Criminal Justice System

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan. I welcome this debate and congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd) on securing it. I feel strongly about the victims of crime. I am delighted that the debate is taking place, because for far too long the victims of crime have not had their voices heard as they should have done. I appreciate there may be many reasons for that. However, this is an opportune debate at a time when the public are quite animated about the elections of police and crime commissioners. There is an opportunity to bring greater focus on victims of crime.

I pay tribute to the excellent work of Victim Support, particularly for taking the initiative to engage the police and crime commissioner candidates of all political persuasions, to bring them on board regarding victims’ services and support and to get them to sign up to the Victim Support five promises to victims and witnesses pledge.

Those elected as police and crime commissioners, regardless of their political persuasion, must champion the rights of victims and put victims first. Once they have a mandate, it would be ridiculous not to do so. I hope that the Minister, along with police and crime commissioners, can give a commitment to the work of Victim Support and other victims’ organisations, to which I will refer later, to ensure that victims get the first-class treatment that they deserve and have not had previously.

The Minister will know that, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Manchester Central, last December I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill to call for a robust and enforceable code of practice to deliver new rights and better services for the victims of crime and their families. There have been far too many gaps and inconsistencies in the provision of services for victims and their families. Following my Bill, I was delighted to see the Government take some positive steps forward and introduce the consultation, “Getting it right for victims and witnesses”, which proposed new measures to improve services.

I look to the Minister for an update on when those measures will be implemented and when the details of the recommendations proposed by the former Victims’ Commissioner, Louise Casey, in her review into the needs of families bereaved by homicides will be put into effect.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Ten years ago, my constituents, Pat and Ian Levy, lost their son, then 16, who was stabbed by a 15-year-old in Hackney. They are very keen to present their victims’ personal statement in person at his parole hearing. They do not have control over that; it is at the whim of the chair. Even then, they do not get the chance to talk more about it; they simply read out a statement. I share their concern that that is not a balance. Will the hon. Lady comment on that?

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[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd) on securing this debate. I declare a similar interest; I have been nominated to stand for election as police and crime commissioner in south Wales.

I am proud to say that the needs of victims will be at the heart of my approach if I am elected. I want to be precise that a genuine focus on the needs and interests of victims must involve putting the victim at the heart of the behaviour and performance of the court system and of every agency in the criminal justice system, as well as of the police and the rest of our systems of local and national government. We must bear in mind that there is an enormous variety of victims, ranging from nurses, shopkeepers and police officers to ordinary members of the public. Our response must be right in every set of circumstances. Victims’ experiences are often very personal and different.

In my view, four major steps are required to bring about the radical change needed in how we deal with victims. The first is to act on the wise words given in evidence to the Justice Committee by the then chief executive of Victim Support, who essentially said that what victims want more than anything else, other than not to have become a victim in the first place, is the certainty that it will not happen again. Preventing crime—cutting offending and reoffending—is absolutely central to meeting the needs of victims.

That is clear enough in relation to the police. Sir Robert Peel said in terms, when he established the first police force, that the central purpose of the police was to cut crime—to prevent offending and reoffending. He also said that the police were the public and the public were the police, which must surely mean more than an identification in general terms between the police and the wider community; it must involve a conscious seeking-out of the experience of victims, especially those whose voices are not easily heard and whose suffering is hidden.

Such victims might be abused children or the victims of violence against women and girls and other forms of domestic violence that remain under-reported. They might be those suffering in silence who are exploited in a variety of ways, those victimised within specific communities by things such as female genital mutilation or those who suffer the ongoing victimisation of antisocial behaviour. The police and the public surely have a common interest and a common responsibility in taking the victims’ side.

That also ought to be the clear purpose of the court system. In my view, it was a missed opportunity when the purposes of the Sentencing Council were spelled out in legislation. I urge Ministers to put that right now. At the heart of the work of the Sentencing Council should be the answer to the question, “What works?” It is not, but it should be.

In the Justice Committee report on the role of the prison officer, we concluded that that role could not be clear unless the role and the purpose of prison was clear. The Prison Service, like many other agencies within the criminal justice system, ends up chasing specific targets that have nothing to do with their overall aim or purpose or the expectations of the public, which should be to hold prisoners securely and return them to the community less likely to offend, or at the very least likely to offend less seriously. That must be built into the granular detail of what we expect.

The second step is to ensure that the needs and voices of victims are heard clearly in the court system. Both this Government and the last have clearly wished victims to be listened to and treated better within the court system, but that is mostly dealt with through additional requirements, such as victim impact statements and witness support, which are welcome but do not touch the central purpose of the whole system. I was the first Minister to serve on a jury after the legislation changed, and it did not enhance my respect for the court system, which seems to be run mainly for lawyers and judges.

[Meg Hillier]

To return to the situation of the Levy family, what does my right hon. Friend think could be done to improve the rights of victims at parole stage as well? The victims are still suffering. My constituents rightly say, “The perpetrator has a lot of people arguing on his behalf, but the victims have nobody to argue on their behalf.” They might not even be able to be present at the parole hearing. Does he have any thoughts on that?

