Domestic Homicide Reviews

Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) were established on a statutory basis under Section 9 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Adults Act (2004). They came into effect on 13 April 2011.

The Safer Slough Partnership has the responsibility for carrying out domestic homicide reviews within Slough.

Definition and purpose of a Domestic Homicide Review

A domestic homicide review is a review of the circumstances in which the death of a person aged 16 or over has, or appears to have, resulted from violence, abuse or neglect by a person whom he/she was related or had been in an intimate personal relationship, or a member of the same household.

The purpose of a Domestic Homicide Review is to:

Establish what lessons are to be learned from the domestic homicide regarding the way in which local professionals and organisations work individually and together to safeguard victims.
Identify clearly what those lessons are both within and between agencies, how and within what timescales they will be acted on, and what is expected to change as a result.
Apply those lessons to service responses including changes to policies and procedures as appropriate.
Prevent domestic violence homicide and improve service responses for all domestic violence victims and their children through improved intra and inter-agency working.

A Domestic Homicide Review will not:

Be an inquiry into how the victim died or into who is culpable; that is a matter for Coroners and criminal courts respectively to determine as appropriate.
Specifically be part of any disciplinary enquiry or process. Where information emerges in the course of a DHR indicating that disciplinary action should be initiated, the established agency disciplinary procedures should be undertaken separately to the DHR process. Alternatively, some DHRs maybe conducted concurrently with (but separate to) disciplinary action.

If a domestic homicide takes place in Slough, Thames Valley Police will make sure the right people in the Safer Slough Partnership are told as quickly as possible. After this initial notification, a decision will be made about whether we need to have a Domestic Homicide Review using the Home Office guidance.

The aim in publishing these reviews is to restore public confidence and improve transparency of the processes in place, across all agencies, to protect victims.