Police chief apologises over Clare’s Law failures

A CHIEF constable has apologised after a police staff member’s failures to undertake Clare’s Law applications properly left women at risk of violence, including one woman who was the victim of attempted murder.

- ROD MINCHIN [e-mail]

Wiltshire Police Chief Constable Catherine Roper has apologised

Gavin Hudson was supposed to examine Clare’s Law requests - a system designed to allow people to find out whether a partner has a history of violence or domestic abuse - but failed to do his job properly.

His misconduct led to Wiltshire Police reviewing 3,778 Clare's Law applications and identifying 33 failures.

Hudson was found guilty of gross misconduct by a police disciplinary panel and would have been sacked had he not already resigned.

Wiltshire Police Chief Constable Catherine Roper apologised for the failures, and revealed two previous referrals had been made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) about Hudson.

“We have failed in our primary duty to protect people from harm, and I cannot overemphasise the depth of the apology I issued when we first found out about these critical service failures,” she said.

“The critical service failures, including those of Gavin Hudson, resulted in at least three women being subsequently harmed. Had we provided them with the right information, this might have been prevented.

“Of the 3,778 reviews, we identified 33 failures - as a result of this hearing, we now know that three women were harmed, 17 service failures - where we should have disclosed and didn’t or where inadequate research was done - and 14 administrative failures.

“Gavin Hudson's dereliction of duty has no doubt undermined the trust and confidence our communities have in our safeguarding processes, and I understand that.

“We have changed our leadership in this area of our organisation and now have more intrusive supervision of this process.