Rights and Protection of Victims

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Over recent weeks, the treatment of victims and their families has come to the fore in the UK. We have seen the family of Milly Dowler speak about the appalling treatment they received at the hands of defence lawyers acting for Levi Bellfield; we have read the report from the victims commissioner, Louise Casey, about the needs of families bereaved by homicide; and most recently we have been sickened by the revelations that the mobile phones of victims and others have been hacked into by elements of the media for whom the story comes before any sense of morality.

Under the previous Labour Government, great strides forward were made in championing the rights and needs of victims and their families, although we would be the first to admit that there was and is more that could be done. Under Labour, we saw the introduction of the national victims service—an £8 million support scheme for relatives of manslaughter and murder victims that offered victims a dedicated support worker—in response, of course, to the report published by Labour’s first ever victims champion, Sara Payne. As a result, the CPS now has a victim focus scheme committing it to a post-charge and post-conviction meeting for murder, manslaughter and road death cases in the Crown court. There is also a new protocol for Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service for bereaved families and a statutory victims code of practice that commits the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, the probation service and others to providing information within certain time scales. The CPS has a prosecutors’ pledge, setting out how Crown prosecutors should conduct the case, and the probation service provides a victim liaison scheme for certain victims of crime or their next of kin as regards some elements of the offender’s movements within the prison estate and release information.

Labour introduced the victim personal statement scheme and the policing pledge, and in April 2010 we launched a £2 million homicide service, with the police allocating a family liaison officer to each family following a homicide or a culpable road death. In January 2010, Labour also introduced the compensation scheme for British victims of terrorism abroad as part of the Crime and Security Act 2010 and declared that it would be retrospective to 2002. I hope that the Lord Chancellor will take on board the fact that it is still to be implemented. All those measures came on top of a cut of 43% in crime, which reduced the likelihood of being a victim of crime.

Although the Government have made the right noises about victims being at the heart of their approach, it is fair to say that they have stumbled a few times: over how legal aid cuts have been targeted, over the changes to remand proposed in the latest justice legislation and over the dropped manifesto commitment on knife crime, for example. Let me be clear that although we will hold the Government to account when we feel they have taken a wrong turn, we will support them when they do the right thing by victims, as they have with the welcome announcement of an additional £500,000 for practical changes following Louise Casey’s report.

For now, we are debating a draft directive from the European Union that gives the Government the opportunity to pick themselves up and show that they can be on the side of the victim. We are considering four things this evening: the draft directive that establishes minimum standards for the rights, support and protection of victims of crime; a draft regulation on mutual recognition of protection measures in civil matters; a Commission communication on strengthening victims’ rights in the EU; and the explanatory memorandum dated 16 May 2011 to a Council resolution on a road map for strengthening the rights and protection of victims, particularly in criminal proceedings.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for setting out the Government’s position on those four documents. Let me add to the debate by setting out our view of these important documents and the improvements they could make for all member states. Although the UK leads the way, as the Lord Chancellor said, I think he would also readily accept that more is required of the UK in its treatment of victims of crime.

Let us consider the scale of the issues that challenge us. From Louise Casey’s report on the needs of families bereaved by homicide, we know that the vast majority of victims’ families—more than 80%—have suffered trauma-related symptoms, that three-quarters have suffered depression and that one in every five have become addicted to alcohol. Every person in the survey said that their health had been affected in some way. Some 59% found it difficult to manage their finances following the bereavement and one in four stopped working permanently. The average cost of the homicide to each family was £37,000, with costs ranging from those for probate to those for funerals, travel to and from court and even for cleaning up the crime scene. The majority of those people got no help with those costs and some were forced into debt. The victims commissioner’s review shows that such effects persist for many years.

The scale of the issue comes more into focus when we consider that, as the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee said, 30 million crimes against persons or property are recorded each year across the European Union, resulting in about 75 million direct victims of crime every year across the Union. The number of homicides will, thankfully, be only a small proportion of that number, but the impact of any crime on victims will have many of the characteristics I have mentioned, with the most horrendous crimes bringing the hardest burdens of all.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way as I have not been here for the whole debate. One thing that concerns me and that exacerbates all the problems is the free movement of people within the European Union. If we had borders that were enforced, criminals would not be able to travel so freely through the European Union and individuals going on holiday would be more conscious of the fact that they were going to different jurisdictions with different standards and levels of health protection and be more wary and concerned. Above all, traffickers in human beings, particularly in children, would have a more difficult time if we had internal borders.

[Robert Flello]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. He makes his points very well and I will return to some of those issues shortly.

