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Domestic abusers who go on to kill or rape could be stopped by new law, says ex-Scotland Yard specialist

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Serial abusers who go on to kill or rape like Levi Bellfield and Joseph McCann could be prevented if they were put on a register like sex offenders, says a leading former Scotland Yard specialist.

Laura Richards, former head of Scotland Yard’s homicide prevention unit, who helped bring Bellfield to justice, said major reforms were needed if society wanted to stop serial and serious abusers and stalkers turning into murderers and rapists.

Ms Richards, whose report on Monday details 13 cases of abusers who went on to kill and rape, warned that without changes to the law, hundreds more offenders with similar records of domestic violence are on a “timeline to murder.”

She is backing amendments due on Monday to the domestic abuse bill that would require serial and serious domestic abusers and stalkers to register with police so any change of address or circumstances such as a new partner was reported to officers  within three days.

They would also require abusers and stalkers including many without convictions to be supervised by the national MAPPA police and probation scheme that protects the public from violent offenders and terrorists and seeks to rehabilitate them.

“Currently, domestic abuse and stalking are the only crimes where repeat and serial perpetrators are not proactively identified,” said Ms Richards, a former adviser to the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC)  and who also founded Paladin, the UK’s first national stalking advocacy service.

“In other words, the abuser can act with impunity and is no more likely to go to prison or be seen as any more serious if they abuse harm or kill, one woman, three women or 18 women.

“Past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour. If an offender’s serial, repeat or high-risk offending behaviour, is left unchecked, they are on a timeline to murder.

“To shift culture and our focus to perpetrators, law change is required to ensure a systematic standardised, co-ordinated and problem-solving approach.”

Ms Richards said three women are murdered by male partners or ex-partners every two weeks and it had risen to five women a week during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

Her report analysed national and local data on abuse, showing for example in Northumbria just under 5,000 perpetrators were responsible for half of the 30,000 domestic abuse calls the force received every year.

Yet out of just under 400 domestic sexual and serious offenders only two per cent were sentenced, despite the fact  she said that they were committing serious crime and were dangerous.

“Most got away with it – and continue to offend with impunity, which is alarming and unacceptable,” said Ms Richards, who wants anyone identified as a serial or serious offender subject to supervision by police and probation with the information shared on a national database.

Her case studies where offenders escalated their violence to murder and rape include serial rapist Joseph McCann, John Duffy, David Mulcahy, Peter Tobin, Levi Bellfield, John Taylor, Anthony Hardy, Mark Dixie and  Ian Huntley.

Citing the cases, she said: “"If the women who came forward had been taken seriously and properly risk assessed and risk managed, we would have proactively done something about these perpetrators. Because we didn't, they were allowed to carry on offending."

With Bellfield - a case she personally helped crack - she said there were 51 intelligence logs and 55 crime reports for assault, domestic abuse, stalking, and affray, all of which were signs of "escalating behaviour,” she said. “He was a ticking timebomb."

Bellfield is Britain's only serial killer to be sentenced to two whole life sentences, for the murders of Milly Dowler, Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange. In prison, he was named by police as a suspect in connection with unsolved murders and attacks on women dating back to 1990.

Among backers of the amendment are Labour MP Yvette Cooper, chair of the home affairs committee, Tory MP Robert Halfon, who chairs the education committee, and Sarah Champion, the Rotherham MP who has been a leading campaigner on child sexual exploitation.