Domestic abuse within police force to be investigated

An official “super-complaint” is to be launched into the “boys’ club” culture within certain police forces that allows officers to abuse their spouses and partners without fear of arrest or prosecution.

The complaint, to be brought by the Centre For Women’s Justice, will describe myriad failings of forces when officers are reported for domestic violence against women they are in relationships with. Central to the complaint are at least 12 cases where women have made allegations of domestic abuse and sexual violence against an officer, only for the case to be dropped and, on occasion, for the alleged victim to be arrested and intimidated.

Details emerged last week of a case in which a female police officer claimed she was forced out of her job after making a complaint against her violent boyfriend, also a serving officer.

Nogah Ofer, the solicitor at the Centre For Women’s Justice who is leading on the super-complaint, said: “We’re concerned about a lack of integrity in the system, and the potential for improper manipulation when police forces investigate their own officers in such sensitive matters. We have heard from many women how they lack confidence in the current systems.” The super-complaint process allows designated organisations to “raise issues on behalf of the public about harmful patterns or trends in policing”, with the aim of amending existing practices.

Ofer met senior officials from the College of Policing, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services to discuss the super complaint. Almost 700 cases of alleged domestic abuse involving police officers and staff were reported during the three years to April 2018, according to Freedom of Information requests made by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ).

The data, from three-quarters of forces, showed that police employees accused of domestic abuse are a third less likely to be convicted than are the general public. Fewer than a quarter of complaints resulted in disciplinary action. Greater Manchester Police delivered one conviction from 79 reports over the three-year period.Last week, details emerged of a case involving Gwent police, which is accused of protecting a police officer who was controlling and physically abusive to several younger female trainees he dated. One of the women, Sarah, told the Observer that the “joke” approach to the allegations ensured that the force looked after PC Clarke Joslyn instead of his victims.

Sarah started dating Joslyn after another recruit, Jodie, reported him for controlling behaviour and stalking; Gwent police had not acted on her complaints. Unaware of his past, Sarah reported several assaults – including an allegation that he pinned her to the wall while holding a knife – but Joslyn was never arrested.

“They chose to protect the reputation of the force. I trusted the police force to protect me and instead I have lost all trust in them,” she said.

Sarah and Jodie, not their real names, are raising funds for a legal challenge against Gwent police over their “protection of a domestic violence perpetrator in their ranks”.

Following a police misconduct hearing into the officer, a 29-page report listed allegations of violence and control against women for which he was never charged or arrested. Despite the conclusion, on balance, that many of the allegations were proven, Joslyn, who resigned before his misconduct hearing, remained “highly thought of” in the force. Sarah said: “It’s literally a boys’ club, I can’t describe it any other way. He made threats saying, ‘If you tell them what I’m like you’ll end up losing your job.’ He was right in the end.”

Harriet Wistrich, founding director of Centre for Women’s Justice, called the case a “good example of a pervasive sexist culture within the police, which favours male loyalty over accountability for those who abuse”.

Wistrich added: “It is sadly not an isolated case, but illustrates systemic faults that require change.”

Many of the cases the centre had gathered, said Ofer, involved female police officers who had suffered victimisation and whose careers had been severely affected.

Ofer said: “We will be proposing that such cases should be dealt with outside the police force concerned.”. Women who have come forward include one whose husband was a serving officer and whose force handed him a copy of her statement against him, then mysteriously lost it. “He told me, ‘I’m a police officer, no one’s going to believe you,’” the woman, whose husband remains a serving officer, told TBIJ.

In another case, a woman said that the force where her partner worked was “completely uninterested” in her rape allegations against him. Her partner’s force interviewed and bailed him after she alleged that he had raped her, but soon closed its criminal investigation. The case was transferred to a second force for an internal misconduct investigation, where it was discovered that the seals had never been broken on the evidence provided by the alleged victim.

Another complaint is the subject of a wide-reaching inquiry into an alleged “boys’ club” of sexist officers in north-east Scotland. Male officers allegedly began bullying a female colleague after she reported her ex-partner, an officer in the the Moray command area, for domestic violence.

Among the allegations are claims that male officers drove her to a forest at night and left her stranded “to teach her a lesson”.

Gwent Police said Joslyn faced a misconduct hearing last year after a “thorough and robust enquiry” by its professional standards department. A statement said: “It is right that anyone who does not adhere to these standards is held accountable and the appropriate action is taken. In terms of the specifics outlined, many of these matters are now subject to further legal proceedings and it would be inappropriate to comment further.”