Domestic abuse is ‘Cinderella’ of crimes, safeguarding minister says

Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has described domestic abuse as the “Cinderella” of crimes, suggesting it has previously not been prioritised.

This comes as the Government outlines plans to embed domestic abuse specialist teams in police forces’ 999 control rooms early next year, to stop emergency services missing opportunities to save women’s lives.

Ms Phillips said she wants to do more than give domestic abuse victims “a good call”, and said the pilot scheme would act as part of an ambition to prevent domestic abuse from happening in the first place.

The move is part of Raneem’s Law to transform the way the police handle cases of violence against women and girls.

In 2018, Raneem Oudeh and her mother Khaola Saleem were murdered by Raneem’s ex-partner. Four years later, an inquest found mistakes made by West Midlands Police had “materially contributed” to their deaths.

On the night they were killed, Ms Oudeh had called West Midlands Police four times to register concerns for her safety, and the force had previously responded to 10 domestic abuse incidents linked to the case.

Five officers were disciplined over the failures.

“I don’t want to just give somebody who’s taken a beating a good call. I want them not to take that beating in the first place,” Ms Phillips told Sky News.

She added: “We have to stop this happening in the first place, and the Government has a mission to halve the incidences of violence against women and girls in a decade.

“And so much of that work is going to have to be about the prevention of perpetration, the changing of attitudes around healthy relationships within education, this is a mission that is going to take every Government department.”

Ms Phillips said she is in talks with the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) to determine how many stations will be included in the pilot, which is expected to start in early 2025.

Elsewhere, the minister said police officers were pleased to see the new Labour Government responding to the “national emergency”.

Speaking to Times Radio, she said: “Domestic abuse and violence against women and girls has always been the Cinderella.

“And actually working with police over the last couple of weeks, I think for the first time I am noticing how much they recognise there is a national emergency, a total national emergency, and they are, I have to say, quite delighted that the Government is putting quite so much priority into it.

“And so we will work with police forces across the country and from the centre to make sure that when we are asking them to do things, that can be delivered safely and reasonably.

“I’m not going to do what the last government did, where they just announced a load of things that then meant nothing changed on the ground, literally nothing.”

Raneem’s aunt, Nour Norris, said those calling the police for help “need to be given the opportunity to be saved”.

Ms Norris said her sister and niece “tried their best to be here today” but “the system failed”.

She said: “No-one should really have to suffer what Raneem suffered.

“Trying to explain herself, trying to put an administration order in place for herself … trying to do whatever it takes to be heard, and she was still not heard until she lost her life.

“My sister lost her life because she was doing the job of the police – doing the sacrificing for mother and daughter.”

Ms Norris joined Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Ms Phillips to meet 999 control handlers during a visit to Kent Police’s Coldharbour Police Complex in Aylesford, Kent, on Thursday.

Ms Cooper said: “What we’ve seen is if there is proper domestic abuse expertise, it means that you can get the right response to the calls that come in and proper understanding of the seriousness of domestic abuse as a crime and how lives are at risk, in the most serious cases, as we saw in the awful case where Raneem and her mother Khaola lost their lives because the police didn’t respond to a 999 call.

“We cannot let that happen, and that’s why we want to make sure that we’ve got that expertise that we need in 999 control rooms across the country.”