Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

I hope that the Government will look favourably on this amendment. In particular, I ask the Minister to meet some of us between now and Report in order to look at this issue in more detail and see whether we can find a way through.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for the way in which she introduced this important group of amendments. I am also grateful to her and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for their support for my Amendment 2, which seeks to ensure that victims of homicide outside of the United Kingdom receive adequate support and are provided for in the victims’ code. The distress they experience can be exacerbated by having to deal with the criminal justice systems of foreign jurisdictions and other difficulties that re-traumatise.

There are approximately 80 homicides of British nationals overseas each year. In addition, there are suspicious deaths, accidents and unexplained deaths. Families bereaved by a homicide in the UK are recognised as victims in their own right and are able to access rights under the victims’ code. Yet these same rights are not extended to those bereaved by homicide abroad, for no reason other than that the homicide occurred overseas. To lose a person you love to murder is a devastating and traumatic event wherever the crime occurs, but there are many additional problems and hurdles for British families bereaved by a murder overseas. As has already been explained clearly, these difficulties include repatriation, travel, accommodation, language barriers, lawyers, foreign judicial processes and many more.

These issues are exacerbated by the fact that these families have no right to access support to help them deal with these problems, putting them distinctly at odds with their compatriots. Bereaved families frequently have great difficulty accessing financial support for advocates and witnesses to travel abroad to attend trials. They cannot claim criminal injuries compensation because the crime occurred in another jurisdiction. Yet we know that it does not have to be this way. If the victim is killed by a terrorist, the family have a legal right to claim compensation. This clear distinction between these two cohorts of victims has no apparent rationale. It appears discriminatory because, for the victim’s family, murder is murder.

When it comes to supporting bereaved victims of homicide abroad, the responsibilities of the UK seem unclear. Of course each case is different, but it is unclear which UK agency has an overarching view of the end-to-end experience of the victims. Families frequently feel unsupported, describing falling through gaps between the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—FCDO, the Ministry of Justice, the jurisdiction of the crime and our own police. The FCDO is the key body that the victims will interface with when homicide occurs abroad, but this department is not included within the remit of the victims’ code. The only document that exists to help provide a minimum standard of assistance to victims is a memorandum of understanding between the FCDO, the association for chief police officers and the Coroners’ Society of England and Wales. This memorandum is not legally enforceable, and the Homicide Service, which is contracted by the FCDO to support victims of homicide abroad, is not a signatory to it.

There is therefore a complete lack of accountability and oversight when it comes to support for victims of homicide abroad. The damage that this absence of support causes is immeasurable and often has a long-term and wide-reaching impact. There are numerous case studies of victims who have been let down by UK agencies. In one shocking example, the FCDO gave a family a list of local lawyers based in the location where the murder occurred. The family was not told whether any of the 12 names supplied had been vetted or whether they spoke English, and the FCDO refused to give advice or a steer about which lawyer to use. As a result, the family ended up with an unreputable lawyer, costing £3,000, further compounding their enormous family pain.

A harrowing example of a family having to deal with the criminal justice system of a foreign jurisdiction is illustrated by the case of Halford and Florence Anderson, a British married couple. The 74 and 71 year- olds were both murdered in 2018 near their home in Jamaica, after reporting being victims of fraud. A senior coroner in Manchester, where the couple was from, concluded that they were both unlawfully killed. However, no one has been charged with their killings. Their son, Mark, has expressed the devastation that the family is going through, with still no sign of justice and no official updates on the case. This contrasts starkly with the positive experiences of victims who receive support from the charity, Murdered Abroad, which provides valuable support, both practical and emotional, as well as putting victims in touch with reliable lawyers and providing peer support for victims through group meetings.

But the burden of support should not be solely on charities. UK agencies have a duty to British citizens and should provide support to families impacted by homicide, regardless of the geographical location of the crime. That is what this amendment seeks to achieve. I have worked with, and have the support of, the Victims’ Commissioner, which is reassuring. I know that she has been calling for this change since her last time in that office. I hope the Government will look favourably on this amendment and be prepared to discuss it further before Report.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I of course understand the point that the Minister is making—procedures in other countries and what is available in other countries by way of support are different—but should that stop us requiring part of the Government, the organisation in this country which has immediate, close responsibility, to take on a role of proper signposting, which may be to equivalent services? Partly, it is interpreting, but it is obvious that there is a lacuna here.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

If there has been a homicide abroad and those families are living here, there is a real danger that the message will be that the Government think that that homicide does not matter as much as a homicide that happened here. The Government might say that they do not have the resources. I pointed out that it is about 80 homicides per year—the numbers are not huge—but those people who are so severely traumatised, retraumatised and carry on being further damaged by the experience often become enormous consumers of resources because of mental health services, because they are unable to work and so on, and eventually they may need benefits. There are all kinds of things that they may need. It is a false economy to look at it in terms of resources to the FCDO. I hope that the Minister will meet me and others to discuss ways that the victims’ code could be asterisked where there are things that may not be as appropriate if the homicide occurred here, but it would say that the lives of British citizens are of equal value wherever they are in the world and that whether it was a terrorist attack, a homicide here or a homicide overseas, those lives are of equal value.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, of course I am prepared to meet the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and any other noble Lords on this point to discuss it further. There is certainly a point about the signposting in the code, what the code should say about all this, whether we should give further additional priority to homicides abroad, and exactly what the role of the Homicide Service is and other related resource issues, as well as where the earlier point I raised about priorities comes in: we cannot do everything. This is an important topic for further discussion, and I do not rule out examining further how far we can go in response to the very legitimate concerns raised.

I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, will forgive me for coming to her last, but I think her point was about the definition of a victim where the person is a victim as a result of the criminal conduct of a close family member. The obvious example would be a road incident where somebody who had been driving over the limit or driving dangerously had killed themselves, leaving behind bereaved children. On the wording of the code, those children would be victims. The Government do not think that even in those circumstances should we reduce or limit the concept of a victim. It is conceivable that somebody could be a perpetrator and a victim at the same time, because if you have driven dangerously, had a crash and killed your child, you may both be guilty of criminal conduct and a victim of your own conduct, as it were. That may be a highly theoretical and hypothetical example, but the Government are not proposing any change to Clause 1 in relation to those very tragic kinds of case.

I hope I have dealt with the main amendments proposed in this first group, and I respectfully invite your Lordships not to pursue them at this point.