Kingston police have welcomed plans to introduce Metropolitan-wide training for officers to identify the signs of honour-based violence.

The aim of the training is to reduce victims and increase the number of offenders brought to justice.

From September, each Kingston officer will be briefed on how to pursue cases and protect potential witnesses while the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will increase the number of specialist honour violence prosecutors in the capital.

So far this year, Kingston has seen four cases of forced marriages or incidences of honour violence, which included one case of alleged kidnapping.

Forced Marriage Civil Protection Orders came into place on November 25 last year and, although none have been applied in the borough so far, briefings about the orders were given at mosques and the Islamic Resource Centre in Kingston.

When acting to prevent forced marriages, an officer’s intuition and experience is as important as intelligence because of the difficulty in detecting a problem before a crime is actually committed, trainers say.

That is why training in the sensitive area of honour violence and forced marriages is so important within the police service.

Last year, Kingston officers saved a woman from a forced marriage after visiting her address and sensing a problem.

An officer working on the case, who asked not to be identified, said: “I just thought ‘I’m not happy with this’.

"Her bags were packed and I could sense something wasn’t right. I just wasn’t comfortable.

“I asked to talk to her on her own outside and she said ‘take me away’, so we put her straight in the police car and took her to a place of safety.

"She’s somewhere safe now. It is a difficult area.”

The training in Kingston will be multi-agency, across the health service, council, police, refuges and the CPS.

Jo Keogh, Kingston’s crisis intervention worker, will work alongside the police training unit to deliver training regarding domestic abuse, honour violence and forced marriages.

It is hoped senior officers will be given more intensive training which will involve information from survivors and charities in a two-day course.

A spokesman for the CPS said: “The nature of the offence means that honour-based violence remains a hidden problem in communities throughout London despite progress in the past few years.

“It is hoped that by putting forward these plans and increasing awareness of how to identify and deal with crimes of this type it will lead to more successful prosecutions.”

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