Domestic Homicide reviews (DHRs) were established on a statutory basis under section 9 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 and came into force on 13 April 2011.

Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) are responsible for undertaking DHRs where the death of a person aged 16 or over has, or appears to have, resulted from violence, abuse or neglect by a relative, household member or someone they have been in an intimate relationship with.

DHRs are not enquiries into how someone died or who is to blame, nor do they form part of any disciplinary process. They do not replace, but are in addition to, an inquest and any other form of enquiry into a homicide.

The purpose of DHRs is to consider the circumstance that led to the death and to identify where responses to the situation could be improved in the future. Lessons learned from the reviews will help agencies to improve their response to domestic abuse and to work better together to prevent such tragedies from occurring again.

The Home Office has published statutory guidance on how to complete DHRs. The Winchester CSP has developed a local process based on that guidance.

Published reviews:

September 2023: An Executive Summary report has been published which is available to view as a downloadable document from this page. ^{(pdf, 539kb)}

The Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 places a duty on specified authorities to work in partnership together to undertake and publish a Strategic Needs Assessment of Serious Violence in its locality and prepare a response strategy to detail how they will prevent and reduce serious violence.

In Hampshire, this has been produced across Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton by the Hampshire Violence Reduction Partnership (VRP).  The VRP is made up of 25 separate partner agencies from The NHS, Probation, Youth Justice, Policing, Local Authorities, the Fire Service and Education to collaboratively reduce violence in our communities.

Hampshire VRP have now published the Strategic Needs Assessment and Response Strategy which are available in the related links from this page.