Violence Against Women Scrutiny Panel, Crown Prosecution Service West Midlands

The CPS Violence against Women (VAW) Scrutiny Panel has been a beacon of excellence, both in the field of community engagement and addressing violence against women. The panel brings community stakeholders into the CPS to jointly review finalised VAW cases from domestic violence to rape, serious sexual violence, forced marriages and honour-based crimes.

The panel has raised awareness amongst community stakeholders of how and why prosecution decisions are made. It has increased learning amongst CPS staff of how cases might be handled better, and increased understanding of the CPS decision-making processes in relation to violence against women. In so doing it has increased the confidence of communities, thereby encouraging victims and witnesses to come forward to report incidents and stay with the legal process to its conclusion.

The Domestic Violence Scrutiny Panel hosted a conference, Moving Forward, on March 6 to share the annual lessons learnt and extend good practice to communities and criminal justice agencies. Over 100 delegates attended. Workshops and presentations on the background of the panel were presented by panel members and CPS staff. It was an opportunity to disseminate and consult on the Crown Prosecution Service and West Midlands Police Domestic Violence Protocol. This included the service standards agreed jointly with West Midlands Police and a domestic violence checklist to raise staff awareness.

The success of the panel has led to subsequent projects, from developing a city-wide strategy to address forced marriages, protocols for sharing information to support survivors and VAW publicity campaigns during InternationalWomen’s Day, website information-sharing and social media campaigns. The panel regularly reviews its outcomes to improve the lives of survivors and CPS staff, and the equality and diversity manager has been rewarded as a CPS ambassador on the Birmingham Violence against Women Executive.