The Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips MP, has approved the appointment of 3 new public office holders to the quality assurance (QA) board for domestic homicide reviews:
- Dame Jasvinder Sanghera
- Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs OBE
- Rachel Freeman
These members will join representatives from:
- NHS England
- His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service
- the Welsh government
All bring extensive expertise in domestic abuse, safeguarding and broader issues related to violence against women and girls (VAWG). The QA board will be chaired by the Deputy Director of the Home Office Interpersonal Abuse Unit.
The DHR process is underpinned by the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 which provides for local areas to carry out a DHR in instances where the death of a person aged 16 or over has, or appears to have, resulted from violence, abuse or neglect.
The Home Office amended this legislation via the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, so that going forward, a DHR is commissioned when the death has, or appears to have, resulted from domestic abuse as defined by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. The legislation also changes the name of the reviews to ‘domestic abuse related death reviews’ to reflect the range of the deaths which fall within their scope. We expect to commence these provisions within the coming months.
These reviews offer a vital opportunity for national and local agencies, communities and society as a whole to learn lessons from domestic abuse related deaths and treat every death as preventable.
The new QA board will play a critical role in ensuring that DHRs meet the required standards for publication. This includes:
- making sure they are following government guidance
- confirming that the DHR chair has engaged relevant agencies, organisations and family members to build a comprehensive picture
- ensuring that meaningful learning has been identified to help prevent future deaths
The introduction of the new QA board has been designed to:
- ensure that Community Safety Partnerships are provided with feedback in a more timely manner
- improve the overall quality of DHRs
- streamline the quality assurance process
Biographies
Member: Dame Jasvinder Sanghera
Dame Jasvinder Sanghera founded Karma Nirvana in 1993, the first specialist charity for victims and survivors of ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA) in the UK after she escaped a forced marriage at 16 and tragically lost her sister to HBA. She worked as the chief officer of the charity for 25 years before stepping down in 2018.
Jasvinder’s work has been recognised as instrumental in the creation of the UK’s first criminal offence of forced marriage in 2014. She has extensive experience in the charity sector and in combating domestic abuse. She has served as an expert witness in child, civil, and criminal proceedings and has previously chaired DHRs. She also held a position on the Independent Safeguarding Board for the Church of England and chaired the Leeds Safeguarding Children Partnership.
She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2013 and promoted to Dame Commander (DBE) in the 2024 Birthday Honours for her services to victims of forced marriage and ‘honour’-based abuse.
Member: Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs OBE
Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs started working in the VAWG sector in 2006 and in 2017, founded Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA), the UK’s first charity dedicated to raising awareness of economic abuse and transforming responses to it. The charity was born out of her 2016 Churchill Fellowship, during which she studied international best practices in responding to financial abuse in the US and Australia.
Under her leadership, SEA played a pivotal role in influencing the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which for the first time included a statutory definition of economic abuse in UK law and removed the co-habitation requirement in Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act, making controlling or coercive behaviour criminal post-separation.
Nicola’s work has had a transformative impact across multiple sectors, including:
- financial services
- debt advice
- domestic abuse support
She collaborated with UK Finance on the Financial Abuse Code to improve industry responses to survivors and, in partnership with Money Advice Plus led the development and rollout of the Economic Abuse Evidence Form, enabling more effective communication between debt advisers and creditors.
Her research contributions include publications on coercive control, domestic homicide, and the long-term impact of abuse on women and children. She has also served as a Research Fellow at the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) at London Metropolitan University and retains Emeritus status. In 2022, Nicola published the book titled ‘Understanding and Responding to Economic Abuse’.
In recognition of her services to victims of domestic and economic abuse, Nicola was awarded an OBE in 2020 in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Member: Rachel Freeman
Rachel Freeman spent 31 years as a police officer in Kent Police. Rachel served in a range of roles where she was a specialist safeguarding advisor and an investigator for safeguarding and public protection.
As an accredited detective, Rachel was responsible for investigations in:
- domestic abuse
- ‘honour’-based abuse
- forced marriage
- stalking
Rachel spent 6 years based at the training school for Kent Police delivering training and awareness to police and multi-agency colleagues regarding these crimes.
Since November 2022, Rachel has been an independent safeguarding consultant and trainer, a safeguarding review practitioner and co-author, an independent foster panel member and chair, and a university lecturer. Rachel regularly delivers training to police forces regarding VAWG crimes.
Rachel has significant frontline and investigative experience in public protection policing and safeguarding, as well as in strategic leadership on domestic abuse through her work in Kent Police. Rachel has experience of working with families who are bereaved because of a domestic homicide and has supported them through the DHR journey.
Rachel will be the policing representative for the QA board.
