Detectives investigating “honour killings” are due to receive new advice in the coming months on how to deal with crime.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has been been working closely with the Home Office to identify the dangers posed by potential victims.

The action plan is expected to be published this summer and will include “risk-assessment tool kits”, which will be designed to protect women while dealing with the delicate nature of such killings. It is expected to examine the issues and failings that were highlighted by yesterday’s case.

Despite the shortcomings in the Banaz Mahmod death, police attitudes have changed in recent years after a number of high-profile cases indicated widespread ignorance in forces across the country about the crime.

In 2000 the United Nations announced that about 5,000 women a year – 13 a day – died worldwide in “honour” crimes.

Soon afterwards, a Metropolitan Police review found that there were about 12 such killings committed in Britain every year. In 2004 guidance on investigating domestic violence, which includes “honour” killings, was issued to officers across the country.

Police reopened 122 cases that took place over a ten-year period in the belief that they could be part of an increasing number of these killings that were being committed in Britain.

The possibility that such crimes were going undetected was strengthened when it emerged that three times as many Asian women aged between 16 and 24 committed suicide, compared with the national average.

The issue again came to prominence in 2002 when Heshu Yones, a 16-year-old Kurdish girl living in West London, was stabbed 11 times and had her throat slit by her father, who had fled to Britain from Iraq. He had condemned his daughter as a slut and claimed that he was left with no option but to kill her after she began a relationship with a Lebanese Christian.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has now set up a special unit that will travel to remote villages around the world to bring back female British citizens if it is found that they are being held against their will after being forced into an arranged marriage.

Officers are now told to use risk-assessment advice that is aimed at assessing the real dangers faced by potential “honour” crime victims.

In recent years the Home Office has worked closely with the Association of Chief Police Officers to ensure that officers are aware of how to handle such investigations.

The Police Review magazine recently contained a pamphlet on how to deal with “honour” crimes.

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