Silent crime: Jess Phillips on the ‘Cinderella’ of crimes as Raneem’s Law set to transform police investigations into domestic violence

It comes as the government outlines plans to integrate specialist domestic violence teams into police force 999 control rooms early next year, to prevent emergency services missing opportunities to save women’s lives.

The measure is part of Raneem’s Bill to transform the way the police deal with cases of violence against women and girls following problems faced by West Midlands Police.

The Express and Star, along with NationalWorld newspapers and websites, have announced the launch of a campaign against silent crime – the ongoing everyday crime across the country to give a voice to victims of violence, theft and anti-social behaviour. You can read more about our campaign below.

In 2018, Raneem Oudeh and her mother Khaola Saleem, from Solihull, were murdered by Raneem’s ex-partner. Four years later, an inquest heard that mistakes by West Midlands Police had “significantly contributed” to their deaths.

On the night of their murder, Ms Oudeh had called West Midlands Police four times to raise concerns about her safety, and the force had already responded to 10 domestic violence incidents linked to the case.

Five officers were punished for these breaches.

Ms Phillips said she wanted to do more than just give victims of domestic abuse a “good phone call” and said the pilot would be part of an ambition to prevent domestic abuse from happening in the first place.

“I don’t want to just give someone a good decision if they’ve been hit. I want them not to be hit in the first place,” Ms Phillips told Sky News.

She added: “First and foremost we must put an end to this phenomenon, and the government has a mission to halve cases of violence against women and girls within a decade.

“A lot of this work will have to be about preventing violence, changing attitudes about healthy relationships in education. It’s a mission that’s going to cut across all government departments.”

Ms Phillips said she was in discussions with the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) to determine how many stations will be included in the pilot, which is expected to start in early 2025.

Elsewhere, the minister said police officers were pleased to see the new Labour government responding to the “national emergency”.

Speaking to Times Radio, she said: “Domestic violence and violence against women and girls has always been the Cinderella.

“And actually working with the police over the last couple of weeks, I think for the first time I’m noticing the extent to which they recognise that there is a national emergency, a complete national emergency, and they are, I have to say, very pleased that the government is giving it such priority.

“So we will be working with police forces across the country and centrally to make sure that when we ask them to do things, they can be done safely and sensibly.

“I’m not going to do what the previous government did, which was just announcing a bunch of things that only resulted in nothing changing on the ground, literally nothing.”

Raneem’s aunt, Nour Norris, said those who call police for help “must be given the chance to be saved.”

Ms Norris said her sister and niece “did their best to be here today” but “the system failed”.

She said: “No one should really have to suffer what Raneem suffered.

“She was trying to explain herself, trying to get an administration order in place for herself… trying to do whatever it took to be heard, and she still wasn’t heard until she lost her life.

“My sister lost her life because she was doing her job as a police officer, because she was sacrificing herself for the mother and the daughter.”

Ms Norris joined Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Ms Phillips to meet 999 officials during a visit to Kent Police’s Coldharbour police complex in Aylesford, Kent, on Thursday.

Ms Cooper said: “What we have found is that if you have the right expertise in domestic violence it means you can get the right response to calls that come in and a good understanding of the seriousness of domestic violence as a crime and how lives are at risk, in the most serious cases, as we saw in the horrific case where Raneem and her mother Khaola lost their lives because the police failed to respond to a 999 call.

“We can’t let that happen, and that’s why we want to make sure we have the expertise we need in 999 control rooms across the country.”

The epidemic of silent crimes

According to the latest figures from the Home Office, 6,300 crimes go unsolved every day in Britain.

Government data also shows that two million crimes went unsolved in a single year in the UK, while crimes such as knife crime and shoplifting soared in the same set of statistics.

The relentless daily crime rate has prompted the Shropshire Star, its parent company NationalWorld, and sister websites and newspapers across the country to launch a campaign to give a voice to victims of violence, theft and anti-social behaviour – which so often goes under-reported.

We call this epidemic the “silent crime.”

Studies show that we only bother to report four out of ten crimes to the police. If you add these two figures together, it becomes clear that the vast majority of them occur without any repercussions. And it continues.

We want you to tell us about incidents that have happened to you, your family or friends in your neighbourhood; how it has affected you and what justice has been served – or not.

Why don’t we report all crimes and why isn’t the criminal justice system more effective in making criminals pay? It seems to me that trust in the systems that should keep us safe is at an all-time low.

Most of the time, the fault lies not with the police, but with a collapsed welfare system and politicians who have turned a blind eye for decades. This does not mean that urgent measures cannot and should not be taken. It does not have to be this way.

To force change, we must come together and remember that these ‘small’ crimes are not acceptable. You must be safe and feel safe at work, at home, in the park and in your own neighbourhoods. We need you to tell us your stories and we will take them, on your behalf, all the way to Downing Street. We must stop being silent and we need your help.

Join our investigation into silent crime in the Black Country, Staffordshire and Wyre Forest