Victim Support

Andrew George Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Scott. I am pleased to have secured this debate on the support for victims in the judicial system. Many Members are interested in the subject, and some might wish to take part in the debate. I made it clear to both the Minister and the shadow Minister that I wish to focus on the tragic case of Claire Oldfield-Hampson, which I raised more than 10 years ago in a parliamentary debate on 8 January 2001.

I have been working on the case with Joanne Bryce and her family, who come from my constituency in St Ives. We have pursued a number of issues that have arisen from the killing of Claire Oldfield-Hampson in 1996. Unfortunately, those issues have never resulted in any kind of closure for the family and many remain unresolved. I am pleased to say that my constituent was able to visit me in Parliament today and will be monitoring this debate.

I wish to bring this issue to a number of general conclusions that may be relevant to other cases in today’s debate. I have given the Minister advance notice of the background to the case and the issues that arise that are relevant to his portfolio. A range of concerns fall under the broad umbrella of victim support. No doubt, Members will find that a number of those concerns differ from the ones that they want to raise, but some will be similar.

We are debating this issue on a day when the consultation on the Government’s sentencing policy has come to a close. Although that is not directly relevant to the issues that I raise, there are some indirect references to the manner in which the cases are dealt with. In this instance, the case was mounted in mitigation. In other words, the convicted was prepared to accept a manslaughter charge rather than a murder charge.

I come to this issue in support of my constituents. I have no legal training or any experience of the court system, particularly the criminal justice system. Looking at the issues that have arisen from this case, I have to say that I was overwhelmingly shocked at what I considered to be an absolute travesty of justice. As I said in the debate more than 10 years ago, this is the case of an innocent victim who was treated by the judicial system as if she were the perpetrator of the crime and her husband the victim: the trial primarily dealt with the case in mitigation and did not address any of the points that would have challenged that.

The people whom we are talking about today are the victims of a series of events, which, if their case gets to court, could be described as life-changing, life-defining or, tragically in the case of Claire Oldfield-Hampson, life-ending. The justice system uses as a metaphor the image of the scales—the scales of justice—which have to be balanced. Yet the debate that takes place is often remote from the events themselves and can be conceptual and intellectual. Those engaged in the system never wish to appear to prejudge any case. None the less, the case that I wish to present today shows that victims are often treated in an imbalanced manner by the system itself.

Let me explain the background to the case. According to the courts, Claire Oldfield-Hampson was unlawfully killed by her husband with a hammer on 25 September 1996. He buried her body in a shallow grave in the garden in the early hours of the following day. Within two days, he was using her bank accounts and leading a life of deception involving their seven-year-old child, Felicity, who provided excuses for her mother’s absence.

The deception was perpetrated for two years. Calls in person and by telephone were received by Hampson and further excuses were given. Regular contact was maintained between Felicity and her grandmother, Mary Oldfield, who became a constituent of mine, but who sadly died a few years ago. At that time, she lived only five miles away. Mary met the child on a fortnightly basis. She baked cakes to send to Claire, knitted for her and exchanged Christmas, birthday and wedding anniversary cards. They had been very close. Mary Oldfield gave a cheque for £3,000 to David Hampson to give to Claire to help them through some difficult times and she offered them a car. The family was supportive to the Hampsons in many ways.

The deception continued until the family—Joanne Bryce and her husband, Alex—became increasingly concerned and encouraged the commencement of police investigations in December 1998. Hampson confessed to killing his wife only when it became absolutely clear that there was no other possible explanation for her absence.

Hampson was tried at Northampton Crown court in October 1999. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility because he alleged that he was depressively ill as a result of his wife’s constant nagging.

Judge Francis Allen concluded by accepting that Hampson’s wife behaved in a way that was calculated to impact on his mind. The judge gave Hampson a six-year prison sentence that was then reduced to four years on appeal in July 2000. He was released in December 2000, only 14 months after the original trial.

During the two-year deception, Hampson plundered Claire’s bank account, shares and insurances to the tune of £11,000 and fraudulently claimed benefits. The intention of seeking a conviction for fraud was dropped on the grounds that Hampson would ultimately be tried for a more serious capital offence. Four days before the original trial, the Crown Prosecution Service accepted a plea for manslaughter. No witnesses were called; there was no jury; and the trial took under an hour. If anyone wishes to read an example of what I consider to be injustice, they should read the transcript of that trial, which was purely a case in mitigation.

