PCC unveils pioneering work underway to protect women and girls from violence

Police and Crime Commissioner Darryl Preston has shared details of the groundbreaking projects he is funding with partners to prevent Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and hold perpetrators accountable. 

Early Intervention and Prevention is one of five key pillars in the Commissioner’s Police and Crime Plan, with local and national funding invested into interventions aimed at reducing serious violence including VAWG.

VAWG is treated nationally as an emergency, with the Government committed to halving the number of these crimes within a decade. Locally, the Commissioner has supported the use of Serious Violence Duty funding to expand the award-winning Businesses Against Abuse (BAA) initiative across the county.

Initially rolled out in Peterborough and Fenland, BAA made its mark in Cambridge with funding from the Government’s Safer Streets 5 scheme. It offers free training and accreditation to businesses (in the retail and night-time economy) and transport companies.  

The model was developed by the Constabulary in collaboration with Cambridge City Council, the non-profit organisation Cambridge Business Against Crime (CAMBAC) and Cambridge and Peterborough Rape Crisis Partnership. It sees staff trained to spot predatory behaviour before it escalates into offending and establishes a network of safe spaces for customers and staff to prevent sexual harassment and abuse against women and girls.

Since its launch in Cambridge in October 2024, more than 300 businesses have received accreditation while over 3,000 staff have been trained. 

Bus firm Stagecoach East saw bus drivers intervening on numerous occasions to stop abuse against women on its vehicles in the first three months of joining the scheme. Drivers diverted a bus service to take a vulnerable woman to a safe area, directly intervened to keep predators away from a young girl – one of whom went on to be arrested – and have helped young women feel safer upon reaching their destinations.

As part of a planned expansion in 2025/26, the Commissioner has agreed to fund 15 further training sessions countywide – six sessions in Peterborough, three in Fenland and six in Cambridgeshire – which will collectively reach up to 750 people.

The scheme, which won the national Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) and AtkinsRealis Collaboration Award earlier this year, will be jointly delivered by the Constabulary and Cambridge and Peterborough Rape Crisis Partnership alongside Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) in each area.

The Commissioner also hosted the county’s first-ever interactive VAWG Prevention event which brought together more than 60 partners from across the statutory, voluntary and community sectors to collectively share ideas and experiences of local successes, challenges and opportunities.

Six key themes emerged from the event which will inform future work: early intervention with children and young people; empowering communities in public spaces to prevent VAWG; enabling VAWG support service providers to contribute; engaging with, and listening to, survivors and victims; challenging and reviewing local workplace policies and practice and continuing to build on the strong and effective partnership working already in place.

Darryl said: “The long-term emotional and psychological impact of this kind of violence is devastating. This is why we are leaving no stone unturned in our mission to prevent these crimes happening from the outset and engaging our communities to play their part.

"By working in partnership, we can make a tangible difference to the safety of women and girls. It is both unacceptable and unjust that women face these risks in our communities, and I will continue to do everything in my power to eradicate this offending from Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.”

The Commissioner, who chairs the Countywide High Harms Board which takes a strategic lead on the priority issues of drugs, serious violence, serious and organised crime (SOC) and VAWG, has made clear his intention to tackle VAWG using a whole-system approach.

Work is underway to refresh and expand the ‘Safer Corridors’ Toolkit with colleagues from the PHSE Service and Cambridge and Peterborough Rape Crisis Partnership.  The toolkit focuses on developing awareness and confidence amongst young people to recognise, challenge, and report sexual harassment and sexual violence, helping to prevent these behaviours.

Ongoing funding also enables partners to ensure perpetrators are appropriately pursued and challenged through domestic abuse perpetrator interventions as part of a countywide Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Strategy. This includes:

• The management of high-risk offenders through a Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Panel and a ten-week ‘behaviour change’ programme for medium risk offenders delivered by the county’s Probation Service. The eight perpetrators who completed this in the first quarter of the year reported that it helped them better manage conflict. 
• The opportunity for standard risk, first-time offenders to attend the Cautioning and Relationship Abuse (CARA) programme. Of the 23 people who completed post-programme feedback between April and June 2025, 96 per cent said it had impacted on how they had viewed their own behaviour and motivated them to change.
• A Multi-Agency Stalking Intervention Project that includes a Consultant Counselling Psychologist providing one to one intensive case management and intervention to high-risk perpetrators of stalking so those presenting the highest risk can access an intensive, one-to-one case management and intervention programme with a Stalking Consultant Psychologist. In a recent case, a man with 20 years of domestic abuse/stalking offending behaviour was supported to change over the course of ten sessions and went on to secure employment, reduce his drug use and fully comply with the requirements of his probation order.
• A Respect Young People’s Programme (RYPP) which works with young people aged 10-16 years old and their parents or carers over 12 weeks to address child and adolescent to parent violence and abuse (CAPVA). Between April and June, eight young people and their families completed the programme, with one hundred per cent of parents and carers reporting positive change and improved safety and protection in the family home.