Rights of Victims and Families

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

I start by welcoming everybody to what I hope will be a constructive and informative debate. As the title suggests, its main purpose is to discuss the rights of victims and their families in the judicial system. I want to look at that especially, although not exclusively, in the context of violent and serious crimes such as murder and manslaughter.

Let me begin by familiarising everyone with the current support for victims, before presenting some facts and case studies to highlight the problems in the judicial system. In a written answer, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), explained that, under the current system,

“The Government ensure practical and emotional support to victims through Victim Support and other voluntary sector providers. Through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, it also provides financial compensation to blameless victims of violent and sexual crime. Bereaved relatives of homicide victims are also able to access free legal advice using a specialised helpline established in 2009. Any victim or witness can access free legal advice through the Legal Services Commission's Community Legal Advice website and helpline.”

He continued, noting that the Ministry of Justice

“currently funds Victim Support on an annual basis and they received £38.2 million in the last financial year…This year Victim Support are testing a model of working that has seen the development of enhanced support services for the most vulnerable victims of crime and in particular families bereaved by homicide. Other specialist providers of services to victims are funded by the victims’ fund, comprised of money collected through the Victims’ Surcharge which is levied on all fines and ring-fenced for spending on services to victims. In 2010-11 £2.25 million has been made available to fund third-sector services for victims of sexual violence, £270,000 to fund third-sector services for families bereaved through homicide and £250,000 has been made available to third-sector services for hate crime.”—[Official Report, 21 July 2010; Vol. 514, c. 323W.]

The National Victims Service would support the details that I have just read out. It highlights the fact that support for victims has dramatically improved in recent years and that crime levels are at their lowest since the war. The British crime survey has reported that all crime rates are falling and have been in steady decline since 2002. It also tells us that there has been an overall reduction in violent crime, and the number of violent incidents has fallen by half since 1995. Those statistics are certainly encouraging, and I welcome the recent announcement by the Ministry of Justice that it intends to get prisoners to work, with some of their earnings being set aside for victims of crime.

There are, however, two sides to every story. Jean Taylor, whose name I have mentioned before in the House of Commons in reference to victims of crime, is a courageous lady. She established the Merseyside charity Families Fighting For Justice, which is now spreading across the country at a rapid pace and becoming a national charity because her words ring true and resonate with people countrywide. This is what she has said:

“What I learnt after the murders of my sister and my son and daughter was there is nothing out there for us victims and their families. But there is plenty out there regarding support and funding for the murderers and their families, while we are left in the dark to cope with the loss of our loved ones.”

Unfortunately, those feelings are echoed elsewhere. Discussing its 2009 report “Order in the Courts: Restoring trust through local justice”, the Centre for Social Justice states:

“The courts are supposed to pursue justice, and discipline and rehabilitate law-breakers. But there is a widespread loss of faith in the sentencing process. Citizens do not believe that the courts punish appropriately. Sentences often fail to reflect the crime and appear opaque…Criminal activity and punishment are too distantly linked in the minds of many criminals because of a cumbersome and bureaucratic trials and sentencing process.”

What the facts do not illustrate are the failings of the current judicial system. The criminal justice system needs better to take into account some of the impacts that current procedures have on victims and their families. Such procedures include lenient sentencing for a guilty plea, lesser sentences for manslaughter, life not meaning life and the right to appeal, when some appeals are malicious. We should also consider some of the very real situations that I am about to explain, which demonstrate why victims’ families find themselves in a lesser position than perpetrators.

Perhaps hon. Members can imagine for a moment being a member of a victim’s family. There is a knock on the door, usually in the middle to the night, to say that their child has been murdered. The family are left dealing with the shock and grieving the sudden and tragic death of a loved one. They then have to arrange the burial while attending court.

There are stark differences between the treatment of the perpetrators and the victims and their families. The victims I have met, and who I know all too well, have to travel to court by bus, whereas the murderers are driven to and from court and are protected. Once in court, the perpetrator’s family is given a room in the court away from the media and the victim’s family. However, the victim’s family is frequently left to sit in corridors.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I know that she feels particularly strongly about this issue, and she has raised some important issues. Far too often, particularly in youth courts, which are closed courts, victims and their families are wrongly excluded from attending the public gallery to watch the proceedings. There are also issues about access to the new virtual courts. I hope that we can ensure that access to courts is improved for those victims and families who wish to watch the proceedings, as in the cases that my hon. Friend outlined.

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend raises some pertinent points, and he is very experienced in this area, having spent 20 years working in the justice system.

To continue the list of differences, the perpetrator is provided with medical and professional psychiatric help, whereas victims and their families must go on a lengthy national health service waiting list just to see a counsellor. If a murderer dies in prison, his family will get up to £3,000 to bury the body, while victims get a tiny percentage of that and have to wait many months to be paid.