Successive British governments have expanded the role of victims, handing them more rights in the judicial process
legal education came quickly. In the weeks after her husband, Garry, was kicked and beaten to death outside their house by a gang of teenagers in 2007, an “endless stream” of police officers and lawyers came to call on her. By the time the case reached court, she had reached a discomfiting conclusion. The prosecutor represented the Crown. Five defence barristers represented the defendants. But, she recalled in a recent speech, “no one represented me and my daughters”.
Until the 19th century, victims of crime had three roles in English and Welsh courts: complainant, witness and prosecutor. They were responsible for hiring their own lawyers. Then the police began to pursue offenders themselves. “There was a move away from private vengeance to public prosecution,” says Pamela Cox of Essex University. “Victims disappeared from the courtroom, except to be called as witnesses for the state.”The pendulum is beginning to swing back.
Plenty of the changes in the strategy are uncontroversial. Few could quibble with attempts to ensure that police and prosecutors inform victims of developments in their case. In one survey, only a little more than a third of victims felt that had happened. Offering tours of the court before a trial starts and providing separate waiting areas for the defence and prosecution ought to make the process less daunting.
Other reforms raise more questions. Victims are banned from expressing their views on an appropriate sentence in their personal statements, but some defence briefs worry that judges will nevertheless be swayed by emotional accounts. “Judges are only human,” says Sarah Vine, a criminal-law barrister. Some doubt that victims should take part in parole hearings, since they are not qualified to assess how likely a prisoner is to reoffend. There is also a risk in applying the label too loosely.
Yet protecting defendants’ rights does not require victims to be silent. Evidence from several jurisdictions that now allow personal statements suggests their introduction did not lead to harsher sentences. But victims who make a statement are more satisfied with the process than those who do not, suggesting that paying them more attention will increase the perceived legitimacy of the justice system. “It makes the person human, instead of being a case file,” says Lady Newlove.
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