Separate the parties, and speak to each alone and out of earshot. An account given in the same room as the person it is about is not an account. Children are separated too, and are not asked to interpret or to choose.
What is asked, and how. Open questions, in their words, without suggesting answers. Ask what happened, what has happened before, and what they are afraid will happen next. Record verbatim.
Do not ask why they have not left. It is the question survivors report most often as the reason they stopped talking to the police, and the answer — that leaving is the most dangerous period, that there is nowhere to go, that the children, the money, the immigration status, the animals — is not information you need in order to act now.
Risk indicators that change the response.
- Strangulation or choking, at any time, however brief. This is the one to know: it is a strong predictor of later homicide, it is frequently described by the victim as "he just held my throat", and it very often leaves no visible mark at all. Ask about it directly. Any strangulation needs medical assessment even where the person feels fine, because the serious injuries appear hours later.
- Threats to kill, including "if you ever leave".
- Access to weapons.
- Escalation in frequency or severity.
- Separation, or an intention to separate. Pregnancy or a recent birth.
- Stalking, monitoring, controlling the phone, the money or the documents.
- Previous police contact, whatever the outcome.
- The victim's own assessment that they are in danger. It outperforms most checklists.
Recording. Injuries described neutrally — size, location, colour — and photographed only with informed consent and in a way that does not re-victimise. Note demeanour, the state of the room, damage, what the children said unprompted. Note what was said before anybody had time to think about it.
Expect the account to change. Retraction is a documented feature of coercive control, not evidence that the first account was false, and a response built on the assumption that it is will fail the person for years.
Safety planning and referral belong to the specialist service where you are. Know its number before you need it.
Source. World Health Organization, Violence against women fact sheet, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women ; WHO, Health care for women subjected to intimate partner violence or sexual violence: a clinical handbook, https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241548595 ; the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, CETS No. 210, known as the Istanbul Convention.
What this is not. Procedure, and not a risk-assessment tool. Every service has its own, validated for its own jurisdiction, and it governs.