Victims and Prisoners Bill (First sitting)

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Lovely. We now have Ellen joining us as well. Ellen, could you introduce yourself, please? [Interruption.] Ah. We will carry on, and hopefully Ellen will be able to join us as time progresses. Can I ask Anna McMorrin to ask the first question, please?

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

Q Welcome, everybody. First, can I turn to Jayne Butler? Your report on what has changed since the Government’s end-to-end rape review, “The Rape Review—Two Years On”, has been published today. Do you think this Bill will tackle the historic low rates of rape prosecution?

Ellen Miller: I hope you can hear me okay. I am Ellen Miller, interim CEO at SafeLives.

[The Chair]

Thank you. We are very pleased that you can join us.

[Anna McMorrin]

Jayne, can you tell the Committee what you think the Bill will do to tackle the historic low rates of rape prosecutions? Can you set out what you have said in your report today?

Jayne Butler: We had a lot of hope that the Bill would really change things for victims, particularly given the commitments that were made two years ago in the rape review. While there has been some positive progress on some things, there has been nowhere near enough to make a difference to the figures, and to the people on the ground who experience sexual violence and go to court. We can see that in the stats. It is evident, and does not really need me to speak to it.

There are still huge issues to do with the charges, conviction rates and use of scorecards. We talked in our report about the lack of understanding of who is using the criminal justice system and how, and a range of other things to do with victims and the specific legislation. For example, currently we do not have protection for counselling notes when victims come to court, and the Bill will not solve that. We do not have the security that victims will get support throughout the process and beyond. We hear time and again from people who report through the criminal justice system, then get to the end of the process and feel discarded. Those are the ones who are coming in, which we know is a tiny proportion of those affected by these crimes.

We feel that there is no genuine legacy in the Bill for ISVA roles, which have been really prioritised by the Government and funded at a much higher level than they were previously. They are highly regarded roles, but we still do not see the impact of them on the ground, and there is nothing to change that in the Bill. We see lots of hints at rights in the Bill that will not necessarily result in a genuine change for victims on the ground, because they will not have a way to pursue them—for example, through having independent legal advice that would help victims to challenge decisions that are made on their behalf, and to deal with it when the interests of the criminal justice agencies do not necessarily align with their own. That needs to be there, too. There is a whole raft of things; I could be here all day.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q You have touched on several things there. Can you expand on the advice and support that are lacking as rape victims go through the process, and on what you would advise should be in that process?

Jayne Butler: We know that rights are effective only if they go with equivalent responsibilities and accountabilities for not being upheld. To really make the rights in the Bill meaningful, and to actually change things for anyone who is pursuing a sexual violence issue within the criminal justice system, we would need an independent legal advice model that supports victims in understanding what is happening to them and how to make challenges. The Bill provides rights to people, and the idea that you can make a challenge—but no funding, no support and no way of actually making those challenges.

We are in a system where the criminal justice agencies are failing victims. The Bill gives victims more rights, but what does it do to support those already failing agencies to change anything? Right now, the responsibility for doing that falls time and again to the voluntary sector—to services that are underfunded and that constantly need to do more, challenge more and pick up issues and failures that come from individual cases and from systemic issues. Without any funding or decent proposal to give victims advice, the Bill leaves victims with nothing, and the voluntary sector with not enough funding and massive demand to pick up.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Can you give a little more detail on independent legal advice for rape victims, and how you would see it working?

Jayne Butler: Sure. We would like to see a national hub provided for legal advice. We are not looking for that legal advice to give victims party status in legal proceedings; that is not what we are asking for. It is much more about ensuring that every time a victim has a problem to overcome, they can get some legal advice about how to challenge it. That might be a right to review; it might be a disclosure request for counselling notes or something else that is being asked for that they do not feel is relevant and that they feel is invasive and further traumatising them within the system.

We want it to be an independent service that will operate outside the current criminal justice agencies to ensure that victims feel that they have somebody who will act in their interests. A pilot has already been successful in Northumbria, and there is a strong evidence base that such models exist in other jurisdictions, including Australia, California and Ireland. We have put in a really detailed written submission to the Committee about this.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Just looking at the duty on specific authorities to collaborate with each other and commission victim support services, do you think that the duty will deliver a more effective service for victims of domestic abuse and serious sexual offences?

