Domestic Homicide Review cases 954/2025

FOI Reference: 954/2025

Request

I am making this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I am requesting further data about fatal domestic violence incidents that have occurred in your force area since 2018. 

As you will be aware, Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) are a statutory requirement under Section 9 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 (as amended by the Police and Justice Act 2006). Each review must capture structured information regarding risk assessments, referrals, and inter-agency processes.

Please provide the following information in respect of all DHRs (or equivalent Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews) concerning victims who died in your force area between January 1, 2018, and August 1, 2025 which were referred for a DHR review. 

1. A list of each domestic homicide by year referred for a DHR review.
2. For each case, state whether a full DHR was carried out and proceeded to publication. For more recent cases, please indicate if the review process is still ongoing.
3. For each case, the total number of DASH assessments conducted in relation to the deceased prior to their death.
4. For each case, the scoring of all DASH assessments in chronological order, showing the risk grading recorded in each assessment (e.g. “standard, standard, medium, high”). No dates or times are required.
5. For each case, the total number of times the deceased was discussed at a Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) prior to their death, if at all.

It is critical that this data is linked case by case, so that for each death it is clear whether a DHR was carried out, how many DASH assessments were undertaken, what risk levels were recorded, and whether the victim was discussed at MARAC.

As the individuals concerned are deceased, GDPR does not apply, and the information requested is non-identifiable.

You may find it easiest to supply the data in spreadsheet or CSV format, which would be my preference.

I trust my request can be processed without difficulty. It is explicitly confined to cases referred for a Domestic Homicide Review (DHR) and does not require a trawl of all domestic homicides or searches for suicides outside the DHR referral process. Under section 9 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 (as amended), every force must record DHR referrals in a structured way for submission to the Home Office and local Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs). These cases should therefore be readily identifiable without, for example, building a bespoke script. I note no other police force has raised any issue with identifying these records within the timeframe allotted under FOIA. 

As you will know, DHR referrals are already tracked and reported: forces routinely report them internally and to CSPs; the Home Office collates DHR statistics nationally; and CSPs must keep records of every referral and decision to commission (or not commission) a review. In light of this statutory framework, locating cases referred for DHR should not require a “blank-sheet” search across all homicide and suicide records.

You will also be aware of the Management of Police Information (MoPI) Code of Practice (Police Act 1996 s 39A) and the College of Policing’s Authorised Professional Practice (APP) – Information Management. Serious crime case files (MoPI Group 1) are retained for 100 years, and Dyfed-Powys Police’s own Retention & Disposal Schedule reflects this. Even the least serious crime files are retained for six years. These records are held and indexed for long-term operational use; identifying the small subset flagged for DHR should not require writing a new extraction script.

Response:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does not hold the information requested, this is due to the fact that responsibility, reporting and governance for undertaking DHRs are with local Community Safety Partnerships within each of the four Local Authorities across the region and the Regional Safeguarding Board Cysur. Overarching national responsibility is with the Home Office and UK Government.

I have provided the below process map hyperlink that may be of some assistance, of the processes involved in referring a case for consideration of a DHR:-

https://cysur.wales/media/ymmcqvs1/mid-west-wales-dhr-interface-process-approved-july-2018-eng.pdf

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 06/10/2025)