Agenda item

11.35am

The PCC will present a report providing details on a TVP Education campaign for Violence against Women and Girls.

The PCC presented a report which provided details on a TVP Education campaign for Violence against Women and Girls.

The Panel was informed that TVP were working with Lisa Squire the mother of murdered student Libby Squire, and a specialist agency TMC, to produce a PSHE education package for 14-16 year olds.

The education package would put two key messages out of looking after your friends and to report non-contact sexual offences. The encouragement of young people to report non-contact sexual offences was to enable the intelligence from their reports to help police identify hotspots and identify perpetrators. The killer of Libby had displayed an escalation in non-contact sexual offences before his horrendous crime.

Since being launched in February 2023, work has taken place with TMC to produce an audit of existing campaigns and materials, to hold focus groups at four Thames Valley schools to get feedback on the plans and the holding of a Project Advisory Team meeting to ask a range of experts their thoughts on the programme.

Members’ Questions

(1)  Will this education campaign be rolled out to partner organisations to get the message out as far and wide as possible? Reference was made to arts and culture who helped get the message out there, in the form of plays and theatre and telling a story which would be more engaging for young people.

[The PCC replied that the focus of this will be getting into schools with PSHE making it available more widely across Thames Valley. There will also be broader exposure with the use of social media, working with partner agencies. There would be a film on Libby’s mother which would grab the attention of young people as she describes from a personal perspective and raise awareness greater than anyone else could.

The real focus of the campaign was getting in schools and hopefully eventually getting it into the curriculum. Work had been done on County Lines, on “sexting”, and there was funding from the crime prevention budget to do this preventative work.

The PCC said he could see no reason why this work could not be extended to colleges and Universities.]

(2)  The PCC was asked how prepared were TVP to act on the usually non reported sexual offences which were not always reported, and which sometimes led to far serious offences such as the murder?

[The PCC replied that the murderer of Libby Squires did not have his earlier offences reported. This was not a case of the Police missing something. It really mattered that these offences, no matter how small, were reported to the Police. Victims needed the confidence to come forward, although the allegations may not lead to a conviction. This was about intelligence gathering and it would be on record as being reported and would build a wider picture if other allegations were made and would lead to escalation if required.

There were much better processes now in place with “Red Box” offences prioritised in the escalation process. There were also better relationships with the CPS who understood that looking at minor offences could lead to more serious offences.]

(3)  How was the PCC working with TVP on improving the perceived culture within certain other forces, to enable women and girls to have the confidence to report sexual offences to the Police, no matter how small the offences may seem?

[The PCC said that he was not belittling the offences and was not playing down the sexual offences which were committed. The campaign was to identify early offending before it escalated. It was a really important point, that there was sometimes a lack of reporting of some of these offences, as within the public, there was a playing down of some of those offences. Reference was made to the “Do the Right Thing” campaign in terms of the importance of reporting all crimes.

In terms of policing, particularly the Metropolitan Police, although TVP was not immune, it was important that the public had confidence in the Police that they would deal with crimes and that means Police attended all burglaries, shoplifting etc. It was about the Police being responsive to all those issues and it was important that message was put across to the public.]                               

(4)  The PCC was asked that as part of the intelligence gathering, did engagement take place with security staff in pubs and clubs to put warnings out about safety as a preventative measure.

[The PCC referred to the vigilant campaign which was undercover and unformed officers working with CCTV controllers in the night time economy. Training is given to door staff on behaviour, what to look out for etc. TVP was trying to bring people along with them and work took place with venues and local authorities to help identify where the risk was and to educate door staff.]

RESOLVED -That the report of the PCC and the information provided in answers to Members’ questions be noted.