Bereaved mother calls for tougher sentences for lower level crimes against women

The mother of murdered university student Libby Squire has called for tougher sentences for gateway offences to more violent crimes against women and girls.

Lisa Squire spoke out after a landmark police report found that violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a national emergency, with nearly 3,000 crimes recorded each day.

She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Tuesday: “We accept these lower-level offences happening to us, and it’s ‘Oh, nobody was hurt’.

“They don’t get long sentences – it could take two or three years to get to court and they might get a six-month or eight-month sentence, or suspended, so (victims ask) is it worth it?”

Police were heavily criticised for failing to properly investigate accusations of indecent exposure against Wayne Couzens before the then-serving officer raped and murdered Sarah Everard after snatching her off the street as she walked home.

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe told the programme: “It is a sad reality that abusers are attracted to professions like policing, but policing is not alone – the scale of this, with one in 20 men in the UK as perpetrators, (shows) policing is not the only profession.”

The National Policing Statement for Violence Against Women and Girls, published on Tuesday, found that more than one million violent crimes against women and girls were recorded by police in 2022/23, accounting for just under a fifth of all crime in England and Wales excluding fraud.

The report estimated that at least one in every 12 women will be a victim per year – equating to two million women – with the exact number expected to be much higher because of crimes that go unreported.

The deputy chief executive of the College of Policing said violence against women and girls has “reached epidemic levels” in England and Wales and called for Government intervention in the “overwhelmed” criminal justice system.

Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth said the creation of a National Centre for Public Protection would support police forces with specialist knowledge and training for investigators and officers.

She added that the data from the National Policing Statement is “staggering”, with police records of violence against women and girls increasing by 37% from 2018/19 to 2022/23.

Ms Blyth said the criminal justice system is “under-performing for victims”, with the report stating that violence against women and girls is at such a scale “it cannot be addressed through law enforcement alone”.

One in 20 adults, or 2.3 million people, in England and Wales are perpetrators of such violence every year, the report estimates, with the actual number thought to be significantly higher.

The age of offenders is also getting younger, with the average age of a suspect for child sexual abuse and exploitation now 15.

Violence against women and girls was classed as a national threat to public safety by the Home Office in February 2023 and Ms Blyth said a national framework has brought the police response in line with that of counter-terrorism.

More than 4,500 new officers have been trained to investigate rape and serious sexual offences over the last year, with the report detailing a 38% increase in charges for adult rape from the year ending December 2022 to the year ending December 2023.

Child sexual abuse and exploitation offences also increased by 435% between 2013 and 2022, the report estimated – from just over 20,000 to nearly 107,000.

The NPCC said police forces are seeing “ever more complicated types of offending”, causing “significant harm to victims and society as a whole”.

The scale of offending against girls is frightening and requires a society-wide response

Arrests for domestic abuse-related offences increased by more than 22% in the year ending March 2023, compared with the previous period, with one in every six murders in 2022/23 being related to domestic abuse.

Ms Blyth, who is National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for violence against women and girls, said society needs to “move forward” and “no longer accept violence against women and girls as inevitable”.

Sophie Francis-Cansfield, head of external affairs at charity Women’s Aid, said the report’s findings are “alarming”, adding that many survivors do not report their experiences, meaning the issue is “much larger than the data shows”.

Clare Kelly, associate head of policy at the NSPCC, said: “The scale of offending against girls is frightening and requires a society-wide response.”

She called for action from the Government to prevent child sexual abuse, technology companies to take down harmful content and stop paedophiles operating online, and schools to encourage healthy relationships.