Shocking figures reveal 167 cops and civilian staff at Greater Manchester Police have been accused of domestic abuse since 2018. But the investigations resulted in just three court cases that ended in a conviction and the vast majority of those accused still remain with the force.
The figures were obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and shared with the M.E.N equate to almost one report of domestic abuse against a cop or civilian worker at GMP every week.
It comes amid increasing concern about the attitudes of some police officers and the force generally to reports of domestic abuse. Earlier this year the M.E.N. reported that police officers have been captured on their own body-worn cameras encouraging victims of domestic abuse not to pursue their complaints and failing to carry out basic enquiries, a revelation Deputy mayor Beverley Hughes described as 'really very concerning'.
At a meeting of Manchester council’s communities and equalities committee in January, Coun Sarah Judge said there remained an issue with the way rank-and-file officers approached domestic abuse.
“My experience of dealing with the police, even in recent times, is still that there is an attitude of ‘that’s just a domestic’,” she said.
Failures around domestic abuse have been a feature of successive watchdog reports about GMP over recent years.
In 2017 GMP was told by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to gather feedback from victims, a recommendation it had still not carried out by the time inspectors next reported in 2019. The watchdog found GMP was also downgrading many domestic abuse incidents, making them a lower priority than they should have been.
In early 2020, domestic abuse victims were affected by failures in the force's troubled new police computer system, which created huge backlogs of safeguarding incidents. At the end of 2020 the force was placed in special measures after failing to record one in four violent crimes, many of them domestic abuse cases.
Domestic violence incidents were also still being downgraded, while seven out of ten cases were being closed because the victim did not want to pursue the complaint, mostly without evidence that that was the case, according to the watchdog. In November Oldham Council leader Arooj Shah tabled a motion that criticised the ‘shocking prevalence’ of violence against women and girls. It added this was fuelled by a ‘toxic culture of misogyny’.
Coun Shaw cited the disbanding of GMP’s Serious Sexual Offences Unit in 2017 as part of the problem. The issue of misogyny in the police emerged following the shocking rape and murder a year ago of Sarah Everard at the hands of serving Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens.
A report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct that followed revealed some Met cops dismissed as 'banter' offensive racist, sexist and homophobic messages in WhatsApp and Facebook chats. In January the M.E.N. reported how GMP apologised to a woman who alleged she was abused by her ex-partner during lockdown - the force admitted multiple failings in her case.
The woman reported she was beaten, tormented and controlled by her former boyfriend who had a drink and drugs problem. Despite not wanting to support a prosecution at first, the woman said she changed her mind after looking back through horrific injury pictures she had taken of herself.
But she claims when a police officer visited her flat, he told her she didn't have enough evidence, and that her partner's version of events was more credible. She said the male officer made her feel 'judged' and didn't show any empathy - despite her being visibly traumatised.
The figures obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveal that 167 police officers or civilian staff at Greater Manchester Police were reported to the force following allegations of domestic abuse between January 2018 and September 2021. Only three were subsequently convicted, representing a conviction rate of 1.8 per cent.
The figures also reveal eleven of those accused were disciplined and only three were dismissed by the force. Some 139 of the 167 accused, or 83 per cent, are still with GMP.
GMP has been approached for a comment.
