The Victims and Prisoners Bill

The government has introduced the Victims and Prisoners Bill into Parliament

The government says that:

“The bill will introduce measures to better serve victims and the public through improving victims’ experiences of the Criminal Justice System, establishing an Independent Advocate to support victims of major incidents, strengthening the parole system and restricting marriage in prisons for those under whole life orders to ensure that the public and victims are better protected and can have greater confidence in the criminal justice system.”

The bill will:

• Introduce measures to help victims have confidence that the right support is available and that, if they report crime, the criminal justice system will treat them in the way they should rightly expect. These measures will place the principles of the Victims’ Code into law; place a duty on criminal justice bodies with Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) to review their compliance and raise awareness of the Code; and increase transparency and oversight of criminal justice bodies’ services to victims. These measures will also enable improvements in the quality and consistency of support services for victims by introducing a duty on local commissioners in England to work together when commissioning support services and introducing guidance on Independent Sexual Violence Advisors (ISVAs) and Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs) to increase awareness and consistency of these roles.
• Establish an Independent Public Advocate that can be stood up in response to major incidents to provide support and guidance for victims of major incidents to navigate the processes that follow, particularly inquests and inquiries.
• Make reforms to the parole system to help protect the public, keep our streets safe and restore confidence in the parole system. The measures in the bill will strengthen the release test, require parole boards to include those with a law enforcement background, allow for greater ministerial oversight and the power to overturn release decisions for the most serious offenders, reform the role of the Chair of the Parole Board to ensure it is a strategic leadership role that has no influence over the decisions made in individual cases by parole panels.
• Stop prisoners who have committed the most heinous crimes and are subject to a whole life order from being able to marry or form a civil partnership while in prison, subject to an exemption in exceptional circumstances.

Diana Fawcett, chief executive at Victim Support, said the charity welcomed many of the measures in the bill “which will make a real and meaningful difference to the experience of victims. But we are seriously worried that expanding its scope to include prisoners will be a distraction and delay it even further.”

Andrew Simon, Director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said:

“This Bill has the potential to improve victims and survivors’ experiences of the criminal justice system, at a time when women and girls’ confidence in justice agencies is at an all-time low and survivors are being routinely failed in the most appalling way.

Recovery is an essential part of justice, and we need to ensure every survivor who needs help can access specialist support that is tailored to their needs. We are a long way from that being a reality and need to see the government commit to sustainable funding of specialist services in the community – particularly those led by and for Black and minoritised women. We also expect this Bill to guarantee independent legal advice to rape survivors and to put a stop to excessive, intrusive requests for survivors’ private therapy notes.

There remains much to do to improve all victims and survivors’ experiences of justice and recovery, especially the most marginalised. The government needs to keep victims’ rights at the heart of this Bill, instead of pursuing the Refugee Ban Bill and so-called Bill of Rights, which significantly undermine the spirit of a Victims Bill.”

As a firm we closely monitor legislative proposals as they make their journey through parliament. This allows us to give timely advice to all of our clients and ensure that any and all possible objections to anything that harms our client’s lawful interests are pursued. There is no doubt that this legislation if enacted, will be the subject of an extensive legal challenge.

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