Domestic abuse: countryside offenders’ convictions still ‘woeful’
Mrs McClay said she hoped more women would be recruited by rural police forces, both as first response officers and visible “village bobbies”.
“They need more female officers certainly on the first interviews they do with victims. They have to be sensitive,” she said.
“I can only go from my own experience that two male police officers came and took me away to interview me and I did feel very, very uncomfortable.”
Meanwhile, Mrs Mulligan called on the National Rural Crime Network (NRCN) to review progress made since the 2019 report, which was based in part on 67 in-depth interviews with people who had experienced domestic abuse.
A spokesman for the NRCN said it would be commissioning further research to see if recommendations from the report had been implemented by the police.
He added: “These latest statistics show there is still much to be done in tackling this issue.”
The CPS said it is currently working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) to develop a national Domestic Abuse Joint Justice Plan to improve how such offences are dealt with.
A spokesman for the NPCC said: “Policing alone doesn’t hold all the answers and preventing tragedies requires a whole system response, with improvements needed across the public sector.”
A Home Office spokesman said the new government intended to halve levels of violence against women and girls within a decade and introduce a “cross-government rural crime strategy to tackle crimes blighting rural areas”.
