The Birmingham Community Safety Team is currently 1 of 3 pilot areas involved in the Offensive Weapons Homicide Review (OWHR) process and is coordinating all the reviews for homicides that meet the criteria in Birmingham and Coventry.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 introduced a requirement on the police and local authorities in England and Wales and the clinical commissioning groups in England and local health boards in Wales to review the circumstances of certain homicides.
An (OWHR) happens when:
- The victim was aged 18 or over.
- The events surrounding their death involved or were likely to have involved the use of an offensive weapon.
For the purposes of an OWHR, an offensive weapon is described as “any article made or adapted for use to cause injury to the person or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him, or by some other person”.
To complete an OWHR, some review partners in areas where the death occurred or is likely to have occurred in have to be involved. These include:
- The chief officer of police for the police force area.
- A local authority or a district council whose area is within a county council.
- A clinical commissioning group (CCG) in England or a local health board (LHB) in Wales.
Depending on the circumstances of the death, under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, other partners can be identified and included in the OWHR process. This includes partners in relation to:
- The last known place of residence for the victim.
- An earlier place of residence for the victim
- The place of residence of the alleged perpetrator(s)
- The police area in England or Wales of the police force that is investigating the death.
For complex OWHR cases, other criteria can be further considered when identifying review partners. This includes if:
- The location of the homicide is unknown.
- The location of the homicide is largely separate from the victim and/or alleged perpetrators.
- The potential review partner has had strong engagement with the victim, the alleged perpetrator(s) or the facts of the event that led to the homicide.
The aims of OWHRs are to:
- Establish what lessons can be identified in approach and service response and how they can be applied to prevent future homicides and serious violence.
- Prevent offensive weapons homicide and related serious violence by developing a greater local, regional, and national understanding of the role of individual and system service provision and what improvements can be made in policy, practice, or law.
- Contribute to an enhanced knowledge of offensive weapon homicides and related serious violence through improved understanding of the relationship between the victim and alleged perpetrator(s) and the ways in which they interact with relevant services.