Refuge hope police reforms signal the “beginning of a future where women feel protected”

As of the 13 July, new regulations have come into effect for all police forces which will impact vetting procedures and suspensions. The government is rolling out the “complex and wide-ranging” rule change as part of its pledge to end violence against women and girls (VAWG). It follows a campaign from the charity Refuge, ‘Remove the Rot’, which kicked off in 2023 and subsequently found a “shocking scale of police-perpetrated VAWG” which meant women and girls could not trust the police to protect them. Refusing to allow there to be no place to turn for justice, the domestic abuse charity pushed for change, saying:

as an institution designed to protect the public from harm, the police cannot be allowed to let perpetrators slip through the net.

Refuge welcomed the changes which came into effect from today, adding that:

We hope today represents the beginning of a future where women and girls finally feel protected by the police, as they deserve.

Refuge: ‘Remove the Rot’ campaign

UK police forces have long been under mounting pressure to own up to the misogyny and racism that have been allowed to take root among many male officers.

These calls intensified after the appalling — and preventable — kidnapping, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer, Wayne Couzens. He abused his position of power with deadly consequences, conducting a false arrest of Everard and using police handcuffs to take her into his ‘custody’.

However, men that abuse women and girls do so because it makes them feel ‘superior’ and ‘dominant’ over their victims. This makes the police force quite an appealing line of work for these pathetic and dangerous types of men, making it the perfect breeding ground for these malicious, abusive attitudes.

Couzens shared “grossly offensive messages” with fellow officers before murdering Everard. This surely shows just how deeply these toxic attitudes can run within policing. Given another police officer was spared prison time for spying on a 14-year-old girl back in October, it doesn’t seem like the force has suitably recognised the severity of the threat facing women and girls across the country.

And that is what makes this so frightening: the police are supposed to protect the public, but when women and girls fear the very people meant to keep them safe, who are they supposed to turn to?

Given they amount to half the UK population, this has been a huge failing by the police and reform has been long overdue. This also comes at a time when the safety of women and girls is hugely under threat, with violence against women and girls rising and reported rapes increasing by over 500% in the last two decades alone.

“Refuge decided: enough is enough”

CEO of Refuge, Gemma Sherrington, welcomes the rule changes:

Women’s confidence in policing has been in crisis for far too long. Finally, the tables are starting to turn. As new vetting and suspension regulations come into force, today (July 13th) marks the success of Refuge’s Remove the Rot campaign.

For years, we have pushed for automatic suspension of officers accused of violence against women and girls (VAWG) alongside stronger vetting procedures. At long last, the police conduct and vetting regimes have been amended to bring new regulations in.

Launched in 2023, Remove the Rot uncovered the shocking scale of police-perpetrated VAWG, including domestic abuse, sexual assault and sexual harassment. Having seen firsthand the catastrophic impact this was having on women and girls’ trust in the police, Refuge decided: enough is enough. VAWG is already at epidemic levels, and as an institution designed to protect the public from harm, the police cannot be allowed to let perpetrators slip through the net.

The new regulations, which were first announced in the government’s 2025 VAWG strategy, will require all police officers to hold and maintain vetting clearance, with new requirements to tighten suspension for those under investigation for specified VAWG offences. While these regulations depend on consistent implementation across police forces and cannot reverse the harm caused by police-perpetrated VAWG, they do send a clear message that such behaviour will not be tolerated.

This campaign win was made possible by the tireless efforts of our supporters, with over 48,000 of you signing our Remove the Rot petition which was delivered directly to Downing Street in 2024.

The head of Refuge finished with a reminder that this is just the start of long-overdue reforms of the kind of people the police force is willing to hire and empower:

We hope today represents the beginning of a future where women and girls finally feel protected by the police, as they deserve.

We deserve to feel safe with the police

Many women and girls won’t even consider contacting the police for abuse they have suffered. They may stay silent because they fear nobody will believe them, or because they want to avoid a criminal justice system that often puts victims on trial instead of holding perpetrators to account — further deepening their trauma.

However, these changes introduced to the police force, lobbied for by Refuge, are only effective from today. Those within the ranks will likely not face any penalties unless they choose to reoffend.

Yes, abusers often reoffend, so they will likely expose themselves eventually, but this again puts the burden on victims of police-perpetrated abuse to have the courage to speak up to the colleagues/mates of the very man who hurt them.

Therefore, officials should have applied these changes retrospectively to remove those already hiding within the force and tackle the rot at its very core.

After all, Refuge found over 1.1k cases of police perpetrated VAWG just between October 2021 and March 2022.

Refuge rightly says that women and girls deserve to be protected by the police — not to be abused by them.

Featured image via the Canary