Female violence investigation over 13 Gloucestershire police staff

The force says it takes the allegations 'incredibly seriously'

Thirteen members of staff working for Gloucestershire police are under investigation for allegations of violence against women and girls.

The force said this includes both serving officers and other members of the constabulary, and the individual investigations are at various stages.

Professional standards head, Det Supt Alastair Stenner, said the news was "very uncomfortable".

Crime commissioner Chris Nelson said some cases were "very serious".

Mr Nelson told BBC Politics West that most cases were "offences within the force... rather than with members of the public".

Det Supt Stenner added that he wanted to reassure people that the force takes these allegations "incredibly seriously", and the processes are "thorough".

Chris Nelson said some of the cases were "very serious"

Female trust in the police was thrust in to the national spotlight after the murder of Sarah Everard by serving Met Police officer, Wayne Couzens, two years ago.

Since then forces across the country have been working hard to reassure women and girls.

'There will be more'

In Gloucestershire, vetting processes for new police recruits have been updated since 2021, and it is also reassessing serving staff.

As a result, Det Supt Stenner believes more investigations in to serving officers will take place in the future.

"I think it's inevitable that there will be more," he said.

"For example our chief constable has already put a very powerful message out in our internal bulletins, and we've already had at least one case reported to professional standards directly as a result of that.

"And as we build trust and confidence and try and win trust and confidence back, we will I think receive more reports."

Ch Supt, Jane Probert is the strategic lead for tackling violence against women and girls in the county, and says women in Gloucestershire do have trust in the force since the murder of Sarah Everard.

"On the whole we haven't seen less reporting [since 2021], so I suppose that gives us a measure around that trust and confidence," she said.

"But I don't doubt for one second that there were females in county that either didn't want to contact the police or felt scared or intimidated, because I don't think you'd feel human as a woman to not have felt some nervousness."

'Banter'

The constabulary has a programme to reduce violence against women and girls which includes ensuring crimes are taken seriously, and creating safer spaces to prevent assaults from taking place.

It is working on improving internal culture, both around how women are spoken to when reporting assaults and how to treat female colleagues.

"If you rewind 20 years the focus on culture and misogyny didn't exist, you just got on with it and that's how it was," Ch Supt Probert said.

"Over the last ten years that's improved drastically, and over the last two years around Sarah Everard it's an absolute priority."

Ch Supt Probert said she has experienced misogyny from colleges throughout her 27 year career in Gloucestershire.

"I think the secret is how we encourage officers to be confident to call it out," she said.

"Twenty years ago there would have been a couple of things I didn't challenge because I didn't want to be seen as a trouble-maker, and of course back then they would have called it 'banter'.

"I would say, and I genuinely mean this, Gloucestershire is in a far better place than it was, and I'm so glad it's a force priority and we treat it so seriously."

Sydney McAllister and Nikki Owen set up This Ends Now in the wake of a number of attacks in Stroud

Despite all of this work, many still think the force should be doing more to make women feel safe and confident in both public spaces and in reporting crimes to the police.

Nikki Owen is the co-founder of This Ends Now, a protest lobby group which was set up in the wake of a number of attacks against women and girls in the Stroud area.

She says the group is "really pleased" with how "honest" Gloucestershire Constabulary has been around its "shortcomings", however she believes more should be done on a national level.

"The issue, and this comes from the police themselves, is that without it being statutory, the recommendations [around violence against women and girls] are not always a priority," she said.

"So what we need to see from the government, and in particular the Home Secretary, is to create a statutory review of police forces, and by that I mean basically making it law to put these recommendations in place, and through that we get less perpetrators in the police and people feel safer."

Last week the Home Office announced violence against women and girls is to be classified as a national threat for policing for the first time, giving it the same status as terrorism.

It has also asked the College of Policing to strengthen the statutory code of practice for police vetting and has commissioned His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services to conduct a rapid review of all forces' response to the recent report into vetting and counter-corruption.