Couple 'so proud' as scheme is now law

A SCHEME created by a retired Devonport police officer and a retired Torpoint headteacher which helps support children affected by domestic abuse has finally been signed into law and has seen a Home Office minister praising the couple for their “unwavering commitment and vision” in creating it.

- CARL EVE

Operation Encompass, initially launched in 2010, was the brainchild of David Carney-Haworth then a Devonport police sergeant and his wife, Torpoint Nursery and Infant School headteacher, Elisabeth Carney-Haworth.

It ensured that information gathered by police at the scene of a domestic incident where children were present was passed onto that child's school before 9am the following morning.

Since then, the scheme has won praise from education experts, ministers, domestic violence practitioners and child psychologists, as well as police and crime commissioners.

By 2017 the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary recommended that each police force take up the Plymouth-born scheme, saying it was: “an excellent example of sharing information between agencies to protect vulnerable children, because it involves forces working in collaboration with local authorities and nominated ‘key adults’ or contacts in schools.”

In 2019 the couple, who live in Downderry, south east Cornwall, were both awarded OBEs for their work creating and expanding the scheme across the country.

In May 2024, just moments before the Government went into recess for the General Election, the scheme was formally passed into law and is now a statutory scheme which all police forces have to carry out.

This built on the landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which formally recognised children as victims in their own right when they see, hear or experience the effects of domestic abuse, which David and Elisabeth had been pushing for, for more than a decade. However, due to the General Election, the process was not formally signed into law until November 7 this year, which has seen guidance issued to all police forces by the Home Office about their duty to notify education establishments of domestic abuse incidents.