Nicolette Richards
Domestic Violence Co-ordinator
Bassetlaw, Newark & Sherwood Community Safety Partnership Newark and Sherwood District Council
Castle House
Great North Road
Newark
NG24 1BY
25 October 2021
Dear Nicolette,
Thank you for submitting the Domestic Homicide Review (DHR) report (Clarissa) for Bassetlaw, Newark & Sherwood Community Safety Partnership to the Home Office. Due to the COVID-19 situation the Quality Assurance (QA) Panel was unable to meet as scheduled 22nd September therefore the report was assessed by a virtual process. For the virtual Panel, members provided their comments by email, the Home Office secretariat summarised the feedback and the Panel agreed the feedback.
The QA Panel felt that the report is comprehensive, insightful, penetrative and sensitively written. Real attempts have been made to see events through the eyes of the victim. Family involvement was evident within the report and their views and information were embedded throughout which gives a great insight into Clarissa’s experiences. The review shows a strong understanding of domestic abuse and appropriate recommendations have been made. Risk factors have been clearly drawn out and contextualised and barriers to accessing service have been illustrated in full.
The QA Panel felt that there are some aspects of the report which may benefit from further revision, but the Home Office is content that on completion of these changes, the DHR may be published.
Areas for final development:
• The Panel felt that financial abuse is recognised, but this could be extended to economic abuse in light of the debts that the perpetrator left Clarissa in and the control her had over her car.
• The sex of the child is stated in Clarissa’s father’s statement at the start, could this be amended (with his permission) along with the child’s date of birth. The exact date of death should be removed and only the month and year should remain.
T: 020 7035 4848
www.gov.uk/homeoffice
Interpersonal Abuse Unit
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
- Equality & Diversity – this section does not appear to be specific to this case. It would be important in this section to link each of the protected characteristics to both the victim and the offender to get an understanding of the possible barriers faced by both. There is some reference to sex covered and the significance of age would be really important to consider here, as well as pregnancy / maternity and disability.
- The review references the victim being assessed as medium risk, but there is no reference whether she was given any details of organisations that could offer her support or referred to a domestic abuse agency. The Panel would like to see some explanation of what officers do with the information when they assess someone to be at medium risk of further harm or what the multi-agency response is for people assessed as medium risk.
- In the executive summary, there is no confirmation of the chairs' independence, panel members are not named, there is no statement on the author of the report, and the summary chronology is under-developed.
- The recommendations in the overview report and executive summary need to be more clearly numbered and presented in the correct order. There is also a disparity between the volume of recommendations stated in the overview and executive summary and those stated in the action plan.
- A thorough proofread is required.
Once completed the Home Office would be grateful if you could provide us with a digital copy of the revised final version of the report with all finalised attachments and appendices and the weblink to the site where the report will be published. Please ensure this letter is published alongside the report.
Please send the digital copy and weblink to DHREnquiries@homeoffice.gov.uk. This is for our own records for future analysis to go towards highlighting best practice and to inform public policy.
On behalf of the QA Panel, I would like to thank you, the report chair and author, and other colleagues for the considerable work that you have put into this review.
Yours sincerely,
Lynne Abrams
Chair of the Home Office DHR Quality Assurance Panel
Last Updated on Wednesday, May 8, 2024