Jayne Butler: Not as it stands, no. Our concern is that it will not really deliver any improvements to victim services, partly because there is no funding attached to it. How do you ask people to collaborate around a massive demand without actually putting money in to provide those services? Often, we find in commissioning processes in this sector—and probably in others too—that as commissioners gain responsibilities, they pass some of the risk on to a provider, so we will start to see services being commissioned to deliver x within three working days for very small money. We have seen this across the board in other sectors before, and that is the real concern around this—that the duty to collaborate is not strong enough to give victims’ services, usually provided by the voluntary sector, a decent enough voice in talking about what is needed, demonstrating the demand and getting those service actually available for victims.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Should that duty include other victims of crime?

Jayne Butler: Potentially, yes. It is not necessarily my area.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Just to give a sense of the duty to collaborate, what currently does not exist and what, I suppose, the ambition is for what will exist in the future, can you tell me—you do not have to have the exact data—how many of your members of Rape Crisis across the country have any funding from mental health services to run specialist trauma-based services for victims of rape?

Jayne Butler: If it is one, I will be surprised. It is probably not—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We are very pleased you can be.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Rachel, do you believe that the duty to collaborate should include child victims of crime?

Dame Rachel de Souza: Absolutely. I have been a big supporter of the Bill. I have to say that the ministerial team’s civil servants have worked incredibly well with us throughout the Bill’s passage. One of the things we have been pressing them on is making sure that children’s voices and experiences as victims are at the centre of the Bill. That is obviously why I am here today. I am happy to see the duty to collaborate there, but I would like a bit more accountability around it, which goes the last person’s comments. I am really pleased that they are there, but if we are going to put children as victims in the Bill, we have to make sure that we recognise that they experience crime and being victims differently. What we need to put around them to make sure they are supported, and can process things and get justice, is different. I would almost like a duty of accountability as much as a duty to collaborate.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q We have seen part 3 come into the Bill at a late stage, so it includes victims and prisoners. In your view, does this detract from the main elements? Can you comment on what the prisoners element adds?

Dame Rachel de Souza: I had intended to reserve my comments to children as victims, because that is what I am here to talk about. I do not want to let perfection be the enemy of good. I want a victims Bill that has children at the centre and understands children’s unique experiences. From what I saw yesterday, there is a lot of work to do. There is a lot of work to do in terms of defining children as victims, looking at the support they need and making sure that the victims code of practice is in the right place for children. That is what I want to focus on.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Tell me about child criminal exploitation. Do you think that should be on statute?

Dame Rachel de Souza: Yes, absolutely. I was going to bring that up with the definition of children as victims. When I go around the country and talk to children, wherever they are—whether that is being held in police cells or children who are involved in drugs or whatever—I realise just how complex the situations are. You realise that these children are as much victim as perpetrator. Children tell me all the time that their experiences with the police make them feel like they are not victims but criminals. That is what we need to sort out.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Do you think the services there are adequate for children?

Dame Rachel de Souza: I have seen some very diverse and excellent services. I would first point out The Lighthouse, which I am sure you are all familiar with and which is a superb example of services coalescing around children’s needs and understanding where children are. Some of the sexual assault referral centres for peer-on-peer sexual abuse are also fantastic, but we do not have a national network so that every child gets the same experience. Every child should get the best support, and it is just not there.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Let us look at a specific type of abuse, fatal domestic abuse, and its impact on children. Fatal domestic abuse often follows coercive or violent abuse, and where there are children, it can result in the father retaining parental responsibility. Do you agree with that? The father was the perpetrator—I should clarify that. The father killed the mother.

Dame Rachel de Souza: I have made an initial examination of what has been proposed around Jade’s law. We have to protect children. Obviously we need to ensure that there are not unintended consequences and we need to look in detail, but I would say, on the face of it, that the protection of children must have primacy, so I support it.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Great. When men kill the mothers of their children, what in your view is their motivation for exercising parental responsibility after that?

Dame Rachel de Souza: That is a deeply complex question, but I would be deeply concerned. Children in those situations are often the victims of abuse themselves, and we must protect them. I would not say that I can read the mind of any particular father, but we find time and again that everyone in the household has had that experience.