British citizens should receive the highest standards in any member state when they are the victim of a crime. In the draft directive, the European Union has sought to build on the 2001 Council framework decision, which established general minimum standards. The rationale behind it is that the 2001 framework was not implemented across member states in a satisfactory way, with some member states doing more than others—I think the UK can hold its head high in that regard—leaving a patchwork of uneven standards of protection and support for victims. One of the Commission’s conclusions that speaks volumes in the light of the Dowler family’s experience is that

“Member States generally do not ensure that victims are treated in a manner equivalent to that of a party to proceedings.”

The Commission found that there was “ambiguous drafting”, a “lack of concrete obligations” and a “lack of infringement possibilities”.

In the Lord Chancellor’s comments on each of the articles in the draft directive, there are some positives which are very welcome, but there are some less welcome and possibly worrying observations too. The Government straight away use the phrase

“proportionate to the needs of victims”,

but we have seen from the victims commissioner’s recent report that the needs of victims are not being met, so who will judge what is proportionate to the needs of victims? Will it be the Lord Chancellor, his Department or the victims commissioner? Who will decide?

It is vital that the directive should help to provide greater uniformity across the EU to improve the service that UK citizens can expect. More must be done to ensure that victims’ families do not have to suffer unnecessary delays and further trauma following the loss of a family member abroad. At this point I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) for raising the terrible and tragic issue of Gary Dunne and the work being done by Lesley and Steve Dunne to whom our sympathies must go out. It is also important to raise the cases that were mentioned by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) and by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), whom I congratulate on his imminent esteemed elevation to the Privy Council. I suspect that we all have examples of such tragedies in our constituencies. For example, a constituent of mine died in Tenerife last year. Again, because of the Spanish coronial system, the victim’s family had to wait months before the body was repatriated to the UK.

I turn to some of the articles. Article 2 is welcome. It sets out the wider impact of a crime beyond the person who has been killed or suffered some immediate injustice. It should not be the subject of detailed clarification. Some clarification is required, but the Government’s comments about the need for clarification are a little troubling.

The first part of article 4 deals with the provision of information to victims. Although the Lord Chancellor says he is confident that this article is generally compatible with current practice across the UK, I wonder just how confident he is about the uniformity and quality of current practice across the UK in the light of the victims commissioner’s report. The second part of article 4 covers the sensitive issue of informing victims of the release of an offender. I agree that we should be mindful of the risks to the offender. We do not want to see lynch mobs at the prison gates, but we also do not want to see victims unexpectedly coming face to face with the offender in a supermarket because no one has forewarned them, as has happened time and again.

I am not sure that in their response to article 9 the Government fully understand how variable is the use of the victim personal statement. I suggest that the Lord Chancellor takes a moment or two to read the strategic audit of the criminal justice system, a report prepared by Victim Support. It makes sombre reading about the use of the victim personal statement. It notes that the police are responsible for offering victims the opportunity to make a statement, but that they are not required to do so by law, and VPSs are not even mentioned in the Government’s primary document setting out the services that the victim can expect.

The report from Victim Support continues:

“The actual situation on the ground is poor—of those whose cases reach court, less than half recall being offered the opportunity to make a VPS. Moreover, of those who did make a VPS, only two-thirds felt it was taken into account. Furthermore, the likelihood of being given the chance to make a VPS varies considerably across England and Wales. For example, victims living in London were less than half as likely to be offered it as those living in Northumbria. The likelihood of the victim feeling that the VPS is taken into account also varies considerably across regions.”

Article 13 deals with the reimbursement of victims’ expenses. Once again, it is concerning that the Government appear to be back-peddling on the concrete commitments that the directive is supposed to require. Once more, we must remind ourselves that the victims commissioner’s findings are damning of the cost barriers for victims’ families who want to see justice done. I am hopeful that the Government, despite their heavily caveated words in response to article 19, will take on board the needs of victims to avoid contact with offenders and their families, and thereby avoid the all too frequent situation where a victim’s family sit alongside that of the defendant, listening to them laughing, joking and making hurtful comments.

The Government’s comments on article 20 worry me greatly. Although I have some sympathy with the view that not all victims need necessarily be interviewed, provided that other methods for hearing the voice of victims are strengthened, it feels as though the Lord Chancellor is going behind the term “proportionate” again.

I would like to spend a moment on article 23 and the relationship between the media and the privacy of victims. In much the same way as a few bad apples spoiled the reputation of the House, so the behaviour of irresponsible and, it seems, criminal elements of the media have severely damaged that profession. With reference to Bellfield’s trial, Chief Constable Mark Rowley has called for greater protection of victims and witnesses during court cases. Rowley said it was a

“most bizarre and distressing coincidence”

that the Dowler family had their privacy destroyed at a time when footballers and celebrities were being granted super-injunctions to protect details of their personal lives.

