Q
223Mr.
Tim Boswell (Daventry) (Con): Briefly, Gillian Guy
referred earlier to alleged inconsistencies in the use of the measures
and had some concern about it. I am not familiar with them myself, but
it would be useful if you, Gillian, and/or John Thornhill, could say
whether the resources issue crops up again. Is there a need for greater
consistency of practice, and is that constrained by resources in
particular cases? Will the Bill help to address that?
Gillian
Guy: It is the case with all the initiatives that the
resources do not necessarily follow; therefore, there is inconsistency
in application. I do not see that the Bill addresses that. It is for
others to allocate the resources to ensure, as I said, that promises
made are kept.
Q
224Mr.
Boswell: Perhaps before Mr. Thornhill responds,
I could follow that comment by asking him to mention his experience of
resources, and to say whether a bench that has a difficulty with the
procedure is in a position to influence decisions on the allocation of
resources to deal with it.
John
Thornhill: Certainly, resources are a concern. There
are two levels of resources. First, on equipment and the consistency of
equipment around the country, there were to be a certain number of
pilot schemes, but some of them will not go into operation because of a
lack of resources or problems with resources. The resources have to be
there to ensure consistency right across the country if we are going to
deliver.
Secondly, we
are seeing a rise in the use of interpreters in court, and we have
concerns about how interpreters will be used. Will they be in the
prison or the court? There are concerns about communication between the
interpreter and the witness or
defendant. Resources
are always a problem. The issue of the time spent hanging around and
waiting was mentioned. When we were discussing the Sentencing
Guidelines
Council, there were concerns about resources for the prison population,
but we have concerns about the resources for community sentences. We
see long waiting times. The recent crime figures show that there are
large numbers of people in custody awaiting either trial or sentence.
That is a real concern to us as magistrates because, as one of my
colleagues just said, justice is not being done. We have no
problems with the principle of live links and there are obvious reasons
why they should be used in the interests of expedition. However, all
parties—prosecution, defence, magistrates and judges—have
to be able to say, “This is not working in the best interests of
this defendant and these witnesses. Therefore, we need to ensure that
there is a live appearance, either by the witnesses or by the
defendant.” That has to be there. Whether you remove the
permission of the defendant or build in a clause that allows
submissions to be made on each occasion on that issue, something along
those lines ought to be in the Bill. It should not be
blanket—“You must
appear.”
Q
225Mr.
Boswell: That is very helpful. I would like to ask about
your experience in cases of individual witnesses. Some comment has
already been made about confusion—for example, on whether they
know that they are going to appear. Is it your experience in court
that, on the whole, magistrates address these matters in a way that
makes things clear to people, and could we improve that practice if not
by
legislation? John
Thornhill: I do not think that there is any necessity
to improve that practice by legislation. This is about having proper
guidelines and providing proper information to those who will appear in
court. Certainly on the benches where I have sat, either in the chair
or as a winger, everyone has been at pains to ensure that those who are
appearing on the live link fully understand what is happening in the
court. Our legal advisers, for instance, will pan the camera round to
show the defendant or the witnesses who is in court and explain who
those people are. Also, the defendants have an opportunity to have a
live link with their advocate before the court session starts. In all
those terms, my experience at the moment is that generally they have
the opportunity to understand what is happening, but I do appreciate
the point that was made. If it is not explained to witnesses, that is
inappropriate and it would then be for the bench or a judge to explain
to the witnesses what was
happening.
Q
226Alun
Michael: My question is first to Victim Support, but I
would be interested in the views of other members of the panel. It
focuses on the commissioner for victims and witnesses. There has been
encouragement from Government for the system generally to show greater
respect to victims in two senses: first, in relation to the concern
articulated by Victim Support that I mentioned earlier—that what
has happened does not happen again—and secondly in relation to
the experience in court of victims and witnesses. We have had the
statutory code of practice for victims of crime. We have had things
such as the prosecutors pledge, although from evidence given to the
Justice Committee, I got the general impression that that does not seem
to have any great salience. What will the victims commissioner add and
how can we be sure that the commissioner will do what previous measures
have been intended to do?
Gillian
Guy: Obviously, the Government themselves will answer
on what the commissioner will add, because the legislation here is
changing what was proposed five years ago. Five years ago, Victim
Support was a supporter of the commissioner because of the state we
were in at the time. In five years, an awful lot has happened. If
nothing else, people talk about victims and witnesses constantly. We
talk about victims and witnesses being at the heart of the criminal
justice system, and my view is that we still have a hell of a long way
to go on that, but at least we say it and we try to put things in to
support it. We do have the victims code, the witness charter and a
number of quite strong voices around now for victims and witnesses, not
least of which is my own organisation. Indeed, we strengthened
ourselves quite recently to be able to do that even more, with the
whole of England and Wales being spoken for in those
terms. The
difficulty we currently have—Ministers are aware of
this—is that it is not altogether clear to us why this is
happening now as opposed to five years ago, when there was a lot to be
shifted. Also, why this? It is a rather watered-down version of the
commissioner of five years ago. It is very important to us as an
organisation to ensure that our concerns are addressed about possible
duplication and possible confusion about the mixture of voices around,
and to receive reassurance that resources will not be diverted away
from victims and witnesses into that kind of edifice. Those are our
questions and that is what we put in evidence. Times have
changed and we do not fully understand why this, why
now.
Q
227Alun
Michael: Are there any comments from other
witnesses? John
Fassenfelt: Magistrates have been told in the past
that victim impact statements are available. I think this is in
relation to the comment recently made concerning resources. We do in
theory have victim impact statements. When I have asked for them, 90
per cent. of the time they are not there. If you have an initiative you
must provide the necessary resources to back up that
initiative.