[The Chair]

We have less than eight minutes left and five Members are indicating that they wish to come in, so please keep questions brief.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Q We will now hear evidence from Dame Vera Baird, former Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, and Claire Waxman, Victims’ Commissioner for London. We have until 11.25 am for this part of the session. I ask the witnesses to introduce themselves for the record.

Dame Vera Baird: I am Dame Vera Baird KC.

Claire Waxman: I am Claire Waxman, independent Victims’ Commissioner for London.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q May I start with you, Vera? Does the Bill cover all the definitions of victims?

Dame Vera Baird: No, it does not. First and most important for me, it does not deal with people who suffer from serious antisocial behaviour. Despite the fact that the behaviour is often criminal, it is not dealt with as criminal by the police, but is instead called antisocial behaviour. I am particularly worried about people who are persecuted at home. It is not about every bit of antisocial behaviour—if someone chucks a can into my garden, I do not expect to have victims code rights—but this Government legislated well to introduce something called the community trigger about seven years ago. It says that when it escalates to a particular level, you have a series of remedies to get all the agencies together to put it right. If it gets to that level, then it is seriously persecuting, and there are people who are suffering that.

I had cases when I was an MP years ago but they still came to me when I was the Victims’ Commissioner. A woman is in her home; lads sit outside drinking beer and chuck the can into her garden. If she complains, they chuck something at her window. They stamp on her plants. They kick the ball against the gable end all the time. They shout abuse. They have just picked a place to mess around, but often the person affected is already vulnerable. That is very worrying, but it is not treated as criminality; it is treated as antisocial behaviour. But if we look at it, stamping on the plants in her garden is criminal damage; chucking something at her, if it might hurt her, is an assault; much of this behaviour is likely to cause a breach of the peace, but it is never dealt with like that. Since the key to the Bill appears to be that you are a victim of criminal behaviour, the question is: who makes that decision?

If I go to Victim Support and say, “Please help me. This is happening at home,” does the fact that it is obvious that part of it is an assault make me a victim or not? I think that is a key question to answer in the Bill. Who decides what is criminal behaviour? Often, it is wrapped up exactly as I have described but dealt with quite differently by the police. If someone pinches a spade from my garden, I am entitled to my victims code rights, but if someone behaves like that to an older person, they have nothing. That is a very serious omission. It is very widespread and it is very scary for people.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Moving on to your former role as Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales and looking at how this Bill is drafted, do you believe that it is important that a Victims’ Commissioner is included in drafting and revising the code?

Dame Vera Baird: Yes, it is imperative. Of course it is. To be fair, the Government did consult us. It took about two years to get the victims code together. In fact, I am not sure if Mr Argar was not the Victims Minister when it started the first time around. It took a very long time. We wrote back four or five times, although I have to say we brought no change. There must be meaningful consultation, but the Victims’ Commissioner has to be in there. Indeed, in all the provisions about drafting codes and making changes, where it says you should consult the Attorney General, you have to consult the Victims’ Commissioner as well. This is about victims.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Do you think the Bill gives the Victims’ Commissioner suitable powers to scrutinise the code, to work with Government on it, and to hold them to account?

Dame Vera Baird: I feel that they should be elevated. The third duty of the Victims’ Commissioner is to keep the code under review. They cannot do that unless they can bespeak data. That is not in the Bill. What happens to the data is that it is collected by police and crime commissioners, promoted locally—that is fine—and if it has failed locally, it is promoted to the Secretary of State. It needs to go to the Victims’ Commissioner as well; otherwise the Victims’ Commissioner cannot perform that bit of their statutory role unless the Secretary of State chooses to give them the data. That is obviously the wrong way around, because the commissioner will want to have a say in how it is collected, what the nature of it is, and what to do with it. I think that definitely needs elevating.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q In terms of the collaboration set out in the Bill, do you believe the Victims’ Commissioner should be consulted by agencies on the strategy for collaboration in exercise of any victim support services?

Dame Vera Baird: You are talking about the duty to collaborate?

[Anna McMorrin]

Yes, the duty to collaborate in the Bill.

Dame Vera Baird: I think the main deficit in that duty is that it needs to be a joint needs assessment, rather than a duty to collaborate in some way after each individual organisation has decided what its needs are. There is a role for a victims’ champion in every police and crime commissioner area. We have a fabulous example of a Victims’ Commissioner who is a victims’ champion here, but we do not need a full-time person in a little place like Durham, or a relatively minor place like Northumbria. You need somebody charged with the task, however, so locally they can pursue the interests of the victim.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q In terms of oversight, do you think the Bill goes far enough in promoting the victims code?

