Councillor asked to remove social media post on domestic violence figures following police intervention

A councillor has been asked by police to a remove a social media post on domestic violence figures.

Redcar and Cleveland councillor Dr Tristan Learoyd had requested information from the council, with figures compiled by Cleveland Police being sent to him. After posting his perspective of the numbers on Facebook, the force’s information governance manager requested via a council officer that the post was taken down since it breached a data-sharing agreement.

Although he complied with the request, Cllr Learoyd said the reason given was "spurious". He also took issue with the force’s approach of reporting yearly outcomes claiming it presented a misleading picture.

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The force said it believed the councillor’s complaint had been resolved and provided the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) with a statement outlining its stance on domestic abuse and measures in place to catch perpetrators and support victims.

In March the LDRS reported how the force was dealing with an average of 48 domestic violence incidents each day and already had the highest rate of violence against women and girls in England and Wales. In the 12 months to September 2023 there were 14,323 domestic abuse crimes recorded by Cleveland Police, up 9.1% year-on-year.

Over the same period there were 9,387 occasions when a suspect had been identified that a victim either withdrew from a police investigation or declined an offer of support, another rise of 8.6% year-on-year. At the time the force said increasing reports of domestic abuse were a sign that “people feel increasingly confident in coming forward to police”, while the reasons for declining support for an investigation were “many and complex”.

Meanwhile, Richinda Taylor, chief executive of Redcar-based Eva Women’s Aid, said official statistics were the “tip of the iceberg”.

Cllr Learoyd said his “linear regression” analysis of three year’s worth of domestic violence figures, taking into account a rolling monthly average, “clearly showed an upward trend” when some year-on-year comparisons were flat. He also claimed police were failing to take into account “outliers” such as the absence of major sporting events in a given year, which have been shown to cause a spike in domestic violence.

Cllr Learoyd said he was concerned too little was being done to tackle domestic abuse and local councils and other agencies also had a role to play by helping to address causal issues such as financial hardship, housing insecurity and substance abuse.

In e-mail correspondence with Cllr Learoyd, a council officer said she had been informed by Cleveland Police that the information he had published was manipulated and did not accurately reflect the data collected. The council was also unaware he intended to put the information into the public domain.

Cllr Learoyd said the data supplied was not sensitive and stood by his analysis.

A spokeswoman for Cleveland Police said: “Tackling domestic abuse of any kind, targeting perpetrators and safeguarding victims is a top priority for Cleveland Police and we have invested in specialist roles to support victims throughout any police investigation and any subsequent judicial process.

“We encourage anyone who has experienced domestic abuse to report it to police if they feel able to.”

The force said it wished to remind people that they have the right under ‘Clare’s Law’ - a domestic violence disclosure scheme - to check to see if a current or ex-partner has any previous history of violence. The spokeswoman added: “Clare’s Law plays a vital and proactive role in safeguarding victims, and in fact, figures from 2022/23 show Cleveland had the highest number of ‘right to know’ applications per 1,000 population so we are encouraged that this message is being well received in our communities.”

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