Ex Victims' Commissioner, Solicitor General & PCC. Visiting Prof. LSE. Hon Fellow St Hilda's Oxford. Author: The Baird Review on Greater Manchester Police
In a week when 9 people died of knife crime in London, Amber Rudd announces a new law. You can't prosecute your way out of this. Try properly funding neighbourhood police, youth services, probation bring back EMAs, tackle poverty & unemployment,
stop slashing in-work benefits
A UK First. Inquest jury finds that a domestic abuse victim, driven to suicide by coercive control, was unlawfully killed by the perpetrator. Now, we challenge CPS to bring a manslaughter prosecution. 1/3 of all UK female suicides follow domestic abuse
Consider the Anthony Williams case; 5 yrs for strangling his wife because she annoyed him one day with Sally Challen 14 years for killing a man who cruelly persecuted her throughout her married life.
Police Perpetrated Domestic Abuse should NOT Be investigated by the same force. Today's response to the Centre for Women's Justice super-complaint recommends going to another force where there may be a conflict of interest. In the same force there is ALWAYS a conflict of interest
Bad news: CPS prosecuted 51% fewer rapes this year than in 2016/17 & convicted 41% fewer. Prosecuted 48% fewer DA cases this year than in 2016/17 & convicted 46% fewer
Good news: None
Surely someone in government will ultimately listen to women & ask why CPS are failing at VAWG
Pleased to have been asked
@MayorofGM
to carry out
'An independent assessment of Greater Manchester Police's custody processes & care of victims'
I will be meeting with
@MayorofGM
& Deputy, Chief Constable Watson & his Deputy on Monday to discuss ToRs
Today is the 26th anniversary of the Battle of Orgreave.A year later, 18.6.85, with other lawyers I was defending the miners.The evidence was hopeless, the case dropped & all were acquitted after a year’s anguish on penal bail facing a life sentence. An inquiry is 25 yrs overdue
I agree with Sir Mark Rowley. CPS sole interest is conviction rates. They charge only 'easy' rape cases Their test to charge is 61% chance of conviction in rape compared with 51% in every other kind of cases
Dame Vera Baird to end term as Victims’ Commissioner at the end of September.
Dame Vera Baird has written to the Justice Secretary to inform him that she is not seeking a further extension of her term. Her contract will end on Friday 30 September 2022.
Rape Trial scrapped at 11th hour. New date 6 yrs after crime. Rape is a serial offence! Complainant told not to not to have therapy.
She thinks she has been victimised by the criminal justice system & I agree.
How have the Tories made the position of rape victims even worse?
Over half of cases CPS refuse to charge as criminal offences, when that decision is appealed by complainants, under the Victims Right to Review scheme, result in a charge and a conviction. These include rape. manslaughter and much violent crime
Upskirting, thanks to Gina Martin's campaign, is a simple offence with limited defences. Yet 1150 recorded crimes brought 68 convictions. As ever, seems no will to prosecute offences against women
"This state of mind is redolent of sexual offending on a more major scale"
Former Victims' Commissioner Dame Vera Baird says low prosecution rates for upskirting suggest police are missing opportunities to stop people escalating into contact offences.
#SkyNewsBreakfast
os
Surely, after failing to see indecent exposure as a danger sign in the cop who raped & killed Sarah Everard, police have learnt that 'low-level' sexual crimes can be gateway offences. Upskirting is likely be one of them
Time to repeal Ss58/9 of an 1861 law which made it a crime to take a substance to induce an abortion. It was repealed in Northern Ireland to no ill effect. Meanwhile we imprison a Mum of 3 for taking too long, in the isolation of lockdown, to decide about an unexpected pregnancy
A mother of three has been jailed for taking abortion pills after the legal limit.
Here is what former Victims' Commissioner
@VeraBaird
had to say 👇
#KayBurley
LH
The Guardian view on rape cases: Government has a long way go.
Or as
@jessphillips
put it yesterday, Ministers want praise, having smashed a vase, for sticking a few bits of it together again.