Dame Vera Baird: It will do nothing to bring change—if that is really your question. I am happy that there will be a duty to promote it to the public and to victims. Actually, it is a very odd, one-sided duty to promote it to everybody except the agencies that have to deliver it. There is no duty to promote it within the agencies themselves, and they do not know much about it.

There is a statistic—from 2020, I think—that 70% of people who have been through the criminal justice system as victims have never heard of the victims code. We used Office for National Statistics data in 2021 and showed that 80% of victims who had gone through the entire criminal justice system had never heard of the victims code. The first code was in 2006, so it has been completely ignored for 18 years. The agencies that are obliged to deliver it have no duty in the Bill to promote it themselves. They have no budget to train their staff, because, as I understand the Bill, there is absolutely no funding of any kind behind it—I think it is called financially neutral. Any training, development or promotion has all got to be done out of somebody’s back pocket.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Claire, what is your view of the Bill? Does it meet the ambition that it needs to?

Claire Waxman: Sadly, no, not in its current form. I spearheaded the campaign nearly 12 years ago for a victims’ law; the ambition was to give victims legally enforceable rights to justice and support. We have had the code in place since 2006. Compliance with the code has always been low, and even though the Government have reformed the code four or five times now, that has not driven better compliance. This Bill is the legislative opportunity to improve that. I remind everyone that even delivering the code is a minimum level of service to victims. Even if agencies are complying and delivering it, it is still a minimum level.

The Bill is a legislative opportunity to transform the way that victims in this country are treated once they report and come into the criminal justice system. It is an opportunity to help them easily access support services to help them through recovery and their justice journey. Unfortunately, the Bill in its current form, when it is translated into practice, will not have any meaningful impact for victims who are going through the criminal justice system or trying to access support services.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q What is your opinion on the relatively late addition of part 3 on prisoners? How in your view does that affect the Bill?

Claire Waxman: I think it has a huge impact on the Bill. As I said, the original ambition was to give victims legally enforceable rights. Part 1, which is where it should be addressing that, is very thin, weak and insufficient. A lot more focus has now been put on to part 3. A huge amount of funding has been allocated to Parole Board measures—more than the entire Parole Board budget, I think—and what has been put forward in the measures is not what victims or families have called for.

I work directly with bereaved families in London and the agencies that support them, and not one bereaved family has actually called for these measures. The Government have said that it is about public safety, but if it really is about public safety then where is the reform on probation, which is underfunded and understaffed? That is a public safety issue that needs tackling, but that is not in the Bill.

Part 3, I am sorry to say, is a vanity project. I think it is a power grab by our previous Justice Secretary. We have a Parole Board in place who are the right people to make the decision on release. I am with families who have been eight years in the process; it comes around for them every four or five months. They can barely recover. They are in this process and it is relentless. Putting these measures in gives them a false sense of hope. We are telling them that there is a chance that the Justice Secretary can veto the Parole Board decision and that the prisoners will not be released.

What will actually happen in reality is that, yes, the Justice Secretary might veto, but that prisoner will then have legal aid to appeal the decision. They will appeal every decision, pulling the bereaved families into even more distress and trauma. When I asked the officials in the Ministry of Justice what allocation had been given to provide extra support to the families during this process, no support had been given—only to the prisoners to appeal. I have to say very strongly that part 3 is nothing short of shameful.

[Anna McMorrin]

Thank you. That is pretty strong.

Claire Waxman: Yes, because this is a victims Bill and we are here for victims.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Absolutely. Turning to the victims element, do you believe that victims of domestic abuse going through the family court should be defined within the Bill?

Claire Waxman: Absolutely. Sadly, I work with too many victims of domestic abuse, rape and stalking who have tried to leave abusive relationships. Many will not have the courage to report to the police, so they just want to flee and leave the abusive relationship. If children are involved, unfortunately those victims are then pulled into family court proceedings, which are retraumatising and place them and their children at further risk because there is no support provision in the family court to identify who the real victims are and what support is in place to protect them.

