In the aftermath of June’s racist violence, PPR has been supporting multiple individuals who had been placed in shared housing (Houses of Multiple Occupation) and whose homes were attacked after a download of information from Belfast City Council’s list of local HMOs was circulated in threatening racist posts online on 10 June. (In response, PSNI officers attended some of these addresses to warn occupants to flee for their safety).

It came to light that multiple individuals at a single address were given the same crime reference number. This is problematic because a range of services, such as victim support and criminal damage compensation mechanisms, rely on these numbers; some of the people affected reported to PPR that the PSNI’s issuing of a single crime reference number to cover an incident affecting multiple separate and unrelated individuals was complicating their access to support.

Accordingly, on 6 August PPR submitted a Freedom of Information request to the PSNI. We referred to the approach set out in the PSNI's Here for You: public engagement vision, which includes a commitment to "ensuring victims of crime are at the centre of local policing delivery" (p. 7) and asked for any guidance or guidelines around treatment and support of individuals from discrete households affected by crimes committed at or against HMOs. We also asked about the issuing of crime reference numbers in such instances and any mechanisms to deal with situations in which one crime reference number has been issued to multiple victims resident at one HMO address, despite variation in the impact of the crime and the needs of each victim.

The response was

“the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) does not hold information in your requests. Enquiries made in relation to your requests failed to locate any records or documents relevant to your requests based on the information you have provided. The PSNI does not hold specific guidance in respect of victim support of crimes committed at, or against residents of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs).”

Based on this response, the learning from June’s events and their aftermath should include that:

• when a crime is committed at a House of Multiple Occupation, where residents are not related to each other, a victim-centred approach requires that each individual be given their own crime reference number.

• in instances where this has not happened, the PSNI must take steps to issue everyone retrospectively with their own reference number to facilitate their access to services and individualised follow-up.

• attending officers and record keepers should be made aware of this learning and provided with whatever guidance is required for them to act accordingly.