Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Sarah Virginia Brinton (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the Minister for meeting me and others to discuss this group of amendments about support for victims. I was pleased that she said that the Government would bring proposals forward to strengthen victims’ rights; I was slightly less pleased that it was "in due course". We have heard an awful lot tonight about an awful lot of reviews in future, and I am mindful of the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, after which we were also told that there would be future reviews on stalking law. Much of the difficulty that faces victims navigating the criminal justice system is because nobody is taking hold of the evidence that we have about what is and is not working There has been a substantial amount of legislation over the last few years, with the victim personal statement scheme in 2001, witness care units, the code of practice for victims of crime from April 2006, the victims’ fund, victim support, restorative justice, and of course the creation of the Victims’ Commissioner. In January 2015, the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, said in her first Victims’ Commissioner report: "I raised concerns about the process, the process was almost worse than the actual journey of being a victim" Her report noted that justice agencies failed to demonstrate "compassion, empathy and patience" when handling complaints from victims. She said that, "victims feel ignored, unimportant and confused when raising concerns about their treatment" The report took into account the experiences of over 200 victims and assessed the performance of all criminal justice agencies listed in the victims’ code, and the review found that inadequate attention was paid to the "personal touch" that was needed The Government responded thereafter, and there has sadly been very little progress—and the Public Accounts Committee published earlier this year a report that noted that the, "system is bedevilled by long standing poor performance including delays and inefficiencies, and costs are being shunted from one part of the system to another … The criminal justice system is not good enough at supporting victims and witnesses …Timely access to justice is too dependent on where victims and witnesses live … The Ministry has been too slow to recognise where the system is under stress, and to take action to deal with it … There is insufficient focus on victims, who face a postcode lottery in their access to justice due to the significant variations in performance in different areas of the country" So "due course" is just not good enough; we need to move forward and need it urgently. The core of the problem is that victims’ rights are currently not covered by entitlements in the victims’ code, originally designed in 2015 to make the system more responsive and easier to navigate. It is just not legally enforceable and places discretionary accountability on to the agencies, and victim feedback strongly suggests that agencies often fail to apply the code. Agencies that should be guided by the code are aware that a failure to provide the service does not make the service provider liable to any legal proceedings.