It is all well and good for the Lord Chancellor to ask that article 23 respect the principle of media independence, but at what cost? The case of Milly Dowler shows the need for greater training of professions, notably the judiciary, in how victims’ families are treated. The draft directive is a good starting point, but there are things that are not in it—notably, despite the European Commission's identifying why the 2001 framework failed, where are the teeth in these proposals? Where is the mechanism for effective redress when member states do not provide the services or support that the draft directive requires? Where are the rights to request a review of the decision on what charge the offender will face? The draft directive is an opportunity for the Government to negotiate a better deal for victims at EU level; it should not be used to make what we already do look like it fits with the directive as it is written.

Turning to the draft regulation on mutual recognition of protection measures in civil matters, it can only be a positive thing that civil law protection measures issued in one member state should be recognised and applied in another, so the draft regulation is to be welcomed. I note that the European Scrutiny Committee has its reservations about safeguarding the rights of the person subject to the order as well as the person who has requested it, and although I fully understand the need to give the person subject to the order the opportunity to safeguard their rights, I have concerns about how any such safeguarding could be applied.

For example, if the person with a civil law protection measure goes on an extended holiday or goes to work in another European country for a year, would the person subject to the order need to know when and where? The regulation as drafted seems already to provide adequately, through the certification process, that an existing measure can be recognised and applied throughout the Union within the limits of the original application. Indeed, the fundamental rights safeguard at article 10 and, of course, the rights of the person subject to the order at the time it was applied for seem more than adequate, but I look forward to hearing from right hon. and hon. Members if they think otherwise on this point. I am pleased that the Secretary of State, in his explanatory memorandum dated 2 June, seems to welcome this regulation.

I will turn now to the council resolution on the road map. The road map essentially shows how both the draft directive and the draft regulation fit into an overall scheme for improving the EU’s approach to victims’ rights. Given the reasons why the Commission felt that the 2001 framework failed, it is a little sad to see the Government seeking to press for less detailed measures on how the victims directive can be brought into effect. The European Scrutiny Committee, in putting forward the document for debate on the Floor of the House, asked the Government to provide more information on the probable substance of each measure that the Commission is to propose as part of the road map.

I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for welcoming this evening’s debate and recognise that the Government have provided a good explanation of their views in the memorandum, but sadly we seem to be lacking the additional detail this evening that the Committee requested. That point is worth repeating: the European Scrutiny Committee, in putting forward the document for debate on the Floor of the House, asked the Government to provide more information on the substance of each of the measures that the Commission is to propose. I am not sure whether the Lord Chancellor intends to provide that when he winds up—I can only hope.

A good place to begin my concluding remarks on the matters before us is the question of how the Commission’s proposals compare with the victims law for homicide cases proposed by Louise Casey. The victims commissioner has addressed the situation in the UK in homicide cases, and to my mind that is a good benchmark for what we should expect for all victims across the EU. The victims commissioner believes that a victims law should make it clear that the coroner will release the body to the family for burial within 28 days, unless exceptional circumstances apply. The proposals before us do not mention that at all, and yet we have heard from right hon. and hon. Members this evening that this is one of the fundamental issues that they feel passionately about and that affects constituents up and down the country time and again. In my humble opinion the Government are plain wrong in their stubborn refusal to implement the position of the chief coroner, and I hope that when they are made to see sense, they will also ensure that the chief coroner addresses this distressing issue and that such measures will be raised with the Commission in negotiations on the road map.

The victims commissioner also believes that the police should legally have to keep families updated at each stage of the investigation, and I believe that the draft directive addresses that key point. It must not be watered down in negotiations. Similarly, Louise Casey believes that a police protocol should be put in place for reviewing cases that remain unsolved and that it should set out clearly how and when families are to be consulted and kept updated. Again, although not part of the draft directive or road map, that is clearly an area that the Lord Chancellor’s Department should raise with the Commission.

Another point made by the victims commissioner is that families should have the right to information from the Crown Prosecution Service, and to meet the CPS lawyer at key stages of the process, including on conviction or acquittal, and on appeal. That is covered by the draft directive, and should be strongly pursued. Those needs are addressed in the draft directive, but they should be enshrined in law, with the right of redress when not met.

In conclusion, the Opposition welcome the Commission’s approach, and urge the Government not to procrastinate or seek to gain wriggle room, but to embrace the opportunity to turn the page on their recent errors of judgment, and give their approval to measures that should ensure that victims of crime across the European Union have at the very least a minimum standard on which they can rely.