Reflections from Claire Waxman OBE
After over a decade of leading the campaign to deliver a Victims' Law, it was an honour to be in Parliament last week to witness the Victims and Prisoners Act gain Royal Assent in the final few hours of this Parliament.
Whilst there is still much to be done to ensure that this legislation will make meaningful change in the lives of victims, I wanted to take this opportunity to recognise what we have achieved and to reflect on what more still needs to be addressed.
This law’s ambition is for victims to no longer be treated as bystanders in the criminal justice system, but instead that they will play a central role with enhanced rights that will improve their status and experience of the justice process.
I am pleased to say that, thanks to our relentless campaigning for greater enforcement and accountability for victims' rights, the Victims' Code is no longer optional. The final law has strengthened victims' rights, making it clear that victims require their rights within the Victims' Code, rather than simply saying they should receive them.
The law has also given responsibility to the Secretary of State and Attorney General to review compliance with the Code, and has given them the power - consulting with the Victims’ Commissioner - to issue a notice to criminal justice agencies that fail to deliver victims’ rights.
We must now ensure that this change is embedded into practice, and that all those working with victims are both aware of these rights and how to deliver them. I was disappointed to learn that, despite being voted into the Bill by the House of Lords, my amendment on training was dropped by the Government. A training clause would have been revolutionary in ensuring that criminal justice partners were clearly aware of the rights they need to deliver to victims, and I will continue to call on the next Government for such a provision.
At the final stage, this training amendment was bundled with an equally crucial amendment to introduce an information sharing firewall between police and immigration services (thanks to the work of the Step Up Migrant Women campaign) – both of which were voted in by the House of Lords – and excluded from the final Bill. A committee was established to look at these two issues, and we await further details on what this will involve, and will push the next Government to deliver on these issues.
Despite these setbacks, the Bill has enabled some hugely positive steps forward for victims, some of which I had hoped and lobbied for, and some of which I could not have anticipated when first working on this over a decade ago. Government's clarification that requests for third party material need to be necessary and proportionate is crucial, along with raising the legal threshold for requesting counselling records to give greater protection to victims, and requiring the Secretary of State to prepare a report on these requests. This work would not have been possible were it not for the tireless efforts of the End Violence Against Women and Girls coalition, Centre for Women's Justice, Rights of Women, and Rape Crisis.
Following calls from campaigners such as Julian Hendy, from Hundred Families, I also welcome Government’s acceptance that the victims’ voice is central to all parts of the justice process, in allowing victims to make a Victim Statement at Mental Health Tribunals.
What I couldn’t have anticipated when starting this work is that this Law would have been used to drive forward the fight for justice for the victims of the Infected Blood Scandal, thanks to Diana Johnson MP and others. It is a true honor that this Bill has been used to establish a compensation authority and scheme for these victims.
Of course, the snap announcement of this election has impacted our work. When considering our asks for the Victims and Prisoners Bill, Government made several concessions that they claimed they would bring to fruition through the Criminal Justice Bill. Unfortunately, they have failed to uphold their promises to victims and families, as the general election has resulted in the Criminal Justice Bill failing to pass.
These outstanding commitments include crucial changes to the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme (which we have worked on closely with Tracey Hanson), extensions to Jade’s Law to protect victims of child sexual abuse (something which the family of Jade Ward, for whom the law is named, have been supportive of), preventing sex offenders from changing their name to evade detection (spearheaded by the Safeguarding Alliance and Sarah Champion MP as Della's Law), and ensuring that offenders must attend their sentencing hearings (having worked with the families of Sabina Nessa, Zara Aleena, and Jan Mustafa. These commitments must be delivered by the next Government
On the Victims and Prisoners Act, I will do all that I can to ensure that the next Government commits to continuing the work that this law has started, through producing the necessary framework and guidance, and producing a revised draft of the Victims’ Code.
None of these changes would have been possible without the hard work of my team and all the victims, bereaved families, and campaigners that worked closely with us over the course of the Bill, as well as Baroness Brinton, the National Victims Commissioner, and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, to name just a few. I want to thank them for all their work and I hope that they all take time to recognise the part that they have played in improving the criminal justice system for future victims and families.
- Claire Waxman OBE, London's Victims' Commissioner