POLICE face calls to carry out all risk assessments with stalking, harassment and domestic abuse victims in person rather than over the phone.

The plea has been made to police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne (PCC) after a Government report said Sussex Police were failing to protect victims of such crimes.

She is expected to respond to the written request from Crawley resident Richard Nixon at the next police and crime panel meeting on Friday.

Members are also anticipated to press her more generally on how reports by victims of stalking and harassment are being handled.

The news comes in the wake of stalker Michal Lane’s life sentence for killing teenager Shana Grice.

Mr Nixon asked: “Can the PCC assure me that all future [such] risk assessments with victims of domestic violence will be on a face-to-face basis with police officers.”

He also asked for officers to record responses by victims in their pocket books.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) Peel report published last month criticised the force for poor victim support. It said there was a risk of harm to vulnerable victims by dealing with some domestic abuse risk assessments over the phone and not sending an officer when required.

At the time, Deputy Chief Constable Bernie O’Reilly said the force had listened to the findings and would stop carrying out phone risk assessments within days.

He said: “The top level domestic abuse incidents where somebody might be injured or threatened or abused by somebody who’s in the house or right outside the house we still go within 15 minutes.

“I don’t want anyone to think that we have a here-and-now threat where somebody has been assaulted or threatened and we’re either (a) not going – that’s simply not true, we are – or (b) we’re doing the risk assessment over the phone. We’re not.”