Thursday 9th October 2025
A statement from Wiltshire Police:
A former member of police staff whose safeguarding failures put women at continued risk of domestic abuse would have been dismissed for gross misconduct had he not resigned.
Following a disciplinary hearing held yesterday (October 8 ), seven allegations were upheld against Gavin Hudson – with six findings of Gross Misconduct. He will now be barred from ever working in a policing organisation again.
Hudson was suspended from the organisation in September 2023 and resigned in July 2024.
After the initial failures of Hudson, who worked as a Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (known as Clare’s Law) researcher, were identified, we urgently reviewed 3,778 Clare’s Law applications submitted between 2015-2023. This review, which concluded within eight months, covered the entire period Gavin Hudson worked within the domestic abuse command.
A total of 33 failures were identified as part of this review. Had these not happened, further offending may have been prevented.
These include failing to correctly identify an individual who had violence warning markers against his name in our system and, therefore, not appropriately disclosing information to the applicant. The offender subsequently stabbed his partner causing serious injuries and was later convicted of attempted murder in 2024. This allegation against Hudson was upheld.
A separate failure involved not identifying previous convictions for domestic assault against the partner of a woman who had applied for information under the scheme, despite the man having previously served a prison term for assault. The applicant was later abused by her partner. This misconduct allegation was not upheld against Hudson.
Chief Constable Catherine Roper said: “We have failed in our primary duty to protect people from harm, and I cannot overemphasise the depth of the apology I issued when we first found out about these critical service failures.
“The critical service failures, including those of Gavin Hudson, resulted in at least three women being subsequently harmed. Had we provided them with the right information, this might have been prevented.
“Between October 2023 and May last year, a dedicated team of Wiltshire Police officers and staff systematically reviewed every single Clare’s Law application made to us during the period Gavin Hudson and others worked in this area of business – the review covered applications made from April 2015 – August 2023.
“Of the 3,778 reviews, we identified 33 failures – as a result of this hearing, we now know that three women were harmed, 17 service failures – where we should have disclosed and didn’t or where inadequate research was done, and 14 administrative failures.
“Gavin Hudson’s dereliction of duty has no doubt undermined the trust and confidence our communities have in our safeguarding processes, and I understand that.
“We have changed our leadership in this area of our organisation and now have more intrusive supervision of this process.
“We will ensure ongoing organisational improvements will be made as a result of the learning from these serious failures.”
What has changed following this failure?
• We’ve strengthened the oversight and leadership of the Domestic Abuse Safeguarding Team – a dedicated Detective Inspector now has responsibility for managing the team
• Introduced a new policy for overseeing Clare’s Law applications – with a clear escalation process to ensure each decision is ratified by another person
• We have appointed more Clare’s Law specialists to the team, and we have created more robust training to those within this command
• We’ve introduced a programme of mentoring for all new joiners with a bespoke input from a specialist member of the team
• We’ve also developed our multi-agency approach to safeguarding victims of domestic abuse in addition to focusing on perpetrators. We are now working closer than ever before with our partner agencies and improved how we share information between organisations
• As a result of our organisational learning from this failure, we have helped inform the College of Policing Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme Principles, which have now formed part of our improved approach to Clare’s Law applications
• We are ensuring that everyone within our organisation understands their role in tackling domestic abuse – this has included us dedicating the month of October to an internal domestic abuse awareness raising campaign.
The disciplinary hearing today comes at the conclusion of an independent investigation undertaken by the IOPC.
Since 2023, we’ve made a total of five referrals to the IOPC regarding this matter;
• One upon identifying Hudson’s initial failures
• Two linked to failures where harm has been caused (outlined above)
• One linked to an admin failure
• One relating to the organisational response of two previous IOPC referrals involving Gavin Hudson in 2019 and 2020.
Chief Constable Roper said: “Following the referrals we made to the IOPC in both 2019 and 2020, Hudson was given management advice, and an audit of his work was undertaken.
“This was not robust enough to ensure Gavin Hudson performed his duties thoroughly and to the standard we expected. The IOPC has concluded that poor oversight and inconsistent management may have contributed to these failures, and we fully accept this.
“We have significantly improved the rigour and scrutiny in this area of our business and, whilst it should not have taken such a critical service failure for us to make these improvements, I hope this goes some way to reassure the public that our service to them will be better.”
To ensure continued oversight of the impact of this case, and assess any criminal investigation, a Gold Group continues to exist under Deputy Chief Constable Mark Cooper.
The Police Staff Disciplinary Hearing, chaired by Detective Superintendent Angela Shipp, yesterday concluded Hudson breached police standards of professional behaviour in relation to honesty and integrity, instructions, work and responsibilities and discreditable conduct. The Chair upheld seven allegations against him and concluded he would have been dismissed without notice had he not resigned.
Chief Constable Roper said: “Once again, I am truly sorry this happened. It is crucial that people feel confident in coming forward and asking for this information.
“I hope the grip and governance now in place will foster the confidence you have in us to support you when you need us.”
• If you are considering making a new application under Clare’s Law, you can access information and guidance here
• If anyone feels they are in immediate danger, please do not hesitate to call us on 999.
