Essex police were criticised on Tuesday for failings before the murder of a woman by her violent ex-partner. On the day of Jeanette Goodwin's murder police failed to make sufficient links with previous domestic violence incidents and did not fully appreciate how much danger she was in, a report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission found.
Goodwin, a 47-year-old mother of three from Southend, made seven reports to police of harassment and domestic violence from her ex-partner, Martin Bunch, between January 2011 and the day of her murder on 24 July last year.
Police were praised by the IPCC for their support for Goodwin before her murder – they installed a panic alarm in her home and arrested Bunch several times for a variety of offences including battery and harassment. Magistrates released him on bail despite police pleas to have him remanded in custody, the report said.
The serious failings identified by the IPCC were on the day she died. Background and intelligence checks were not conducted when Goodwin first called 999 at 2.40pm, saying that Bunch had been at her fence and had been harassing her. She stated five times that she was scared.
The next contact was at 7.40pm, when Goodwin activated the panic alarm. When police arrived at her home they found her dying from multiple stab wounds. A communications supervisor in the Force Information Room said that while he didn't feel he could have done much more as he had not been notified about all the background information they had "failed this woman terribly, we should have had someone there much, much, much sooner", the report said.
IPCC commissioner Rachel Cerfontyne said: "The system in place then was badly flawed, not utilising intelligence checks to inform decision making when prioritising incidents."
She added: "There was a failure to recognise, in the light of the known history of this case, that Mr Bunch's presence close to her home, in breach of his bail conditions, required immediate and urgent action to try to arrest him."
Other domestic violence deaths in Essex have prompted concerns about a failure to link together separate incidents, including that of Mary Russell, 81, in 2010. She died of head injuries after her husband allegedly hit her. A report by Southend Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Board last year found police treated Russell's seven claims of domestic violence as standalone incidents rather than as related and the CPS decided there was not enough evidence to bring a criminal prosecution.
In another case, Christine Chambers and her daughter, Shania, were murdered in June 2011 by David Oakes. In August 2012 an IPCC report found that Essex police had failed to recognise any pattern or connection between events and identified a failure to share information between agencies.
Between June and September this year there have been four more domestic homicides in Essex. The force has confirmed that at least three of the victims had contact with it before their deaths.
Essex police have, however, made significant improvements to domestic violence policy, including an amendment to delineate responsibilities in the force control room. A domestic abuse intelligence team is now based there to ensure that appropriate checks are completed and accurately recorded on the log immediately following the report.
Cerfontyne said: "The police have a tendency not to join the dots on domestic violence, but rather to deal with repeated incidents in isolation. They struggle to understand the coercive and controlling environment in which domestic violence takes place and the impact this may have on a woman trying to escape it, which is when they often face the greatest risk."
Deputy Chief Constable Derek Benson, of Essex police, has accepted the findings of the IPCC report into Goodwin's murder. "The initial call should have been treated more seriously, and a unit dispatched," he said. "Too much emphasis was placed on Mrs Goodwin saying she was going out and would not be in until 4.30pm, rather than her stating she was scared of Bunch. There is however no way of knowing if our actions at this time had been different whether Mrs Goodwin would still have been murdered," he said.Goodwin's family issued a statement welcoming the findings:
"We are pleased that the IPCC report has highlighted areas of procedures that could have been better on the day of Jeanette's death.
"Although this will not bring back our dearest Jeanette, we are satisfied that these procedures have been improved, ensuring that victims of domestic violence can now be treated as they should, as a priority."
A system of multi-agency domestic homicide reviews was launched by the government in April 2011 and these reviews are under way into the cases of Chambers and Goodwin. The idea is to learn from previous cases, help spot potential victims earlier and prevent violence from escalating in other cases.
A Home Office spokeswoman said: "More than 130 domestic homicide reviews are underway with a number nearing completion. By making domestic homicide reviews mandatory important lessons are being learned that we hope will prevent future tragedies and tackle domestic violence."
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