Q
228Alun
Michael: Is it as bad in
Liverpool? John
Thornhill: Yes, it is as bad in Liverpool. Very
often, the victims are not made aware that they can make such a
statement. It is at the very early stages in dealing with the
particular incident that they need to be made aware of the opportunity
to make that victim impact statement. It is no use, as John says, when
we often ask in court, “Has a statement been made?” and
no, it has not. That obviously is to the disadvantage of the victim.
Clearly those victim impact statements are an important piece of the
sets of information that are provided to magistrates and judges when
making decisions.
Q
229Alun
Michael: If something goes wrong, currently there are
about 10 different organisations that have a piece of the criminal
justice system, with 10 different ways of making a complaint or seeking
to register a complaint. Is that adequate? Is that
satisfactory? Gillian
Guy: Certainly from Victim Support’s point of
view, on behalf of victims and witnesses, no, it is not. It is very
difficult, I think, to give to people who are unfamiliar with the
system the responsibility for finding their way through various
complaints procedures, finally ending up with the parliamentary
ombudsman under
the victims’ code. I think that there was room—and as you
know we have said as an organisation that we think the Bill could be a
missed opportunity for victims and witnesses—to bring an entire
strategy together on their behalf and put them very much at the heart
of the system, to allow them to be central to the whole system as it
goes along.
We consider
that that is missing at the moment, in terms of a complaints system
that would be one complaints system and would be clear to people who
would not have the onus and worry of having to work their way through
everybody’s different cultures and ways of dealing with
complaints. As I believe I said in evidence the other day, if people
are serious about dealing with complaints—and that means
improving matters as a result of complaints—they make it easy to
complain.
Q
230Alun
Michael: Would that be a role for the commissioner for
victims and
witnesses? Gillian
Guy: I think it could be a role for the
legislation.
Q
231Jenny
Willott (Cardiff, Central) (LD): I want to ask, just
expanding on that, about the role of witnesses, and the support for
witnesses and victims, in the coroners’ system rather than
magistrates courts and Crown courts. To declare an interest, I used to
work for Victim Support before I got elected, and I know that in some
parts of the country there is a witness service equivalent in
coroners’ courts, but it is quite patchy. Victim Support has
said that it would like that to go on much more broadly across the
country. Is anything needed in the Bill to enable that to happen, or is
it simply a matter of
resources? Gillian
Guy: I think in terms of the Bill what we have is a
charter, and that is to be welcomed, in that anything that tries to set
out some rights and expectations for witnesses is welcome; but it does
not really go far enough.
If we look at
the clause regarding support in coroners’ courts, that really is
about some coroners’ courts having some support available on
sitting days. As people may be aware, in the witness service people
are, as volunteers, available from when a witness is identified right
the way through until those people deem it unnecessary to have that
kind of support. We would say that there needs to be a system that is
not fortuitous—that is the word I would use rather than
“patchy”. Where there is a little bit of resource
somewhere, Victim Support and the witness service get in and give a
little support. That is now diminishing and ebbing away, and we would
like to see proper provision for coroners’ courts to have
witness support throughout, in the way that we know it in the criminal
courts.
It would also
be good to see that replicated in civil courts, where there are some
quasi-criminal cases going on without such
support.
Q
232Jenny
Willott: And you would like to see that included in the
charter
specifically? Gillian
Guy: I think the charter could go further, but the
charter itself may not achieve it. It is a matter for the policy
writers and legislators to say whether we need legislation to set that
up and make it actually work, but it would need resources and a
commitment to see it happen.
Juliet
Lyon: There is scope for amending the charter to
ensure that we get rid of this morally repugnant means-testing so that
families are entitled to financial support. It is about equality of
alms, if you like. Quite often they are not represented because they
cannot afford to be, and in cases of death in custody they are up
against the Prison Service, which is very well represented indeed, and
that is not
fair.
Q
233Jenny
Willott: That relates exactly to the question I was about
to ask you, which concerns access to legal aid at inquests. You have
just put forward one side of the argument, and we have already heard
the other side, which is that if both sides are represented by lawyers
it can turn into a quasi-trial so that the character of an inquest is
changed and, rather than being inquisitorial, ends up being much more
adversarial and more like that of a criminal court. What are the
feelings of the other witnesses who have an interest in the provision
of legal aid for families, particularly in cases where the other side
is represented by lawyers? Would that counteract that imbalance and
make it fairer or end up changing the character of an
inquest? Gillian
Guy: I think that it is about equality, balance and
ensuring that no parties at an inquest feel severely disadvantaged.
There are other ways of dealing with how the system then operates, but
that does not mean that people should be disadvantaged to make it a
less professional
approach.
The
Chairman: For the final 14 minutes we can fix our gaze on
witness
anonymity.
Q
234Mr.
Garnier: I wonder whether I might ask the magistrates what
their experience is, either as individuals or an association, of the
use of the emergency legislation we passed last summer to allow for
witness anonymity in court; the other witnesses are welcome to comment
on
that. John
Thornhill: I do not think that we have had any
examples of that, so there is nothing on which we could comment at this
stage.
Q
235Mr.
Garnier: Gillian Guy, have you been involved in any cases
in which victims have been involved with witness anonymity orders
?
Gillian
Guy: Not directly. Of course, that relates to
investigation and witnesses. Our point of view on investigation is that
it is so difficult to get witnesses to come forward in certain cases,
which is clearly what gave rise to the measure, that we would like to
see it potentially extended beyond the age group to which it is
currently restricted. As far as witnesses are concerned, we welcome
anything that makes it easier to get to justice and the truth and allow
the general public as well as victims and witnesses to feel that there
is some system that will support them as they go through, but the
safeguards are incredibly important. I do not, however, have a witness
to provide to you who has been through
that.
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