DOMESTIC HOMICIDE REVIEWS

Community Safety Partnerships have a statutory responsibility to conduct Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs), as outlined under section 9 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004). This provision came into force in April 2011. The Safer Devon Partnership administers DHRs on behalf of the four Community Safety Partnerships in Devon.

Domestic Homicide Reviews are ‘a review of the circumstances in which a death of a person aged 16 or over has, or appears to have, resulted from violence, abuse or neglect by:

1. A person to whom they were related or with whom they were or had been in an intimate personal relationship, or
2. A member of the same household as themselves,
   held with a view to identifying lessons to be learnt from the death.’

The purpose of DHRs is to:

1. 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;
2. 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;
3. Apply these lessons to service responses including changes to inform national and local policies and procedures as appropriate;
   Prevent domestic violence and homicide and improve service responses for all domestic violence and abuse victims and their children by developing a co-ordinated multi-agency approach to ensure that domestic abuse is identified and responded to effectively at the earliest opportunity;
   Contribute to a better understanding of the nature of domestic violence and abuse; and
4. Highlight good practice.

DHR / DARDR:

We are starting to use the term “domestic homicide review / domestic abuse–related death review” (DHR/DARDR) when we talk about the process for learning from deaths linked to domestic abuse.

We are making this change because:

• “Domestic homicide review (DHR)” doesn’t fully describe all of the situations that are reviewed.
  As well as homicides, cases are reviewed where a person has died by suicide and domestic abuse was a factor. These cases are not well reflected in the term ‘DHR’, but they are an essential part of learning and prevention work.
• National statutory guidance for DHRs is being updated.
  The new guidance is expected to use wider terminology that better reflects the range of domestic abuse–related deaths. Using the broader term now will help ensure that professionals across Devon are already familiar with the updated language once it is published.

In short, we are widening the language we use so that it properly reflects the work we are already doing, and so that Devon is aligned with the direction of upcoming national guidance.