The Home Office knew for years that women and children were at risk from a “broken” domestic violence screening tool, The Telegraph can reveal.
At least 55 women have been murdered after police relied on a flawed risk assessment checklist that failed to identify them as being in immediate danger.
A Telegraph investigation led Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, to admit that the 27-question checklist known as Dash “doesn’t work.” She said that “we have to make the very best of the system that we have” because no replacement exists.
It can now be revealed that government departments were told in late 2022 that Dash was flawed and should be scrapped.
The warning came from Safe Lives, the charity that created the tool and still makes money from training people to use it.
Man who 'killed 4 students' was 'creepy' regular at brewery and 'harassed women'
In a confidential dossier uncovered by The Telegraph, the charity warned of “implementation failure” across every agency responsible for risk assessing victims. It urged replacing the checklist with “a suite of ‘whole family’ risk assessment tools,” including a separate one for children.
Jess Phillips is the Government’s safeguarding minister.
A “shorter, simpler tool for first response” was described as central to the overhaul, recognizing that police and social workers “potentially only have one chance to speak to a potential victim, and that chance may be the only opportunity to save a life.”
Alongside a “quick and easy” questionnaire for first responders, Safe Lives proposed more “in-depth” tools for specialists.
The recommendations were set out in a report titled ‘Evolving The Risk Led Approach,’ which was submitted to the Home Office and Ministry of Justice in late 2022. The then-chief executive met Conservative ministers in February 2023 to discuss the findings.
The recommendation to replace Dash would have been inherited by Ms. Phillips when she took on the safeguarding brief after Labour’s victory last July. Safe Lives told The Telegraph that it has continued to lobby the Government “ever since.”
But the warnings appear to have gone unheeded, and Safe Lives chose not to publish the report for fear of damaging public confidence. It only became public after a Freedom of Information request to the Home Office by this newspaper.
Pauline Jones, 61, whose daughter Bethany Fields was murdered after being graded at only “medium risk,” said the failure to act on concerns was “damning.”
On Aug 19, 2019, Miss Fields reported that her former partner, Paul Crowther, had threatened to kill her. But a police officer ticked ‘yes’ to only nine Dash questions and graded her at “medium risk.” A month later, Crowther stabbed Miss Fields to death in the street.
Husband and wife enjoy Xmas dinner days before she's charged with his murder
Ms. Jones said: “Women’s lives are being lost because of a broken system that has been reported to the very people who can change it, who should have made a change, and they didn’t.
“How many people’s lives have been lost because the Government at the time did not act on that?
“I can’t understand how, even now when it’s been out in the news, they still don’t seem to be in any hurry to come up with anything better.”
Although academics have acknowledged the problems with Dash for years, this 2022 report appears to be the first time the charity behind the tool has admitted it does not work.
The dossier also warned that the threshold for being classed “high risk” is being “altered to alleviate the volume of cases” nationwide.
Pauline Jones, the mother of Bethany Fields, who was killed by her partner despite being graded ‘medium risk’ by Dash
Dash, which grades victims as “standard,” “medium,” or “high” risk of being murdered to decide who receives specialist support, has been linked to a series of killings.
In May 2021, Bethany Vincent and her nine-year-old son, DJ, were stabbed to death by her former partner, Daniel Boulton, at their home in Louth. Their bodies were found among packing boxes as they had been scheduled to move to a safe house the following day.
To be considered “high risk,” women must answer ‘yes’ to at least 14 questions on the Dash checklist, including whether their abuser has threatened to kill them, owns a weapon, and has ever tried to strangle or suffocate them.
Under Safe Lives guidelines, victims who score 14 or more using the Dash checklist, or who are considered “high risk” based on “professional judgment,” should be referred to a multi-agency risk assessment conference (Marac). Yet the report admits that some expert panels are raising the threshold or refusing referrals based on “professional judgment” to reduce the workload.
It said: “There is also a continued problem with the volume of cases at Maracs. Professional judgment is not being considered at Maracs and screening cases is common.”
A Safe Lives spokesman told The Telegraph: “The purpose of this review was to inform the decision-making of policymakers in the Home Office.
“We want all victims and families to get safe, joined-up help as early as possible. Right now, the system is on its knees – it’s overwhelmed and underfunded, and that is why victims are being failed. We want to see a clear Government-led refresh of how risk is identified, assessed and responded to so people don’t fall through the gaps.”
The release of the dossier will probably increase pressure on Ms. Phillips to replace Dash. She is also under scrutiny over her handling of the grooming gang inquiry and Labour’s slow progress towards its manifesto pledge to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.
The Home Office said it is “working tirelessly” towards this goal, and that a new National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection, backed by £13 million, “will consider the risk assessment tools available to forces with a view to driving improving practice across the country.”
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
