Helping women and girls to feel and be safe

Our pledge to tackle violence against women and girls

In February 2023, the Home Secretary highlighted violence against women and girls (VAWG) as a national threat to public safety. VAWG is deeply rooted in harmful masculine traits. To eradicate this violence, we must confront and change the attitudes and behaviours that instil fear in women every day. 

As a Force, we are committed to tackling violence against women and girls and seek to continuously improve. We work with partners across the criminal justice system to create lasting change in the lives of women and girls, focusing on: 

• Protecting individuals and communities from VAWG: We prioritise the safety of victims, witnesses, and communities, ensuring their needs guide our response. We focus on individuals, not just incidents.
• Relentlessly pursuing VAWG perpetrators: Recognising that VAWG crimes are rooted in misogyny, we strive to bring perpetrators to justice and prevent them from causing further harm.
• Preventing VAWG: In partnership with relevant agencies, we play a specific role in a comprehensive response to prevent VAWG.
• Preparing policing to effectively respond to and reduce VAWG: We ensure our readiness to tackle VAWG through the right culture, skills, and resources.

Chief Superintendent Nicola Walker, business lead for VAWG for the force said:

"I am committed to making our public, private and online spaces safer. Whether this is by relentlessly pursuing perpetrators within a domestic setting, on our streets or within our night time economy, or through technological advancements to disrupt online offending. We are working hard to engage with our communities, and to support and safeguard our victims."

What is VAWG?

The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) outline the harm caused to victims and society by violence against women and girls (VAWG) in all its forms – including but not limited to harassment, stalking, rape, sexual assault, murder, honour-based abuse, coercive control – is immeasurable. Nearly all forms of VAWG are expected to continue to rise in the coming year. 

While men and boys also suffer from many of these forms of abuse, they disproportionately affect women. A woman is killed by a man every three days in the UK. Domestic abuse makes up 18 per cent of all recorded crime in England and Wales.

How Northumbria tackles violence against women and girls

In March 2024 the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) refreshed its national framework to policing violence against women and girls.

The framework helps us to effectively plan our finite resources and decide how many officers will be needed to tackle the rising rates of violent and sexual crimes faced by women. It will also identify where we will focus specialist investigators, victim support and crime-fighting technology to tackle the problem. 

More locally, Northumbria’s 2024-27 VAWG strategy guides us to drive improvements around protecting women and girls from violence in the home, online and in public spaces.

Within this strategy, we include elements of our diversity, equality and inclusion strategy as part of our VAWG delivery. This ensures we provide an outstanding service for all our communities, with a focus on outreach to underrepresented groups and building partnerships with third sector organisations.

Our VAWG advisory panel, made up of public representatives, sits quarterly to advise and scrutinise our approach to VAWG. The panel reviews our practice to ensure we remain victim-focused and are continually improving to achieve better outcomes. Within their remit, they consider diversity, inclusion and equality as a theme to ensure we deliver an inclusive service and police without bias.

Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO):

• We have worked with partners within the nighttime economy to create more safer public spaces for women. The implementation of Op Soteria seeks to transform the way we investigate rape and other sexual offences using research, academic experts and practitioner experience. The aim of the operation is to increase the number of adult rape and serious sexual assault cases reaching charge.
• Salus, led by our neighbourhood teams, is one of our responses to make our night time economy safer, aiming to prevent and reduce sexual offences in and around Newcastle city .
• Operation Ebrius deploys our neighbourhood police officers to licenced premises in plain clothes, observing activity and ensuring licence holders are complying with their legislative duties. Officers establish good practices within premises, enhancing customers’ safety while also identifying individuals who may be vulnerable.
• Operation Franklin is Northumbria’s response plan to ensure spiking investigations are carried out effectively. We ensure victims of spiking are safeguarded effectively, receiving the right support at the right time. We work closely with our licensing partners to prevent offending.

Domestic Abuse:

• Our domestic abuse strategy outlines our approach to tackling this pervasive crime. We have made significant investment in upskilling our frontline officers and staff with training delivered by domestic abuse specialists.
• Northumbria Police was one of the first police forces to introduce dedicated independent domestic abuse advisors in our control rooms where victims can benefit from practical support and advice to reduce the risk posed by a perpetrator.
• Our six multi agency support hubs are taking an innovative approach to supporting victims. They are using technology to respond to and proactively seek domestic abuse disclosures (DVDs), providing clarity and reassurance in a more timely way. 
• Under Operation Aegis, our neighbourhood teams actively identify repeat perpetrators of domestic abuse and hotspots to disrupt offending and deliver positive outcomes.  

Online and Tech-Enabled VAWG:

• We are making changes to better support frontline officers to handle digital exhibits, make downloads from digital devices and carry out CCTV investigations. This includes more kiosks with the right technology to enable these processes, enhanced training and the development of an app to support on-the-job learning.

Child Sexual Abuse & Exploitation (CSAE):

• Our Serious Organised Crime Exploitation Team (SOCEx) operates within the Crime Department and holds ownership for the identification, disruption and prosecution of perpetrators involved in Child Sexual Exploitation.
• There is a detailed strategic delivery plan, accompanied by a well governed 4P approach (Pursue, Protect, Prevent and Prepare) to tackling CSEA.
• A joint approach to continued professional development to ensure officers, staff, and our external stakeholders retain accreditation and continually see to improve their specialist skill set.
• A multi-agency approach is taken in relation to all CSAE investigations, which includes working with specialist prosecutors within the Crown Prosecution Service and national and regional partners.
• Raising awareness of CSAE within the community remains a priority. Local communities are key to encouraging victims/survivors to report offences, they provide valuable information and assist in bringing offenders to justice.
• Working with Northumbria Victim and Witness Service, strategic partners and other local support networks to ensure victims/survivors receive appropriate safeguarding and support.

Stalking or Harrassment:

• Following the super-complaint concerning the police response to stalking submitted by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, we have updated our stalking & harassment action plan.
• We will deliver more extensive training to frontline officers on stalking to help our staff better understand, identify and respond to this crime type.
• We are changing how we record crime to better identify stalking or harassment.
• We are improving collaboration with support services such as Paladin, a commissioned service who supports high risk victims of stalking.
• We are working closely with our partners within the Northumbria Stalking Interventions Programme. The pilot, which aims to raise awareness of stalking within our region, upskills partner agencies' staff, whilst addressing victim support and high harm perpetrator interventions.  

Advice and support