[Alun Michael]

My hon. Friend is right. The needs and interests of victims should be present at every stage throughout the court system. I also think that greater use of restorative justice is needed. I was interested to hear a sergeant in the South Wales police say recently that giving victims the chance to tell the offender in no uncertain terms how damaging the experience of the offence had been was, in his words, genuinely life-changing for the offender. It is not a soft option; it is a hard option, as long as it is done properly, professionally and with the interests of the victims in mind.

The third step is to provide proper support for victims at every stage. We have built up a powerful victim support network across the UK. I was involved in the establishment of one of the first support schemes in Cardiff, after the very first had been established in Bristol. I pay tribute to how Victim Support, as a national organisation, has promoted professionalism in recent years among both staff and volunteers in a superb service.

As we see in other fields such as education and health, there is a necessary tension between the national dimension, in which standards are established, and local service, which is sensitive to local needs and realities. Now the Government are putting a significant amount of commissioning in the hands of the new police and crime commissioners. That has introduced an unwelcome element of uncertainty, but it might work in practice. My commitment, if elected, is to ensure that service to victims is enhanced rather than reduced.

In a reply to my recent question, the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), promised that more money rather than less would reach the commissioners in carrying out their duties, but there is a worry that support to victims might be fragmented from the other service. A sentence on the Home Office website states that

“the Government will retain responsibility for commissioning services where there are either proven economies of scale or they are genuinely specialist in nature. This includes support for those bereaved through homicide, victims of trafficking, rape support centres and the witness service”.

That makes sense for the other specialist services, but it is essential that the victim as witness is given a seamless service before, during and after the court experience. I hope that the Minister can clarify that and guarantee that the witness service will be delegated to the police and crime commissioners. Given that the worst experience for the victim sometimes occurs within the court system—victims in some cases describe their experience in court as being even worse than the original incident or as compounding their suffering—it would be wrong for it to appear that central Government or the court system were unwilling for support to witnesses to be provided through local and independent services.

Ministers have made it clear, as we saw at Home Office questions this week, that the police and crime commissioners should challenge other parts of the criminal justice system about their work and performance. Being in close contact with support for witnesses surely makes sense in that regard.

The fourth necessary step is to listen and learn from the experience of witnesses. In relation to violence in Cardiff, we stopped measuring reports to the police and started measuring the experience of victims who had to go to hospital for treatment. As a result, we found that many cases were not being reported and that that needed to change.

The purpose of establishing the crime and disorder reduction partnerships in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 was to bring in every aspect of the public service to support the objective of reducing offending and reoffending. That surely has to become the central responsibility of Government, to enable the whole of the criminal justice system to operate much more effectively and in the interests of victims, and to make it a clear priority for the whole of the criminal justice system and every agency.

Changing the focus of the Sentencing Council to make “what works” its clear priority would be part of that. The work of the police and crime commissions will be extremely challenging, but in the House this week Ministers set very high expectations of how commissioners might add value in pursuing the “and crime” part of their role. I am pleased they did so, but if that is to be turned into reality, the direction of the whole criminal justice system needs to support that ambition.

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[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan.

On 16 September 2004, Robert Levy was stabbed and killed near Hackney town hall when he went to help a younger boy who was being threatened by a schoolboy with a knife. Robert was only 16 years old when he lost his life. His murderer was 15 years old.

Robert’s murderer is due to have his parole hearing in September 2013. I have received correspondence from the former Justice Minister, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), saying that Mr and Mrs Levy can apply to their local parole board to attend the parole hearing and read out their victim personal statement. However, Mr and Mrs Levy believe—I have a lot of sympathy with their position—that the victims of crime should have the right to speak, or to have a lawyer speak for them, at the parole hearings of the people who have harmed them or members of their immediate family. As I said, I have a lot of sympathy with that position. The Levys feel strongly that although articulate people can present their case well—in fact, I would think the Levys fall into that category—some people might not be able to do that and others might not even be able to write their victim personal statement very well. There is, therefore, an issue about parity in the law.

Mr and Mrs Levy are concerned that at the moment, the decision on whether victims of crime can speak or have a lawyer speak for them at a parole hearing is up to the discretion of the chair of the relevant parole board. They feel that reading out a statement is not adequate—I support them on this—and does not allow family members to respond to points made during the hearing. They would like to be able to have some comeback. The perpetrator has the chance to have other people speak for him, but they do not have anyone to speak on their behalf.

I wrote to the Justice Secretary, the Minister’s boss, on 4 October. We have not had a response yet. That is not a criticism. I expect that he has to consider the matter, and we have had a good dialogue with Ministers. However, could this Minister say specifically in her summing-up of the debate whether the Department might consider what has been proposed and look into whether there could be better rights for victims, particularly at parole hearings?

This is not about retribution. It is about balance and ensuring that the perpetrator accepts responsibility for their actions at each stage of the process. For someone who has served a sentence, the crime becomes more distant. For the family who have to live without their family member—in this case, their son, Robert—the pain never goes away. It is important that perpetrators understand that the impact of their crime does not lessen with time.

I sincerely apologise, Mrs Riordan, because I may have to leave a little before the end of the debate. Perhaps I can correspond with the Minister, and if she would be willing to meet my constituents, I would be very happy to facilitate it.

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

I am now imposing a time limit on Back-Bench speeches of three minutes.