(Though it (& their figures) still don't hold water)
Police aren’t investigating. CPS only take rock-solid cases. So not much is being prosecuted. Only this Government could, in that situation,
have a court backlog of 60,000 cases which is growing daily
I am thrilled to share that I’ve achieved a landmark victory by successfully suing the Crown Prosecution Service for breaching my human rights by failing to prosecute my rapist.
Also the term 'unthinkable tragedy' which makes this double murder sound morally neutral. Who are these men, known to the Mail, who have no culpability for blowing their wife and child to pieces with a shotgun?
If you’re a high-achieving woman, watch out, your aspirations might get you killed. What vile victim blaming from
@MailOnline
, this speculation places blame on the victim rather than focus on the actions of a man who took the lives of his wife and 7 year old daughter.
Unlawful arrests, humiliating strip searches & an aggressive/defensive response to complaints. Welcome to more detail about what my inquiry found in parts of Greater Manchester Police.
The Baird Inquiry has exposed officers at Greater Manchester Police acting above the law: unlawful arrests, inappropriate strip searches and treating detainees in an "inhumane" manner. But what constitutes an unlawful arrest?
@JasonFarrellSky
explains ⬇️
In the UK today, 90% of crimes reported to police go unsolved and 2.4 million crimes were dropped for lack of evidence. It is an amazing thing that this government can’t prosecute crime, and at the same time, it can’t reduce the backlog of cases at the Crown Court.
Great victory. High Court rules women groomed into prostitution as teens can't be required to disclose soliciting convictions on job apps. It is "Disproportionate interference with private life and not in accordance with the law"
Victims' Bill is a disappointment. Most victims' things announced - challenge Police/CPS decisions; Ministers ask for inspections if CJS agencies fail victims - exist already. Victims Code rights are ignored in CJS: not enforceable, no workable complaints system. No change today
“Victims placed at heart of justice system under radical shakeup”, says
@MoJGovUK
press release announcing its new Bill.
So why has Govt left the post of Victims’ Commissioner vacant for six months?
@VeraBaird
has still not been replaced after leaving her post in September
Really good piece. Made point male victims may be unaware of services for them, perhaps thinking most are for women. There is specific support for men. Don’t hesitate. Get help if you need it. Also clear from C5 stats 9 of 10 coercive control perpetrators against males are males
Domestic abuse has a crippling impact on those subjected to it.
It's often assumed the victim is a woman but a 5 News investigation can exclusively reveal that more than one in 10 of those experiencing coercive control are men.
@Ruth5news
|
@VeraBaird
|
@ManKindInit
By implying that demeaning a woman is appropriate, even just, as Clarkson does about Meghan, he will encourage predatory men to think that what they want to do to women is justifiable too.
Empty words about investigating all crimes, from Home Sec Braverman, given she isn't adding one extra penny of resource to policing to enable it. Thanks to Tory cuts, there are only 3000 more officers now than there were in 2010, though recorded crime was 4m then and is 7M now
“Instead of hastily cutting, we should have been growing the police force.”
The Tory government cuts to the police force for the last 10 years are “still resonating” and we can’t just “hastily reverse it”, says former Victims' Commissioner
@VeraBaird
.
Glad as I am that the unspeakable Couzens has pleaded guilty to indecent exposures which must have outraged/scared his victims, the guy is jailed for ever. If they can prosecute him now, why not when it happened, then perhaps he would not have had a police pass to use for murder
Jade used her Victim's Right to Review the decision not to prosecute her attacker & appealed it to CPS Head Office who agreed with her-very important support for her claim. Anybody who disagrees when CPS try to drop their case, act quickly & do the same-how to do it is online.
