A mother, dying of cancer, forced to flee her home is denied any safe guarding

This is a story of a woman, my Mum, dying from cancer, who asked for help and was instead erased from the system.

Evidence suggests that this sort of cover-up happens to thousends of others every year. 

Non-crime incidents 

(One month in Surrey alone - these 'incidents' do not appear in crime statistics)

Linda’s story should never have happened. But it happens multiple times a day, without the victim even knowing. 

Despite clear criminal actions — her passport stolen, being prevented from gaining Power of Attorney, and being forced to care for her abusive husband against medical advice — her case was initially miscategorised as a “non-crime domestic incident.”

When Linda finally escaped with just a plastic bag of items, she was denied safeguarding again and again.

She was subjected to financial abuse through the civil legal system, forced to spend tens of thousands of pounds simply to try to recover her basic belongings, clothing, care equipment, and medical items.

When she was eventually allowed access to her home, she reported that around £40,000 worth of possessions had been stolen. Yet again, Surrey Police decided this was “not a crime.”

Incredibly, as she lay bedbound in palliative care, armed police were sent to her retirement home — an action that Surrey Police later claimed caused her no distress.

Linda died less than two months later, around eighteen months earlier than doctors had predicted.

Throughout, Surrey Police insisted that their inaction or action could not be used as a tool to harass or intimidating a victim — even when their actions clearly did so.

Another instance of 'non-crime Domestic Incident' Linda died without even being counted as a statistic. 

But Linda is not an isolated case.

Across England and Wales, thousands of victims of domestic abuse are being failed by the very systems meant to protect them. 

A National Pattern of Failure

(Surrey Alone)

Freedom of Information data show that around two-thirds of incidents involving Controlling or Coercive Behaviour (CCB) are recorded by police forces — including Surrey Police — as “non-crime domestic incidents,” even when they carry serious markers such as weapons, threats to kill, or repeat offending.

That means victims are denied a proper investigation, denied access to the Victims’ Right to Review, and effectively erased from official crime statistics.

The Home Office’s own rules are clear: once an officer identifies a notifiable offence such as CCB, it should only be “no-crimed” if there is significant evidence to the contrary.Yet in practice, cases like Linda’s are being quietly reclassified at the administrative stage — without the victim’s knowledge or any route to challenge it.

In Surrey alone, 2024 data show that among the 2037 domestic incidents  closed as “non-crime”:1,325 carried a “Threat” marker, 302 had suspected weapons, 107 there were suspected firearms - 14 there was a real 'threat to kill' 

(according to Surrey Police's 2024 FOI response, only possible after extensive lobbying)

This isn’t an administrative oversight. It’s a systemic failure.

We’re Calling for Three Urgent Reforms
1. Full Transparency
Every police force in England and Wales must publish the number of domestic abuse and CCB-related incidents recorded as “non-crimes,” including associated risk markers such as threats, weapons, firearms, control, assault, and repeat offending.

So far, every police force have refused to release this data to the public as it is 'not in the public interest' or 'not technically possible'. 

2. Informed Victims of Crime

Any decision to close an incident as 'non-crime' to be clearly articulated to victim and the right to review process changed to allow victims to contest this decision.

3. Independent Review of Linda’s Case
There must be an external investigation, entirely outside Surrey Police’s internal review structure, into the handling of Linda Hammond’s case — including the refusal to open an incident number, repeated safeguarding failures, and the decision to send armed officers to her while she was in palliative care.

Victims deserve to be counted

Families deserve the truth.

And public bodies must be held to the same standards of transparency and humanity they demand from everyone else.

Please sign this petition — your signature can help ensure no one else is erased from the record like Linda was. to demand transparency, accountability, and justice — for Linda, and for every victim failed by the system.