If they do report to the police, the two jurisdictions do not work together. You can be a victim in the criminal court but be accused of parental alienation in family court, and your victimisation has been dismissed. I see far too many victims who are victims of crime, may not have had the confidence to come forward to the police, and are being treated very poorly in family court. Unfortunately, this Bill will not address anything for those victims.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Finally, I have a quick question on the use of counselling notes for victims during trials. Can you talk to the fact that that is in use at the moment and how the Bill should address that?

Claire Waxman: I have published two London rape reviews and heard from many, many rape victims in London. One of the biggest issues that comes up for them is the request for their personal records, especially their counselling records. Many victims will decide to withdraw from the process and feel pushed out because they have to make a decision as to whether they are going to pursue justice or hand over their counselling records, which are about their thoughts and feelings and trying to recover from the crime.

I know the Government have brought forward some measures now, but those measures are already in place. The police and CPS should be requesting these personal records only if absolutely necessary. We need to have judicial oversight, and that is where the Bill needs to go further. We need to ensure that therapy notes are only requested and that the judge makes a decision around that. Yesterday the Government announced that the CPS would meet rape victims before going to court, to raise confidence, but that is not going to work if we are requesting therapy notes from rape victims. That alone—just requesting those notes—is a deterrent and will push many rape victims out of the justice system, and then we will be allowing serious offenders to act with impunity.

[Anna McMorrin]

Vera, may I invite you to comment on that issue?

Dame Vera Baird: I think back to being a barrister more than a decade ago, when there was no pursuit whatever of this kind of material. It simply was not done. Very occasionally, if it came up in evidence that there was some issue about someone’s medical records, for instance, they would be sought, because it was directly relevant. There would be an occasional case, but none of this was ever looked for.

What the issue is about is what Operation Soteria, the new way of policing rape, talks about—there not being investigation departments for rape in police stations, but there being credibility investigation departments for complainants. Before the tendency to want to question the credibility by looking at the most intimate details about the complainant emerged, the conviction rate was actually better, very considerably better, than it is now. It dropped catastrophically in about 2016, and that was about the time when this started to emerge. So if we can do fair trials without that material, we do not need to get it.

In order to deal with this now, there can be no complete ban, clearly. After a decade or more in which the police and the CPS have treated it as axiomatic that you take these documents from a complainant, we must make someone else take that decision. It has to go to the court, so that a provisional hearing can decide whether the material should be accessed by the Crown and whether it should go to the defence. And of course the complainant needs to be represented fully at that hearing.

What is badly missing from this Bill—well, a whole range of things are. I completely concur with Claire that it is not going to make any difference to the ordinary victim, because there is no means of enforcing their code rights. But for victims of rape, the announcement that Alex Chalk made recently will make not a jot of difference as long as it is the same police and CPS that are using the test and it is the test that has been there throughout.

Independent legal advice is missing. You need to just put that counselling stuff into the court, and that is that: you need a good reason for accessing it, and the court will decide. As for the need for representation in that court, there is a need for representation at an earlier stage so that, if possible, we can avoid the cumbersome court. If you have, as we piloted in Northumbria a couple of years ago, independent legal advice when the material is requested by the police in the first place, you can often negotiate it away by just asking forceful questions about what is necessary about it. Independent legal advice could serve that purpose, but then would offer representation if there was a serious demand for the material.

This has been happening in New South Wales, with an identical jurisdiction to ours, since 1998 and is in every other state in Australia, save for Queensland, which is taking it on. Claire has been to Canada, and I believe it is very effectively run in Canada, too. In the end, of course, it deters people from pursuing this kind of material, because they take a second look at whether they need it. And that might put us back where we ought to be.

In short—never a ban; always judicial oversight. We do need to get rid of this massive deterrent. I think that according to some figures that possibly you, Anna, or someone else in the Labour party produced, 70% of those who accuse people of rape now withdraw. A huge factor—a huge factor—is when they realise that their most intimate secrets are going to be disclosed to a CPS and police force that, for quite understandable reasons, they do not see as their allies. And then, perhaps, the material goes on to—even worse—the defendant, who caused them their trauma in the first place.

[Anna McMorrin]

Q I have one tiny question on the proposed Jade’s law. Let us say that a man kills a woman and there are children involved. What is your opinion, Claire, of the man, if he has children, having parental responsibility?

