Urgent review into more than 3,500 Clare's Law disclosures completed

Wiltshire Police's urgent review into more than 3,500 Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (known as Clare’s Law) applications has concluded.

After identifying critical failures in the service under the Clare’s Law scheme in October last year, Wiltshire Police announced an urgent review of all applications made to them between April 2015 and August 2023.

This followed the force making a voluntary referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) regarding concerns linked to disclosures made under the scheme by one member of Wiltshire Police staff. 

As a result, the police committed to reviewing every single application which has totalled 3,778 applications (an increase on the original figure of 3,582 following additional database checks).

In January, Wiltshire Police confirmed that they had risk assessed each of the 3,778 applications after adopting a risk-based approach which involved dedicated officers triaging applications into different risk categories.

The police can today confirm that all detailed reviews of applications requiring them have been completed and appropriate action has been taken.

They can also confirm:

•  They’ve currently identified a total of 33 failures in our service – this equates to less than 1% of the 3,778 applications
• Of this, they know of two failures which have resulted in people being harmed
• Of the other failures, they believe 14 are administrative failures and 17 are service failures (i.e. where police should have disclosed and didn’t or where inadequate research was done etc)
• As previously confirmed, one member of police staff remains suspended from the Force and is subject of an independent conduct investigation by the IOPC
• Wiltshire Police have made a total of five referrals to the IOPC (including the initial referral) which they are independently investigating – two are linked to failures where harm has been caused, one linked to an admin failure and the final referral relates to the organisational response of two previous IOPC referrals involving the same individual in 2019 and 2020
• At its height, police had approximately 45 members of staff moved into the review team supported by a large number of other officers from across the force. They’ve committed to continue using an appropriate level of resourcing on this review until the end of May.

Chief Constable Catherine Roper said: “Whilst I hope our communities will take some reassurance from the fact we’ve now reviewed all of these applications, we should never forget that people were put at risk due to our failures.

“We let people down and we now know that our failures may have contributed to at least two people being harmed. This is completely unacceptable and I remain appalled that this ever happened.

“As soon as I was made aware of these failures, I ensured dedicated resources were put in place to work to understand where we are failed, who might be at risk as a result of these failures and the urgent action we needed to take.

“The completion of the 3,778 risk assessments ensured that we identified the people who required our immediate support.

“There are a small number of people who we’ve been unable to contact or where contacting them directly might not have been safe or appropriate. We will continue to attempt contact where safe to do so.

“I know we have let you down and caused additional anxiety, but I ask again for your trust and urge you to come forward if you have any concerns or information regarding people at risk of domestic abuse.

“We’ve put in place additional resources and scrutiny to ensure this important service is delivered in the right way.”

Wiltshire Police are advised the IOPC’s independent investigation is ongoing, and they have been in regular contact with them to update them on the progress of our review.

If you are considering making a new application under Clare’s Law, please be reassured that you can request this information in the usual way by visiting this section of our website.

If anyone feels they are in immediate danger, please do not hesitate to call us on 999. 

The dedicated email inbox established for applicants who thought they might have been affected by this service failure will no longer be monitored but anyone who requires additional contact from the police can find out how here.