The former
@VictimsComm
@VeraBaird
has kept her powder dry since resigning from her role in September, but in an exclusive interview with
@guardian
she says the role of a victims’ champion has been “deceptively and deliberately” undermined 1/5
The Clare Wade Review:
"Making the use of controlling & coercive behaviour an aggravating factor for perpetrators who kill, whilst failing to make it a mitigating factor for women who kill to escape from it, is an injustice to those women"
@charleshymas
@centreWJ
Braverman rubbish that rape justice is better. For 10 yrs CPS charged 3500 rapes a yr. That crashed to 1750 in 2016/17 & is now 2223, two thirds of the 16/17 charges. Yet 30000 more women complain of rape now than in 16/17 - only to be dumped by the CPS
There should be a discretion to take the pension from a police criminal, whether he offended on duty or not, if he used his police status to enable his awful crimes
Please RT & share our survey as widely as possible. It’s critical we hear from rape victims & survivors who have reported to
@metpoliceuk
& were asked to share personal technology such as mobile phone data
#victimsvoice
Appalling numbers of rape complainants' health, counselling & school records police search for CPS. Not 'to establish their credibility' but so they can decline to charge if, in some irrelevant way, she is not a perfect victim, as most of us would not be.
Rape victims’ personal health and counselling records are being searched by police in a third of cases to establish their credibility, a government study has found.
@emilyinpublic
@SuellaBraverman
@AlexChalkChelt
Success for we campaigners who had to overcome Government resistance to non-fatal strangulation being a separate offence. Thanks to the many peers who supported it at the DA Bill second reading last week. All credit to the
@RobertBuckland
Lord Chancellor for listening
2 Police data breaches in 2 months, with potentially chilling consequences. Worrying for officers In PSNI & Norfolk & Suffolk Police have spilled names of victims of crime, some of them entitled to lifelong anonymity as victims of sex offences
Nothing likelier to put people off reporting crime to the police than worrying that their data might be passed on to Facebook
Well done to the Guardian for digging this out & good that the Met got the point and promises to stop it
CPS have widened their test for demanding rape complainant's counselling notes/personal material as a condition of considering a charge. Braverman's Attorney-General's Office was asked to stop this but didn't. Thanks to inews for exposing the impact
'In half the forces we inspected Rape & Sexual Assault personnel are routinely diverted to supporting events such as football matches & festivals' - HMICFRS reports today.
Was it last week police told us they saw Violence against women and girls as a national emergency?
Locally grounded specialist women's services are vital if we are, optimally, to support DA survivors, as they deserve. Commissioning generic organisations, who bid cheap to try to tap into this 'market' runs the risk that poor care can re-traumatise
It was an absolute pleasure to speak alongside such a stellar panel on Labour’s commitment to halving VAWG in a decade - an ambition that can only be realised with a sustainably funded national network of SPECIALIST women’s services
@YvetteCooperMP
@EVAWuk
@VeraBaird
@womensaid
Have the Met. Police accepted liability to compensate Carrick's victims? Given that they missed >9 chances to stop him & that some will need urgent therapy, it would surely look like a lack of remorse if they forced these women to sue
This was an excellent speech. It said positively and clearly what Labour would do and then compared it closely to the disaster which is policing, prosecutions & courts today
Labour pledges to put 13,000 more neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs back on the streets
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper says neighbourhood policing should be the 'building block on which the rest of the police is based'
📺 Sky 501 and YouTube
Unlawful arrests, humiliating strip searches& an aggressive/defensive response to complaints. Welcome to more detail about what my Inquiry found in Greater Manchester Police
Not rocket science, if the Govt had not scrapped legal aid in private family law cases, many would be resolved by early legal advice from committed & solicitors like
@CrisMcCurley
. Children would be settled more quickly, cash & court time would be saved
Labour Manifesto adopts 2 VAWG schemes, I piloted, with the great Northumbria team, when I was PCC
"Victims of DA will be able to talk directly to trained experts in 999 control rooms & there will be legal advocates in every police area to advise victims from report to trial"
I'm sure people know the Govt-quoted rise in rape prosecutions in 2021-2 over 2020-1 is a comparison with the pandemic year, when trials stopped for months. Like saying J Lewis sold more settees last year than then - of course they did,they were closed part of the comparator year
CPS widened the test to get therapy notes from rape complainants. They have no respect for victims only suspicion and doubt. I asked Alex Chalk. Solicitor General to stop them but he didn’t. Braverman was nowhere. Government = very complicit in this CPS abuse of rape complainants
EXCLUSIVE Rape victims’ therapy notes could be routinely sought in investigations, deterring people from engaging in the criminal justice system, one of the CPS’s own prosecutors has claimed
@theipaper
@VeraBaird
@RapeCrisisEandW
@centreWJ
Women who report rape
are forced to choose between counselling & justice since they don’t want their feelings about how the rape affected them to be sent to the very man who caused them. But they need counselling & deserve justice
Disturbing to hear that she - along with other rape victims - are advised to delay therapy until after legal proceedings because case notes may be disclosed to defence lawyers. Surely that needs changing.
