Chiseldon Parish Council shares communications it receives which may be of interest to our residents.
Dear Chief Officer
You may recall that we have been in touch with you to let you know about Operation Awake – a scheme which aimed to provide additional support to local women in public life who are at the receiving end of abusive emails and social media posts.
The scheme was originally launched in July 2023 and as part of their commitment to Operation Awake, Wiltshire Police agreed to review it after 12 months of operation.
That review has now taken place and since 2023 when Op Awake was launched, we have received 2 reports where Op Awake was mentioned. These reports were reviewed and were assessed as not meeting the criteria for why the operation was launched. Although these reports related to unacceptable behaviour, Operation Awake was specifically created to try and protect women in public life from experiencing gender based threats and or crimes they received in the course of their work.
We are hopeful that the small number of complaints received suggests that we do not have significant issues in relation to how women in public life are treated in Wiltshire, however, we are mindful that there may have been cases that were not reported. With that in mind, we would like to continue to provide Op Awake and the new intelligence reporting method to women in public life and ask that they report gender based crimes and incidents to Wiltshire Police with the title of Operation Awake.
Please see attached updated Terms of Reference for Operation Awake, the only addition being the reporting method of non urgent incidents and intelligence. We would like to ensure that a call is still made if the incident is either a crime in action or life endanger. This will then require a 999 emergency call. We hope this link will reduce the need in some circumstances for someone to call 101. This is obviously still an option if you would rather do that, or indeed to contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
We wanted you to be aware that this scheme will be continuing to support your female councillors and indeed to support other women in public life in Wiltshire.
Together we aim to make a positive difference to the lives of women in public life and to encourage young women to consider standing for public office and furthering their careers without the shadow of this kind of abuse. We want to say to such abusers – ‘it’s not ok’ to treat women this way!
We do hope you will find the continuation of this campaign supportive and useful.
Best wishes
Liz Batten DCI Lucy Thorne
SI Salisbury Violence Against Women and Girls
Wiltshire Police