Claire Oldfield-Hampson was killed by her husband in 1996 and then she was exhumed by the state from the garden that she had been buried in, dragged along to the court and slaughtered again in public—verbally. It was a travesty, frankly. I urge people to look at this case. If it is an example of what our judicial system does, we should be ashamed of what we do in the name of the victims of capital offences, such as murder and manslaughter.

In fact, there were several travesties in the court, beginning with the opening words of the defence counsel. The defence counsel said that Hampson was

“a man of good character”.

Hampson killed his wife; buried her in the garden; took her money from her; deceived her family and the world; involved a child in that deception; attempted to defraud the benefit system; fraudulently accepted money from his mother-in-law; and he only accepted his guilt at the 11th hour. In addition, he had a less than impressive—in fact, it was rather dubious—employment record. Apart from all that, perhaps he was a man of good character, but the rest of it does not look very good, does it? Nevertheless, we were told that he was

“a man of good character”.

We were also told that Hampson was depressively ill and that there was a causal link between that illness and the killing. Two years after the killing, he was seen by two psychiatrists. Basically, the case for prosecuting him for manslaughter rather than murder was based on what I described at the time and still describe now as the flimsy science of retrospective psychiatry. Somehow, it is thought that a psychiatrist can determine the state of mind of someone two years previously—someone who, as the evidence shows, was known to be very successful at deceiving people—yet Hampson was able, in my view, to deceive everyone involved in the whole system into believing that he had taken those actions and killed his wife as a result of her constant nagging, which we were told had impacted on his mind. In fact, we were told that the nagging was calculated to impact on his mind. So we were told that Claire was constantly nagging Hampson, making him depressively ill. Once again, however, there was little corroborative evidence and no opportunity for proper cross-examination.

Perhaps what was most hurtful of all were the claims made in the case that Felicity, Claire’s seven-year-old daughter, had

“received very little love or affection from her mother”.

The transcript of the case continues, saying that Felicity

“turned very much more to her father, who was a warm, kind and loving parent to her.”

I sent the Hansard report of the 2001 debate in Parliament on this case to the then Director of Public Prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith, and subsequently I met him to take him through what I considered to be some of the inadequacies in the system. We went through some of the issues and indeed he wrote to me again in August 2001 to try to contradict some of the claims that I had made to him. The claim that Claire’s daughter received very little love or affection from her mother might sound like a rather subjective assessment, but I felt that it was very significant and that I should say so. Joanne Bryce and her husband demanded a police investigation, which was undertaken by Bedfordshire police, as a result of the complaints that were made about the way that Claire’s family were treated.

Then David Calvert-Smith wrote to me out of the blue in December 2002 with a letter of apology, which I thought was very noteworthy. In that letter, which is dated 24 December 2002, he said:

“Specifically, in my letter of 7 August 2001 third paragraph I asserted there was no evidence on the prosecution file to support the statement “that Claire loved her daughter very much”. At the time of the prosecution and indeed at the time I wrote to you that was correct. What has now become apparent from the Bedfordshire enquiry is that had other witnesses been seen and interviewed during the original investigation and other sources of information examined and revealed to the CPS, then that assertion (that there was no evidence that Claire loved her daughter) should not, and would not, have been made. Although not directly privy to the Bedfordshire Police enquiry, the Chief Crown Prosecutor for Cambridgeshire and his staff have been assisting that Force’s investigation in every possible way. I do not know and cannot anticipate what the eventual outcome of that enquiry will be”—

etc, etc. He continued:

“My statement will understandably have caused distress to Mr and Mrs Bryce. I am sorry that you and they were given what has now been revealed to be wrong information.”

The fact is that one of the fundamental arguments in mitigation was the charge that Claire was an uncaring and unloving mother and a nagging wife. Of course, just a small amount of additional investigation proved that charge to be untrue.

Quite apart from what, in my view, was the travesty of justice meted out to the memory of Claire Oldfield-Hampson by two courts of law, a number of other issues need to be addressed. Some of them have been addressed by the Government since the trial. The Crown Prosecution Service at Huntingdon had said that the charge would never be downgraded from murder to manslaughter, yet Claire’s family were told only five days before the trial that the charge would be manslaughter rather than murder when the CPS phoned to let them know, giving them no opportunity to have a discussion or to challenge why.

