Domestic and family violence is extremely damaging, not just for the victims themselves, but other family members who witness the violence. According to the latest statistics, a fifth of all violent crime occurs in the course of or at the end of a relationship between two people, and one hundred and fifty people are killed each year by a current or former partner.

During the summer I visited The Family Justice Centre in Croydon, the first of its kind in Europe and a model I hope we can bring to Portsmouth. It is a very simple idea, but achieves amazing results. It is a one-stop shop for victims or potential victims of domestic violence, so that people seeking help do not have to trek between different agencies. Of course multi agency working is not new, we have excellent examples here in Portsmouth, but the difference in Croydon is the number of different agencies – currently 32, but due to rise to 40 – and the fact that they are all under one roof and sit alongside each other in the same room.

These agencies includes police, social workers, advocates, medical staff, housing officers, Women’s Aid, Victim Support, debt and benefits advisors and probation staff. The beauty of it is that the only additional cost is the provision of the building to house them, because the people doing the work were already being funded. The difference here is that instead of doing it in isolation, without knowing what the other were doing, is that they now do it together. Information sharing is vital and all the victims were more than happy to allow that to happen because they could see it achieved results. Instead of waiting 6 weeks to be able to set up a multi agency case conference it can be set up in just one day.

In 2004 there were four domestic violence related murders in Croydon. Since the centre opened in 2005, there have been none. In Hampshire there have been 30 such murders in the last few years - we need a Family Justice Centre here.