@VictimsComm
@VeraBaird
@LDNVictimsComm
CPS doc 'Speaking to Witnesses at Court' tells prosecutors to speak to ALL their witnesses before trial including victims. Been in force for almost 20 yrs, (revised in 2018). Some barristers do it, but mainly for 2 minutes, just before the victim testifies. So what's new here?
Rape victims will get a legal right to have face-to-face meetings with prosecutors ahead of their trial as part of the Government’s attempt to reduce drop-out rates.
@AlexChalkChelt
@SuellaBraverman
@DamianHinds
New documentary to look at Wayne Couzens case & ‘culture of misogyny’ in policing –
Perceptive insights brought out by determined investigative journalists: - 9pm on C4 Thursday 15th June
Labour commits to funding end to end legal advice for rape complainants. I piloted this as Northumbria PCC: It saved time, balanced demands for complainants' personal material & was widely praised by almost all the professionals involved.
2 women report crime to Manchester Police. Each says - not satisfied with the response:
Both arrested. Both strip-searched. 'They did it to shut me up' 'They did it to demean me.' To a formal complaint, GMP refuse to produce custody record/cell video. My comments to
@KayBurley
"It will send a chill down the spines of some woman in Manchester."
Former Victims' Commissioner Dame Vera Baird gives her thoughts on Jason Farrell's report on unjustified strip searches.
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube
Does this Gov have a clue about rape ? Lord Sharpe,HO Minister,answering Q by praising Op Soteria,told Lords he had never heard of Prof Stanko who invented it. Then blamed victim withdrawal for the small no of cases getting to court, so can't have heard of the 3 yr backlog either
Every 20 minutes an economic abuse survivor reports to the police. Yet survivors aren’t getting the justice they deserve. The
#VictimsBill
must deliver both criminal and economic justice for survivors.
#SeenYetSidelined
@SEAresource
Victims' Right to Review is undermined by CPS themselves. If a victim is against them dropping a case, they go to court & offer no evidence, a Not Guilty verdict is recorded & the case is closed.
@jadeblueLDN
won her Review but CPS had blocked her from justice in the meantime
I finish where I started. The evidence is massive that the most important thing for a rape complainant who has found the courage to go to the police is, at that point, to be believed.
Sky News reports some of the detail of how three of the people who spoke to the Inquiry - two women and a man - were treated by Greater Manchester Police
Dame Vera Baird KC has published the results of her inquiry into how Greater Manchester Police treats people in custody, which was set up following a Sky News investigation last year.
The Victims' Survey I did, as VC last year shows nothing got better for victims under this Government. Just 29% of victims at court have ever heard of their rights in the Victims' Code Exactly the same number as the previous survey.
This government is so committed to the brilliant Avon and Somerset Project Soteria, which improves how police investigate rape that the Government tried to charge all the police forces, after the first few, a fee to join it
Given what the neighbours heard, they did exactly the right thing by knocking on the door, to try and offer any personal help, and then, when they got no reply, call the police. ?
CPS must never again rush to court to get an irreversible acquittal, before a Victim's Right to Review has been decided.
Not only does It gives immunity to a defendant who perhaps should be prosecuted, but shows disregard & disrespect for victims rights, which risks future trust
Victim Support and other campaigners have written an open letter to the justice secretary, to express concern that the victims’ commissioner post has been vacant for a year.
"This situation is unacceptable and neglects the needs of victims."