My constituent, Joanne Bryce, points out:

“There was no trial only a hearing with no jury and no witnesses, and no-one to challenge the information that had been taken from Hampson.”

Only Hampson’s argument was heard. Joanne also pointed out:

“There was a complete character vilification of Claire – 9 out of 11 national newspapers ran with the headline “Nagging Wife killed by husband”. It seemed that nagging was the capital crime and the killing just a minor incident. All this went unchallenged…Claire’s personal diaries must have evidence of family relationship”.

There was certainly a lot of material in Claire’s diaries that was never made available at the time or shown to the court. There was also video evidence about Felicity’s relationship with her mother and Joanne notes that

“there were 66 exhibits which had there been a trial would have been in the public domain.”

I have already mentioned the flimsy science of retrospective psychiatry. The police failed to provide a Home Office information pack; they did not provide a family liaison officer and there was a failure to identify the senior investigating officer, so Claire’s family were never told who that officer was. There was a failure to provide information about the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme in respect of the funeral expenses; there was a failure to obtain evidence of Claire’s character; there was a failure to investigate fraud and theft; and the family were denied access to Felicity, who had been placed in the care of the murderer’s family.

There are other issues that have arisen that I want the Minister to address, particularly the fundamental right of a murderer to remain the next of kin of their victim. As a result, the murderer still has the right to access the estate of the person they have murdered, in the case of a domestic killing such as this one, so my constituent, the sister of the woman who had been killed, had no right of access to the house, whereas the murderer’s family could go in and help themselves to what they wished. She had to plead with the murderer for access to the death certificate to proceed with the funeral. The murderer had full access to all the family heirlooms and to Claire Oldfield-Hampson’s records from way before they first met, but all of that was denied to the blood relatives.

I think the Minister knows the question I wish to ask today. Is it not right that someone charged with a capital offence, but not yet convicted, should have such rights at least suspended, if not removed entirely? I cannot understand how this kind of situation can occur in this country, with a murderer having control over the estate and life memory of the person they have murdered. Should we not be addressing ourselves to these issues?

There was a swathe of other failings in the case, many of which were identified by the Bedfordshire police investigation. The report of the investigation was submitted in December 2002, but even now, nearly 10 years on, the family are seeking to gain access to the full version, which contains more than 100 redactions.

Before today’s debate, I sent the Minister my notes, and I urge him to look carefully at the case and address the issues that I have outlined. I had hoped that the Claire Oldfield-Hampson case was a one-off, but since then other people have contacted me about similar ones. Recently, Angela Geddes of Carnoustie in Angus contacted me. She spoke out after her father Roger admitted killing his wife Ann at the couple’s home there. She gave me a newspaper cutting, which states:

“The daughter of a woman killed in a horrific axe attack by her husband has hit out at a decision to allow her father to plead guilty to a reduced charge of culpable homicide. Speaking after her father Roger Geddes admitted killing wife Ann, the couple’s daughter Angela Geddes said: ‘The family are devastated at the lack of justice and the charade we have seen in court’.”

That case is in the different legal context and judicial system of Scotland, but the killing took place only last year and the same argument applies. Angela Geddes says:

“I do believe he has managed to deceive the psychiatrists who do not know his true colours and only hope he shows them before he is released and becomes a danger to my family and the wider public.”

Again, just last year psychiatric evidence was used to mount a case in mitigation.

It is a good thing that this Government and the previous Government have committed resources to Victim Support and other advocates for victims. There is also the code of practice for victims of crime, but even Victim Support has contacted me to complain that although the code covers most of the issues,

“Local Criminal Justice Boards have now been asked to stop reporting on it to the Ministry of Justice, meaning it’s now essentially not being enforced. This bodes very badly for victims”.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman paints a very vivid picture of the trials of his ongoing fight for justice for his constituents. I was interested to read the extract from Hansard that he sent us, of a speech he made in the House in 2001:

“First and foremost, our justice system should consider the victims and their families. After all, it is primarily on their behalf that our society seeks to uphold the law and administer justice. Victims are already grieving and aggrieved parties. The process should not leave them more aggrieved.”—[Official Report, 8 January 2001; Vol. 360, c. 852.]

