MORE THAN half of all Police arrests at the weekend were due to domestic violence.
Earlier this week, Thames Valley Police confirmed that they are continuing to tackle domestic abuse during lockdown.
In a post on social media, the force said: “One case [at the] weekend saw officers spending over 22 hours dealing with the incident.
“By supporting and safeguarding a victim of domestic abuse, arresting and interviewing the suspect, they were able to secure complex charges and made sure the offender is remanded in custody.
“Your Emergency Response Officers are continuing to work tirelessly to combat domestic abuse and safeguard the most vulnerable in our communities, as well as our new responsibilities with the government’s response to Covid-19.”
Police also issued more information about the Silent Solution — where victims of domestic abuse can call the Police and receive help through limited talking.
They said: “All 999 calls are directed to call centres and will be answered by BT operators. The BT operator will ask which service you need: Fire, Police or Ambulance.
“If you call 999 and don’t speak, the BT operator will be listening out for background noises — coughs, noises, taps on the phone, and pressing 55 — and will hang on the line for a certain period of time.
“If no service is requested, but anything suspicious is heard throughout the process, the BT operator will connect you to the Silent Solution system.
The Silent SolutionExternal Link is a police system used to filter out large numbers of accidental or hoax 999 calls. If you can’t speak, you will be asked to tap the phone, make a noise or press 55. The police call handler will try a number of ways so that you do not feel under pressure to carry out just one prescribed action.”
But police said: “Pressing 55 will not bring emergency services to your door and does not allow the police to track your location. By choosing to stay on the line, you are informing the police call handler that you might have an emergency that keeps you from talking, and they will do everything they can to determine your location so they can deploy officers to you.”
Callers are encouraged to give yes and no answers to questions.
“If you can say only one thing, please say your location,” they added. “If you call from a mobile, we can pinpoint and estimate location but this does not narrow down enough to provide data we can locate you on.”
