Domestic abuse

Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews (DARDR) (previously known as Domestic Homicide Reviews or DHRs) were established on a statutory basis under Section 9 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004) on GOV.UK website.

• Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004)

DARDRs are carried out by Community Safety Partnerships to ensure that lessons are learnt when a person has died as a result of domestic abuse, either by homicide or suicide. The purpose of a DARDR is to:

• Establish what lessons can be learned from the homicide regarding the way in which local professionals and organisations work individually and together to safeguard victims.
• Identify clearly what those lessons are both within and between agencies, how and within what timescales they will be acted on, and what is expected to change as a result.
• Apply those lessons to service responses including changes to policies and procedures as appropriate.
• Prevent domestic abuse and domestic homicides and suicides and improve service responses for all domestic abuse victims and their children through improved intra and inter-agency working.

To assist Community Safety Partnerships in undertaking this duty the Home Office published statutory guidance on conducting domestic homicide reviews.

• Statutory guidance

The Runnymede Community Safety Partnership is required by the Act to publish a final, anonymised set of recommendations (see below). 

Where necessary, these reviews can be completed jointly with the Surrey Safeguarding Adults Board who hold a statutory duty to undertake a Safeguarding Adults Review (SAR) when the circumstance set out in the Care Act 2014 guidance are met. These reviews will be known as DADRD/SAR (previously DHR/SAR). 

Content warning! The following reports contain material of a highly sensitive nature, including references to death, violence and abuse, and may be upsetting.

Runnymede Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews

• DHR 1:
  • Pending Home Office Quality Assurance before publication
• DHR 2:
  • Review ongoing and will be uploaded once finalised and undergone the Home Office Quality Assurance.
• DHR/SAR 3 - A review into the death of ‘Tracy’
  •  Overview report
  •  Executive summary
  •  Home Office feedback letter
  •  Response to feedback letter
  •  Action Plan (as of November 2024)

Due to the sensitive nature of these reviews, under no circumstances will any details be disclosed, and reports will only become available once they have been through the Home Office Quality Assurance Panel process.

• For information on Domestic Abuse, visit: Domestic abuse
• For DARDRs relating to other CSP areas within Surrey, these can be found at Healthy Surrey - DARDRs