In my constituency, James McVey, a young man of just 18 years of age, lost his life to what is sometimes termed “a one-punch assault.” Does the hon. Gentleman agree that at times far too much emphasis is placed on the rights of the perpetrators of acts of violence and not on the rights of their victims?

[Andrew George]

Although I say it myself, I could not have put it better myself. The hon. Gentleman’s point is absolutely right. The conclusion that we draw from these kinds of cases is that the perpetrators appear to be treated with a great deal more respect than the victims. I do not think that we have the balance right; the scales of justice have tipped over too far in some cases.

I am aware that many other people wish to take part in the debate and I apologise for having spoken at such length, but I feel very passionately about this deeply concerning matter. I have these questions for the Minister. Does he agree that the issues raised by this case and by the difficulty that we have had in trying to secure justice, clarity and closure, would benefit from a departmental review? What progress has been made in the 10 years that have passed since I first raised the issues, and what progress still needs to be made? Although the introduction of victim statements has helped, they have been rather intermittent and not widely used, so what further proposals are there to ensure that victims and their families receive fair treatment? Does the Minister agree that it is appropriate to suspend the rights of people charged with murder and manslaughter, including their entitlement to be next of kin, hold the death certificate and handle the victim’s estate, and finally, does he agree that claims made in mitigation should be open to challenge in court by victims and their families?

My constituents have been unable to achieve what they seek: closure. In fact, the further they look into the case the further they appear to be from closure. We would certainly welcome an opportunity to meet the Justice Minister to ensure that lessons are learnt from this and the many other cases in which we believe justice has not been served.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) on securing this timely debate about the wider topic of support for the victims of crime and the narrow case he raised. He is a doughty champion of his constituents and for a decade he has worked on their behalf on the case he mentioned. We should respect the determination with which he represents his constituents.

I begin by making it absolutely clear that the Government are committed to placing victims and their families at the front and centre of the criminal justice system. I view my remit as the Minister responsible for victims and for the wider issue of offender management through the prism of victims. Let us consider the system changes we are trying to deliver around, for example, work in prisons. What are they for? They are to generate the resources for offenders to compensate their victims and to create more resources to assist the victims of crime. One proposal in the Green Paper is to make it a duty for sentencers to consider a compensation order as the first point of departure in their sentencing. Hon. Members will have to wait until we formally respond to the consultation and introduce the legislation, but I do not see anyone demurring from strengthening that duty. That is the direction of policy—to ensure that victims are our consideration.

The future victims of crime, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) made clear, are absolutely at the centre of concern. That is why we are advocating a rehabilitation revolution and a complete step change in how offenders are dealt with and managed by our system. If we fail to effectively rehabilitate them while they are in our system, they will go out and reoffend again, and we have to address the dreadful reoffending rates. I suspect that he and I are in the same place on that. The Government face the constraint, of course, of the legacy of the financial position we received from our predecessors.

We are committed to ensuring that criminal justice agencies work to help families through the process of the investigation and trial, and afterwards. We are committed to providing families with a voice in the criminal justice system. We are committed to providing them with the support and the help that they need to deal with the consequences of crime. It is deeply unfortunate that the case raised by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives was mishandled. I understand the pain that such a traumatic experience can cause for bereaved families, but I accept that as much as I might understand the pain, it is beyond the power of any Government or Minister to repair that trauma. All Governments, however, will want to do their reasonable best to continue to improve the service to victims.

Support to victims and their families has improved dramatically since the case described by my hon. Friend. He referred to the work of Joanne Bryce, which, over a prolonged period, has contributed significantly to that improvement. Many of the things that she identified in association with the case have led to direct improvements, which I will cover if I have time. Constantly improving the system will continue.

During the debate, my hon. Friends made some suggestions that I will want to look at. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) suggested that there should be a positive duty to explain the absence of a victim impact statement to the parole board hearing. I undertake to look at that extremely good suggestion.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) drew attention to an anomaly concerning retailers who live above their premises, the recording of crime and the sort of support triggered by victim support in cases of assault. We will constantly look at such suggestions, with the objective of improving the system.

