Red Flags

Suffolk received the first accelerated cause of concern specifically for Clare's Law failure in May 2026. HMICFRS found a backlog of over 500 outstanding applications, including one submitted in January 2025. The force was leaving identifiable digital records of police contact on victims' devices, actively increasing risk.

The charge rate for victim-based crime fell from 15.6% in 2015 to 6.6% in 2022. The force applies just 1.1 DVPOs per 1,000 domestic abuse crimes against a national average of 11.4.

On stalking protection orders the picture is mixed: 12 SPOs granted in the year to September 2022, up from one the previous year. Some improvement on SPOs, persistent under-use of DVPOs.

HMICFRS issued Derbyshire an accelerated cause of concern in April 2026 following a National Child Protection Inspection. The initial response was inadequate in 27 of 48 case files audited. Children were left at risk because additional safeguarding measures were not considered, with long delays in officers attending incidents. The constabulary was required to produce a detailed improvement plan within 28 days.

An accelerated cause of concern is issued when failures raise immediate public safety concerns. It is more serious than a standard cause of concern, which would wait for the full PEEL report. Note: the April 2026 NCPI accelerated CoC sits outside the PEEL cycle shown live below and so does not appear in the panel.

Inspectors identified gaps in safeguarding oversight, senior leaders unaware of issues, and incorrect rape crime recording in the 2025–27 cycle.

Humberside also published a stalking super-complaint response (a PDF recommendation-tracker linked from its website). We have not transcribed the substantive content of that tracker here, so we make no specific claim about what was committed against what HMICFRS subsequently found - only that both documents exist in the same period.

Inspectors identified a significant backlog of crime investigations, some cases had been waiting six months, with supervisors attempting to cancel or strike off up to 50 crimes per month. This pattern of closing cases prematurely under workload pressure is directly relevant to VNS's evidence base on how victims' cases are deprioritised.

Surrey's previous PEEL inspection had a cause of concern for call handling and response times which has since been lifted; charge rates for stalking and rape have doubled since the 2023 inspection.

Inspectors flagged that Northumbria needs to follow national guidelines under Clare's Law when making disclosures: compliance with the national scheme was not consistent. (This sits in the narrative findings rather than as a formal pillar grade or cause of concern, so it does not appear in the live panel below.)

The Essex PCC explicitly cited chronic underfunding as a structural cause of the protecting-vulnerable-people finding; Essex is the third lowest funded force per head of population in England and Wales. The force is monitored in the VNS super-complaint tracker given its action plan commitments on stalking response.

The force was placed in HMICFRS's Engage enhanced monitoring in June 2022 and removed in January 2025 after improvements to call handling, child exploitation investigations, professional standards and property management.

On areas directly relevant to VNS: lessons learned from domestic homicide and child safeguarding reviews were not understood by frontline officers. Use of preventative orders was inconsistent; outside DA teams, knowledge of protective orders is low and policing of orders is not monitored except for stalking orders.

The Baroness Casey Review (March 2023) found the Met institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic. The Angiolini Inquiry (Part 1 February 2024; Part 2 December 2025) documented systemic vetting failures that allowed Wayne Couzens to remain in post despite prior reports of sexual offending. Part 2 found a quarter of forces still lack basic sexual offence policies and that Angiolini's recommendation to bar anyone with sexual offence convictions from policing remained unimplemented as of December 2025.

GMP's inclusion here is not based on its current PEEL grades, which represent significant improvement from its earlier special measures period (the live panel below shows the current picture, including a 2022-cycle cause of concern on responding to the public that remains technically open even as the pillar itself has improved). It is based on the Dame Vera Baird inquiry published July 2024, which documented a specific case of institutional DARVO in GMP custody.

