167 cops and staff at GMP have been accused of domestic abuse in almost four years

Shocking figures reveal 167 cops and civilian staff at Greater Manchester Police have been accused of domestic abuse since 2018. But the investigations resulted in just three court cases that ended in a conviction and the vast majority of those accused still remain with the force.

The figures were obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and shared with the M.E.N equate to almost one report of domestic abuse against a cop or civilian worker at GMP every week.

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It comes amid increasing concern about the attitudes of some police officers and the force generally to reports of domestic abuse. Earlier this year the M.E.N. reported that police officers have been captured on their own body-worn cameras encouraging victims of domestic abuse not to pursue their complaints and failing to carry out basic enquiries, a revelation Deputy mayor Beverley Hughes described as 'really very concerning'.

At a meeting of Manchester council’s communities and equalities committee in January, Coun Sarah Judge said there remained an issue with the way rank-and-file officers approached domestic abuse.

“My experience of dealing with the police, even in recent times, is still that there is an attitude of ‘that’s just a domestic’,” she said.

Failures around domestic abuse have been a feature of successive watchdog reports about GMP over recent years.

In 2017 GMP was told by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to gather feedback from victims, a recommendation it had still not carried out by the time inspectors next reported in 2019. The watchdog found GMP was also downgrading many domestic abuse incidents,