Police may visit abuse homes at random

Home Secretary Teresa May said there was evidence from New York in the United States showing random visits by police to homes where domestic violence had taken place in the past resulted in a "significant decrease" in the number of incidents.

Giving evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Committee, she said: "I think there are measures we can be taking like that which could have a very real impact on cases of domestic violence."

The Home Secretary said there were "a number of issues" she wanted to look at around serial domestic offending, including the possibility of random visits.

She added there was often a "spectrum of activities" taking place around abuse, including stalking, and the issue needed to be looked at "quite widely".

Mrs May also said she was looking at rolling out a non-emergency 101 number.

The 24-hour phone number is provided by some police forces and local councils to deal with non-emergency crime such as anti-social behaviour.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "The Government is continuing to discuss the best approach to tackling violence against women.

"Serial perpetrators are one of a number of domestic violence issues we are exploring.

"We will consider the New York policing model, as well as other models and reviews, within these discussions."

n Mrs May was asked about the possibility of allowing asylum seekers to work if their cases took longer than six months to be dealt with. She said she wanted a system where people were not waiting too long.