{"id":4673,"date":"2023-10-24T10:57:42","date_gmt":"2023-10-24T09:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sigbi.org\/london2023\/?page_id=4673"},"modified":"2023-11-06T13:56:03","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T12:56:03","slug":"louise-rolfe","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sigbi.org\/london2023\/saturday-4-november-2023-members-blogs\/louise-rolfe\/","title":{"rendered":"Programme Action Panel Session – Louise Rolfe OBE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Blog by Jill Barnard, SI St Austell and District, South West and Channel Islands<\/strong><\/p>\n

Louisa Rolfe OBE
\n<\/strong>Assistant Commissioner Frontline Policing, Metropolitan Police Service<\/strong><\/p>\n

Day two of SIGBI Conference began with an emotional session on Women\u2019s Safety and Violence Against Women and Girls.<\/p>\n

Louisa Rolfe OBE, opened the morning with a frank presentation on what is happening to reverse the massive breach of trust following the high-profile crimes against women, perpetrated by serving police officers.<\/p>\n

Louisa joined the Police Force 32 years ago, with the same personal drive that the majority of police officers join the service for. Joining in the days where, if as a woman, you refused to answer questions on your marriage or child bearing status, you were branded a \u201cfeminist\u201d.<\/p>\n

She loves her job \u2013 but explained she was initially upset when attending domestic violence cases 30 years ago, when, as a newly trained officer, the message to her from more experienced colleagues was, \u201cit\u2019s not our responsibility!\u201d<\/p>\n

Louisa clearly thinks differently! She has been the National Police Chief\u2019s Council (NPCC) lead for domestic abuse since 2013, and was the public face of Metropolitan Police Force following the murder of Sarah Everard, by the then serving police officer, Wayne Couzens.<\/p>\n

Her \u2018day\u2019 job as Assistant Commissioner for Frontline Policing, currently involves policing 32 London boroughs covering all aspects of public protection \u2013 safeguarding, rape, human trafficking, to name but a few! This released gasps from the auditorium.\u00a0 However, talking about her national role, Louisa was very clear that she is fully aware that confidence in the Metropolitan Police is far from great, following the recent high-profile cases of officers involved in such horrific crimes, whilst in a position of trust within the community.<\/p>\n

There were further gasps from the audience when Louisa announced that investigations into the service has led to approximately 1000 serving officers being questioned over their conduct.\u00a0 Louisa was at pains to state that this number is out of 50,000. But the shocked reaction was palpable.<\/p>\n

Louisa acknowledged the need for rapid change and that steps need to be taken to make amends: Change to behaviour and culture within the force is coming about through academic research. Working with Detective Chief Constable Maggie Blyth \u2013 NPCC coordinator for tackling Violence Against Women and Girls across policing, as well as Chief Constable Sarah Crew from Avon and Somerset Police.<\/p>\n

This research showed that \u2018trauma fatigue\u2019 experienced by many officers leads to lack of empathy with the victim, and because of this, investigations need desperately to move from focussing on the victims account, to a more \u2018trauma informed\u2019 approach. Since the recognition of this fact and it being addressed through training there have been 500 more rape cases to CPS than last year.<\/p>\n

Louisa spoke about the introduction of the initiative SafeLives, a training course for frontline domestic abuse practitioners, providing training so far to 7000 police officers in London, where it is hoped much of the bias and misogyny within such cases will be eradicated.<\/p>\n

Louisa\u2019s experience as a police officer has, on the whole been positive – the majority of officers join for the right reason. There is a small minority, however who use this position of trust as a Power status \u2013 we need to root this out and address bias within the police and support the leadership to challenge poor behaviour \u2013 Currently the Police Force seem to be spending more time apologising rather than celebrating success.<\/p>\n

60% Response Police Officers attending domestic violence cases have less than 3 year\u2019s experience \u2013 they cannot be experts in everything and as such there is increased pressure on the force.\u00a0 Far from making excuses \u2013 Louisa was purely making a point that there has to be support out there for the Police officers, addressing the perpetrators need through mental health, drug and housing support provision.<\/p>\n

There have been recent successes: Non-fatal strangulation has been recognised as a form of coercive control and no longer classed as common assault. With medical involvement there has now been an increase in prosecution.<\/p>\n

Things are changing but there is so much more to do:<\/p>\n

The current Justice system is very inefficient. It now takes 5 times more work for investigating officers to achieve CPS approval and as courts currently have a backlog of 30,000 cases it is taking 2 years for such cases to get to court\u2026 As you can imagine, more gasps!<\/p>\n

Louisa was though, at pains to state that justice is only part of the problem \u2013 just the start of the journey \u2013 we need to start working together more and recognise that, as a woman, 1 in 4 of us will be subject to domestic abuse during our lives.\u00a0 We were made to think that within the room we were all surrounded by women who have experienced such violence.\u00a0 We need to recognise and act on this fact.<\/p>\n

So what can we do\u2026one thing is to ensure as a society \u2013 we are more likely to report incidents and to familiarise ourselves with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust \u201cStand Up Against Harassment, Bystander Training\u201d in order to recognise concerning behaviour before it escalates and to promote a societal responsibility to Violence against Women and Girls<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blog by Jill Barnard, SI St Austell and District, South West and Channel Islands Louisa…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":746,"featured_media":0,"parent":4671,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4673","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nProgramme Action Panel Session - Louise Rolfe OBE - SIGBI London Conference 2023<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sigbi.org\/london2023\/saturday-4-november-2023-members-blogs\/louise-rolfe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Programme Action Panel Session - Louise Rolfe OBE - SIGBI London Conference 2023\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Blog by Jill Barnard, SI St Austell and District, South West and Channel Islands Louisa...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sigbi.org\/london2023\/saturday-4-november-2023-members-blogs\/louise-rolfe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SIGBI London Conference 2023\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-06T12:56:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sigbi.org\/london2023\/files\/J041123_093.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sigbi.org\/london2023\/saturday-4-november-2023-members-blogs\/louise-rolfe\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sigbi.org\/london2023\/saturday-4-november-2023-members-blogs\/louise-rolfe\/\",\"name\":\"Programme Action Panel Session - 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