To receive a presentation from Sophie Wing-King, Domestic Abuse Co-Ordinator for Bracknell Forest and the Royal Borough.

Sophie Wing-King introduced the item and explained about her role on the Domestic Abuse team. She explained about the change in definition of domestic abuse to include young people over the age of 16, with characteristics of coercive and/or controlling/threatening behaviour. It was no longer referred to as domestic violence as abuse encompassed psychological and emotional abuse, although physical violence was also a characteristic of domestic abuse. Domestic abuse extended to family members and people in close relationships, regardless of gender. Members were informed that if a young person under the age of 16 made a complaint of domestic abuse, they would still get a response from the Domestic Abuse Unit.

Sophie Wing-King explained that stalking and coercive control had both now been criminalised as offences. Stalking victims would often be targeted after leaving an abusive partner who would have less control over them. Members were informed that the first prosecution for coercive control in the Thames Valley Police area related to a case in Maidenhead.

Members were told there were 127 high risk cases of domestic abuse in the Royal Borough that were discussed at the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference last year. The Conference worked in partnership with other agencies who might receive a disclosure on domestic violence when the victim did not necessarily go to the police; examples of this might be a healthcare professional or housing officer. Sophie Wing-King said MARAC worked in partnership with the DASH charity, which provided outreach support for 115 clients last year.

Sophie Wing-King informed members that around 2,500 incidents of domestic abuse were reported in the Royal Borough last year, of which around 20 per cent were repeat victims. This represented an increase of reported incidents of 22 per cent over three years, which was attributed partly to more people being encouraged to report it.

The Domestic Abuse Strategy was relaunched earlier this year, which focused on prevention, raising awareness, partnership working, supervision of services and identifying gaps, and pursuing perpetrators. Sophie Wing-King informed members that the Police and Crime Commissioner had provided funding for 20 places on a perpetrator programme. A team had also recently spoken to pupils at a school following a complaint of abuse where the perpetrator was a student at the school.

Harjit Hunjan asked if there was a prevalence of domestic abuse in particular social groups. Sophie Wing-King said she did not have a breakdown of statistics by ethnicity or gender, but an increase in forced marriage and/or honour-based abuse had been noticed. Sophie Wing-King said more awareness training needed to be given as there were deeper-rooted reasons for this, such as language barriers, cultural beliefs and what was expected of people by family members and the wider community.

Louise Warbrick said that she would review all reported incidents of domestic abuse each morning and look into the safeguarding aspects of each report. Where there was a particular safeguarding issue, the information would be circulated amongst partner agencies so they could become involved if the issue needed to be escalated.