I want to be clear to the Chamber that the law is on the side of the victim and the victim’s family. In the case of homicide, there are safeguards against the offender benefiting from the crime. Under the rules of forfeiture, any person found guilty of murder is automatically disqualified from inheriting property from their victim. In the case of manslaughter, they are disqualified unless a specific court order is granted in their favour. The bereaved family can make an application to the court to ensure that the killer is not responsible for the administration of the victim’s estate, under section 116 of the Senior Courts Act 1981. I understand fully that people who have just suffered such a tragic loss are likely to find the process confusing or complicated. That is one reason why the improvements in support are so important, and why, since October 2009, the Ministry of Justice has supported an advice helpline to provide legal advice to relatives who have been bereaved by homicide, and advice on associated personal and social issues.

[Andrew George]

That is an encouraging reply. Will the Minister clarify whether those rights were in place at the time of the trial that I referred to today? If so, do victims now get a level of support and advice, through those procedures, to ensure that their rights can be enforced and that the perpetrators of homicide are not entitled to determine the outcome of the estate of victims, as happened in the case I raised today?

[Mr Blunt]

That is the case. The right to apply to the court is in the Senior Courts Act 1981, so the right was in place. As my hon. Friend pointed out, however, the family were in ignorance of it. In the spirit of constantly trying to improve the service we provide victims, there is now an advice line for bereaved people in such situations to draw their attention to their rights under the law.

Since the mid-1990s, there has been a great deal of work to improve the experience of victims and their families in the criminal justice system. Criminal justice agencies are more victim-focused and more readily able to take account of victims’ wishes and needs at every stage of the justice process. The courage of victims in coming forward to report crime and giving evidence is central to a strong, fair criminal justice system. Coming forward can sometimes be daunting for victims, especially those who are vulnerable or intimidated. It is therefore right that there are protections for victims in the system and that there are services to which they are entitled and safeguards against further victimisation. We are not complacent, however. There is more work to do and I am currently reviewing the support that victims are given at each stage of the process—investigation, prosecution, trial and beyond.

In 2006, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service worked together to introduce witness care units in every police force area in England and Wales. Witness care units are dedicated teams that keep victims and witnesses updated and informed about developments in a case from a suspect being arrested to an offender being sentenced. They provide victims with vital information on bail conditions, court dates and outcomes. In the same year, the code of practice for victims of crime was introduced. It sets out the services that criminal justice agencies must deliver for victims of crime. It specifies how victims should be kept updated, how often the police and other agencies should contact them, and ensures that the criminal justice system as a whole recognises the central role of victims in the delivery of justice.

I am conscious, Mr Scott, that I will not be able to do justice to the debate in the time that I have available. I hope that hon. Members will forgive me.

Other individual agencies have their own initiatives to help to ensure that victims are kept informed and engaged and, above all, kept safe. The police provide bereaved families with specialist support and a single point of contact through nominating a family liaison officer—a specially trained police officer who will explain the criminal justice process to the family, and act as their first point of reference for any questions. I should point out that in 2008-09, the last year for which we have figures, victim satisfaction with the police was 83%.

The CPS has introduced the victim focus scheme for bereaved relatives. Under the scheme, the prosecutor will write to the bereaved family through the family liaison officer, and offer to meet them to explain the role of the CPS, the court process, the charges faced by the defendant and the role of the victim personal statement. If I have time, I will say more about victim personal statements in a moment.

Under the victim focus scheme, prosecutors will meet bereaved families again if a defendant is convicted, in order to answer further questions. Meeting relatives when there has been an acquittal, which can be equally traumatic, is also being piloted.

The National Offender Management Service operates the victim contact scheme. Victims are eligible when an offender is sentenced to 12 months or more in custody for a violent or sexual crime. The scheme makes sure that victims of serious crime are kept informed if there are developments or changes in the offender’s sentence, and that they have an opportunity to submit evidence to parole board hearings and request licence conditions.

Throughout the criminal justice process, there is support for victims that did not exist in the 1990s. Criminal justice agencies have embedded consideration for the welfare of victims in their ways of working and in their internal procedures. A good example of how that works across the full range of victim contact with the system is the victim personal statement, which was introduced in 2001. It is the determination of this Administration to ensure that the victim personal statement will count for more than it does now. Governments of either colour will want to continue to improve support to victims of crime.

I am conscious, Mr Scott, that I have not been able to respond as fully as I would like, but there is much more to come from this Administration regarding support for victims of crime, making sure that offenders are the ones who will be held accountable; the burden of dealing with victims of crime will fall more on them. Victims will be receiving appropriate support from the state as well.