The Victims Commissioner Dame Vera Baird has called for a Victims Law. She has brought out a paper with 34 recommendations to put victims’ rights on a proper statutory footing, with monitoring and compliance mechanisms to hold agencies to account.
Dame Vera Baird, a former Northumbria police and crime commissioner, says: “We know victim confidence in our criminal justice system is in sharp decline. More and more victims are withdrawing their support for prosecutions and, in my recent survey of rape complainants, only around one in seven said they felt reporting could end in justice. Superficial changes are not enough if we are to reverse this downward trend. To regain the trust of victims, we urgently need a change of culture in how the justice system treats them.
“Victims are participants from start to finish, but they are currently treated more like bystanders. We must recognise justice cannot be delivered without victims and our justice system needs to reflect this. I’m calling for a redefinition of the victim that moves beyond treating them as simply an onlooker or maybe a witness, but as a recognised participant, with statutory rights to be informed, supported and to be able to make informed choices. This does not in any way undermine the rights of the defendant and does not make them a party to proceedings, or a decision-maker, but it does confirm victims as active contributors in their own right to the criminal justice process.”
All too often, she says, victim entitlements are not being delivered and the paucity of data collected on victims and their entitlements make it impossible to hold criminal justice agencies to account. Victims of anti-social behaviour should be recognised as victims of crime and receive statutory entitlement to access victim support services, and a single cross-criminal justice system complaints body, are among the recommendations.
“A Victims Law is an opportunity to finally address this issue and tackle the dilemma that victims’ rights aren’t working, aren’t enforceable and are rights only as long as the agencies responsible want victims to have them.”
You can download Victims Law Policy Paper: Victims’ Commissioner’s Proposals for a Victims Law’ at the Victims Commissioner’s website.
Comment
For Labour, Peter Kyle, Shadow Minister for Victims and Youth Justice, said: “We are pleased to see the Victims’ Commissioner calling for a new law to place victims at the heart of the justice system. After years of failed promises from the government, Labour recently introduced a draft Victims Law to Parliament that would do just that. It’s there, published, and ready to go.
“The government needs to work with us to get it onto statute without more delay, and end the scandal of victims facing the second injustice of being let down by the very system that is supposed to help them.”