Claire Waxman: I very much support Jade’s law. I worked with a family many years ago whose daughter was murdered, and they tried to adopt the grandchild. The prisoner—the murderer—had the right from prison to stop that adoption, and to cross-examine the bereaved family as well. He got legal aid. They did not get anything. At that point there is a presumption of no contact—of course he did not get contact—but they were still pulled into the most inhumane proceedings after their daughter had been killed. We need to stop that and to ensure that those convicted of murder do not have parental rights to access those children for the duration of the prison sentence. That needs to be reviewed very carefully to ensure that the family are well protected from engaging with the prisoner.

[Edward Argar]

Q It is always nice to see you, Claire—we spoke previously—and Vera, it is lovely to see you again. It has been a little while since we last spoke. You are right: I think it was during your time, and during my last stint, that we started to look at some of these things with respect to the victims code, and even this.

I will ask a couple of questions if I may. One might be specifically for you, Vera, and I think the other will be broader. Adding to what you have already said, are there any other aspects of the role of Victims’ Commissioner, in the context of the legislation, that you would wish to see elevated? I know we used to talk about, for example, your report being put before Parliament and similar. There is a lot more here than that, but what other aspects would you wish to see elevated in terms of the role?

Dame Vera Baird: It is nice to see that the Victims’ Commissioner must lay their report before Parliament; we have done that for the past two years. We had to crusade our way in, but it seemed important to me that victims’ rights were elevated to a parliamentary responsibility, and that the report did not just go to the Secretary of State. That is already being done, and it is good that it is in the legislation.

The most critical thing is to get data in the way I have already explained, but a big gap—make no mistake, you do need to put this right—is that there is no means to enforce any of the rights under the victims code: not one. It is not even expressed in terms of rights.

Let me give one quick example; I am a nerd on this, even though I have tried to forget in the last couple of months. Right 8.5 allows you as a victim to have a separate entrance and a separate place to wait from the defendant at court. That could not be more important. If my child had been run down by some driver, the last person I would want to meet when I walked through the door of the Crown court would be him—still less with his posse round him, which often does happen.

That is a very good right, and the right continues, but most courts do not have separate entrances and waiting areas. If you let the court know you are worried, it will do its best, but this is supposed to be a right. Many, many times—I am sure Claire will confirm this from an up-to-date perspective—people do come face to face with the defendant as they walk into court, and it is quite terrifying. You have to put the victims code in terms of rights in the first place, but you also have to be able to enforce it. If in default that ultimately must come to the Victims’ Commissioner, so be it.

I have a completely different plan for how we should enforce the code, but there is a statutory rule stopping the Victims’ Commissioner from being involved in individual cases. We still have 70 or 80 cases a month individually sent to us, so there would be a lot if that were done centrally. My notion is that we should have a local victims’ commissioner in the PCC’s office. That need not be a draconian imposition on a PCC; it could be someone who was there for two days. Truly, in Durham, where there are about 1,000 police officers, you do not need a Claire. You need a much smaller status of person.

That person could be the recipient of the complaint, but their working practice ought to be that they have a duty to promote, which needs to be put into the legislation, with respect to victim support services and the use of the code, which is not there properly either. Obviously, you have to have a duty to promote the code internally, so the CPS, the police and the court know they have to deliver it. Then, the victims’ services commissioned by the PCC could argue that a certain person needed an interpreter, or ask whether they had been guaranteed a separate entrance to court. If that was not happening, you could go to the PCC’s office with a working practice of trying to put the problem right in the case. I would not want to meet the person and be able to complain afterwards that I had met him by accident. I would never want to see him.

If you have that local resolution, ultimately for complaints but in the first place to try and intervene through local tentacles—PCCs are quite powerful people now—then you could stop a lot of this damaging material. If you do not, the recipient of the complaint in the first place could be that Victims’ Commissioner champion, who would then take on dealing with that on a local basis.

In the end, I think there have to be penalties. I think police officers should be docked pay; I think the CPS should have something done to them. The first code was in 2006. Now it is 2023 and 80% of people have never heard of it, even though they have gone right through. It is not just that there is nothing to impel it; there is a culture of disregard built on there. You need to change that. If you started there, then somebody has got to take a complaint that is not reconcilable locally up higher and that could go to the Victims’ Commissioner, if that were an appropriate route.