Essex Police which is now looking into Allison Pearsonʼs case showed the worst stats for warning people about risky partners (under a system called Clares Law)
The law named for a woman killed by her ex in 09 lets people check their partners past in two ways: asking about someone directly or getting info from police who think someones at risk. Essex police had to look at every case that came to them – but their numbers werent good
- Right to Know: only 6.84% of cases got shared
- Right to Ask: just 6.47% of requests got answers
- Other areas did way better; like Bedfordshire with 58.7%
The whole country saw less info-sharing lately: from 55.3% down to 42.5% in early-23‚ even though more cases came in. The number of requests went up big-time – from 7‚252 to 17‚925 in four years
Det Supt Matt Cornish who runs domestic abuse cases said they knew they had to do better; starting a big fix-up in Jan-23. “We made changes to reach more people at risk and give them what they need to decide“ he explained
They made a new team called Dart (with 20-plus officers) that started in Aug-23; its already doing much better. By mid-24 they shared info in 66.4% of cases which is way up from before – showing real change is happening
Police still need to check each case carefully though: looking at whats needed to keep people safe what info they should share and if its all fair to everyone involved