Thread by @louisetickle

You might remember that a couple of months ago, I started a crowdfunder to get the book by @JMoncktonSmith "In Control - Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder" out to all 381 Community Safety Partnerships in the country. CSPs commission Domestic Homicide Reviews...

Within not very much time at all, £2,800 odd had been generously donated by lots of people, some of whom, I learned through messages we exchanged, had been bereaved as a result of domestic homicides.

So the crowdfunder was going really well. And then the book's publisher, @BloomsburyBooks, landed a bombshell. They were going to send out all 381 books for free. Postage and packing. The lot.

So I sat looking at my crowdfunder homepage, wondering who to send the books to. And @caitlinmoran had earlier suggested that every MP should have one. And then... @BloomsburyBooks said they'd send all 650 MPs a copy for free too. Yep. That's 1000 books in total. Total heroes.

At this point, @JMoncktonSmith and I realised that everyone who had donated had wanted the books to go to as many people with the power to make a difference as possible. So we needed to think who that was.

We worked out that there are 46 police forces in the UK, and 91 coroners. Police officers and the coronial service are critical players not only when it comes to investigating domestic homicides, but also in decisions about what actually IS a domestic homicide.

Earlier this year I did a @tortoise investigation into the sudden, unexplained deaths of domestic abuse victims, deaths which were not investigated, and never counted. Sometimes, these deaths are in fact murder or manslaughter.

So @JMoncktonSmith and I decided the books would go to all 46 chief constables and all 91 coroners across the country. Once we have sorted out the orders and got the books sent off, I'll tweet it here - so many tweeps contributed to the crowdfunder and we are incredibly grateful.

It is also EXTREMELY WONDERFUL of @BloomsburyBooks to have supported this effort so generously - @JMoncktonSmith and I literally whooped when they told us. So thank you so much to her agent too, who I know advocated for this and achieved a fabulous result.