will use a wide range of data wherever possible to seek more information about:
  • the confidence and trust of women in London in our policing response
  • how safe they feel in London
  • the service received by female victims of all crimes
• We will initiate additional surveys to fully understand how victims of specific VAWG related crimes feel about the contact they have had with the police and whether there are disparities within this data.

We know we need to improve our understanding of VAWG victims' perspectives of our service and we are starting to collect more information. My Met Service, which went live in March 2024, enables victims of crime to provide feedback in order to help improve victim care. It also assists in delivery of the Victim Information Leaflet, which is provided to everyone when reporting a crime to the police. We are able to drill down to VAWG offences and report on ethnicity and crime type and will provide data when the sample has reached appropriate levels to interpret. We will also be considering other new approaches in the coming months.

Better forensic intervention 

Under new prioritisation rules we are attending more rape scenes than previously. Overall, the numbers of RASSO submissions into Forensics Services increased over the last 12 months by 27.5% to 6,411. This includes a 60% increase in the number classified as 'urgent'. During this period, there has been an increase (81% up from 78%) in those progressed within 48 hours and a six day decrease in average standard response.  

Frontline crime scene examiners and forensic hub managers have received comprehensive sexual offence refresher training over 10 weeks in the first quarter of 2024.  Following on from this, a condensed session featuring these topics will be delivered to Forensic teams (Biology and Trace, and Fingerprints) to ensure they fully understand where their role fits within RASSO investigations.

Deliver Operation Soteria (suspect focused) 

We are committed to delivering Operation Soteria and have a dedicated project supporting this work.

Working with Learning and Development, we have commissioned the creation of a Disruption Toolkit based on the Soteria National Operating Model. It is currently in design and will include detailed content on civil orders and use of tactics to disrupt offenders.

We are embedding use of Early Advice with Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to help frame investigations and recognise and record all reasonable lines of enquiry.

We are prioritising RASSO first responder training, which will upskill 20,000 officers and staff in Soteria mind set and investigative application. Planning for rollout in summer is at an advanced stage. 

We have trained more than 400 officers to understand and apply reasonable lines of enquiry through a digital forensic lens, seen as national best practice in terms of Soteria Pillar 6 (Continuous Professional Development).