Thousands of women at risk as police reject over 10,000 background checks on potential abusers
Thousands of vulnerable women are being left at serious risk of harm because police forces are failing to hand over potentially lifesaving information on violent criminals, The Independent can reveal.
In the latest shameful example of England’s police forces failing to protect women, official data shows that more than half of 20,226 requests for background checks on potential domestic abusers were rejected during a six-month period.
Campaigners say that victims face a “postcode lottery” in their search for answers, with one expert warning that the sheer scale of rejections is putting women’s lives at risk.
Senior Tory MP Robert Buckland has called for an urgent independent review of the disclosure scheme, known as Clare’s Law. It is named after 36-year-old Clare Wood, who was murdered in 2009 by her ex-boyfriend George Appleton. Appleton