The inquiry documented Maria, a domestic abuse victim whose partner had been detained by GMP for abusing her. She went to Pendleton police station to collect keys and money from him, but was left outside for six hours, calling police 14 times for help while officers inside ignored her despite knowing she was a domestic abuse victim. When she swore at officers out of frustration she was arrested, and was subsequently strip searched on the basis that officers believed she might be concealing a vape. Dame Vera described this as "obviously wrong, in every way you can dream of." GMP accepted the inquiry's findings.

Inspectors found Wiltshire does not yet have a clear and proactive system to monitor protective orders or breaches. The force still relies heavily on victims to report breaches themselves. At the end of November 2025, 217 domestic abuse cases were waiting for a secondary risk assessment, delaying referrals to safeguarding partners.

Wiltshire was placed in special measures in 2022 and removed from Engage in May 2024 after sustained progress. The protective orders and risk assessment findings are the specific areas of concern relevant to VNS's evidence base.

Failures were particularly apparent in rape, robbery and violence with injury. CID and DA teams were found to be under-resourced and dealing with large caseloads including serious and complex crimes. PCC Danielle Stone asked for a verbal briefing and full action plan with clear timescales.

Inspectors found cases being closed despite potential lines of inquiry remaining. Over 900 crimes were unallocated in district queues in September 2025, some dating back to May. 412 rape finalisations or reclassifications were waiting for review by the force crime registrar, the oldest from December 2024.

Inspectors found investigation plans followed in only 41 of 51 cases reviewed. Investigative opportunities not taken in 66 of 85 investigations. Only 61 of 81 investigations examined were considered effective. DA risk assessments too often not dealt with appropriately. No progress on managing medium-risk DA cases.

The 2025-27 inspection graded Staffordshire inadequate at responding to the public, with a formal cause of concern. The same area was flagged as requiring improvement in September 2024; the force did not make sufficient progress, and the grade fell.

The finding most relevant to VNS's evidence base: incidents initially graded as priority were often downgraded later without sufficient risk assessment or supervisory oversight. In many of the cases reviewed, the circumstances reported by the caller had not changed. The decision to delay attendance appeared to assume that risk reduces with the passing of time. Some of these incidents involved vulnerable domestic abuse victims, and opportunities to safeguard them were missed.

The force's callback system often delays callbacks by several hours and then cannot always establish contact, leaving some callers reporting crimes without a response and without the potential risk being understood or documented. Three recommendations were issued with a six-month deadline.

The IOPC received 94,940 complaints in 2024/25, a record high, up 11% on the previous year. Review applications from victims dissatisfied with force handling were up 14%, and 30% of IOPC reviews found force handling unreasonable. Despite rising demand, the IOPC faces a 34% real-terms budget cut since 2011. The combination of record complaints and falling resources creates structural pressure on the body whose function is to hold police accountable.

HMICFRS is the statutory inspectorate for policing in England and Wales. Its PEEL inspections, thematic inspections and accelerated causes of concern are the primary mechanisms by which force failures are formally documented. VNS relies extensively on HMICFRS findings as primary sources.

A recurring concern in HMICFRS's own reporting is that forces repeatedly fail to implement recommendations from previous inspection cycles. The inspectorate has noted this pattern explicitly: failures identified in one cycle reappear in the next. Recommendation compliance is monitored through HMICFRS's online portal but enforcement mechanisms remain limited.

The College of Policing is the professional body for policing, responsible for Authorised Professional Practice (APP), the operational guidelines all forces are expected to follow. Following the stalking super-complaint, the College committed to updating the stalking and harassment APP. That update remains in progress. The College has also published updated Clare's Law principles, but as Northumbria's finding shows, compliance with national guidelines is not universal.

The CPS makes charging decisions in the most serious cases. The charge rate for recorded rape has fallen from 7.5% in 2016–17 to 3.1% in 2024, despite more victims coming forward. The CPS's assessment of the realistic prospect of conviction, and its assessment of complainant credibility, are primary drivers of attrition. Operation Soteria has increased referrals from police, but CPS charging decisions have not kept pace. Stalking charging rates are similarly inconsistent across CPS areas.