A presumption to suspend all prison sentences of <1 year would slash the female prison population. Roll out more Women's Problem-Solving Courts, as in Manchester & West Midlands. where they are already positively diverting women instead of jailing.
Just read this report from the outstanding Prof. Katrin Hohl & colleagues. Poor quality police rape investigations which further harm complainants.
Hold on to the hope from Project Soteria, that it may begin to make the future of policing rape very different from the present
Wonderful!! To be in Brisbane talking Victims and VAWG to a Government determined to take action on both. And am proud to do a public event on Wednesday at Parliament buildings - the one that looks like a lipstick - with the ex-President of the Appeal Court, Hon Margaret McMurdo
Why isn't a young person’s railcard acceptable as ID for voting, while a Freedom Pass & other travel passes are?
Campaigners have accused the Tories of deterring young voters who are more likely to back Labour.
It’s 8 years since
#CoerciveControl
was criminalised. So anticipated was this piece of legislation which incorporates victim-survivor’s experiential definitions of abuse that I shared this example from
@northumbriapol
(then led by
@VeraBaird
) during the countdown to launch day.
CPS says 3 Worboys complainants +good evidence not used as Judge already had enough 4 long sentence. Met can/should arrest him on release to try those. Necessity for arrest&remand in custody seem clear.
63,000 record Crown Court backlog, 1000 too few judges, few crime barristers through pittance legal aid & now these bungling Tories put every woman at risk by making judges, nationwide, delay sentencing serial rapists, who will stay on bail with nobody watching what they do.
Senior Presiding Judge, Edis LJ, has asked judges to adjourn, from next week, the sentencing of offenders who are on bail where custody is likely to be imposed. The prison estate is full.
CPS stats. Now published 1/4ly so the DPP can make big % improvement claims on tiny numbers of cases. This 1/4: rape charge rate is down 1.5% (just when you thought it couldn't get any lower) Domestic Abuse charge rate down 0.7% & conviction rates down 7.2% in rape & 2.1% in DA
Kavanaugh, not fit to be any kind of Judge, having seen his screaming panic when his sense of entitlement was pierced by the sexual allegations, has been confirmed. Well done to these fabulous protesting men!
C.C Sarah Crew is a heroine. Full of integrity.She invited academics in to see how her force was getting rape wrong and gave rise to Project Soteria. Which will transform police rape investigations nationwide. If she says her force is racist she will be right.
Law Commission should recommend compulsory training in how to cross-examine without re-traumatising rape complainants. The Inns of Court College of Advocacy course is already on that track for volunteers, but we still hear terrible stories of irrelevant personal attacks
How swiftly the UK has declined from Theresa May legislating to tackle trafficking & modern slavery to a Home Secretary lodging migrant teenage children alone in hotels-often a free gift to traffickers
Huge respect: to the family of Kellie Sutton who fought for this & to
@BhattMurphy
@SophieNaftalin
who have worked tenaciously on the issue, culminating in this breakthrough & opening the way to better justice for victims of coercive control
·
16h
BREAKING: Jury conclude that Kellie Sutton who took her own life following domestic abuse was unlawfully killed
@SophieNaftalin
and Paul Bowen of
@Brickcourtchambers
act for Kellie’s family. Press statement here
Lovely to be back in north east since yesterday. Meet former workmates at PCC office, visited people who used to look after my beloved Poppy dog in the week & stayed with old friend in Tynemouth with sunny walk on Long Sands this very bright morning.
Such Dynamic Women!!
The London Collective of Soroptimists at the V & A today, planning the Spring Programme of Action on Women's equality & human rights. I am proud to be a Soroptimist & it was great to be their guest. (As you can see we also ate cake)
Rape victims are being put under excessive investigations, with masses of irrelevant info taken from them.
This delays trials, deters victims from reporting + prevents justice.
@g__ferris
on how the current system is broken + must be changed:
Cop misuses undercover identity to have a relationship with a woman unconnected to any police op. CPS don't ask for her statement, refuse to charge him, don't tell her she can review their refusal. Shocking abuse by the state? Serial cover up? Both?