Victims' Right to Information and Consultation

The present position of road victims and progress in this area since the Launch of RoadPeace's Justice Campaign in July 1998.
Presentation by Zoe Stow at Parliamentary Lobby meeting on 21 April

In 2001 the Victims Charter was to be updated and for the first time road victims were considered for inclusion. Responses to the consultation were overwhelmingly in favour and it seemed a virtual certainty. It seemed that at last, road victims, neglected for a century, were to be given funding for support and recognition and that RoadPeace's 12 years of hard work had paid off.

In 2004, we are, however, no nearer to achieving any of this and a Code of Practice for victims has been put forward in place of the Charter which excludes injured road traffic victims, while earlier drafts excluded all the bereaved, except those - virtually none - where there was intent to harm.

The Home Office's RDIWG has set up three pilot projects to provide and evaluate help to at most 5% of road victims in three areas on a one to one basis, but our Helpline, local groups and contacts providing a national service remain without any government funding in spite of promises from Charles Clarke and Lord Falconer. Victims, who are least able to afford it, continue to have to fund their own support through voluntary work and donations - the services that we provide on a shoestring. This must surely be the ultimate victimisation - from a government who claim to put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system.

The rhetoric is all - pervasive, but the reality is very different. There have, however, been some developments.

CPS have started to offer meetings and explanations of the charges to the bereaved and often to the injured as well, though they never seem to take on board new evidence for a change of decision. The Victim Personal Statement Scheme enables victims of all types of crime to make a statement to the court about how they have been affected but it expressly precludes any opinion on sentence. Unlike the statement in mitigation by the offenders, it is provided in advance to the defence who can cross-examine victims on the contents. RoadPeace have reservations about providing information on the victims vulnerabilities 'on a plate' to an offender. So apparently do others, since the scheme is hardly used.

The police have launched a Road Death Investigation Manual, which sets a standard for the investigation but is not mandatory. Although standards are variable, families do now usually have a designated Family Liaison officer but some still do not receive the most basic information, like the date of the hearing.

Victims also receive literature funded by the Home Office, but it does not provide information on their rights, nor from our experience the practical and procedural information that they need. It is also contrary to the framework decision of the Justice and Home Affairs Council of the European Union dated 15 March 2001 on the standing of victims in criminal proceedings.

This decision states the victims' rights: to be heard in proceedings and to furnish evidence and to have access from the outset to information of relevance for the protection of their interests. These rights are denied in the Home Office funded literature for victims. To take just two examples: Victims are told that they may ask questions if invited by a Coroner, not that they have the right to do so irrespective of an invitation. They are not informed that the most likely charge following a road death: Driving without Due Care and Attention is subject to a 6- month time limit. Both these points have repeatedly been made by RoadPeace, both to the Home Office and the authors. We were asked to improve the literature, but our offer to do so on a paid consultancy basis has been rejected.

Far from providing information as of right, victims are asked to pay £1k or more for the police report into the death of their own child, while the perpetrator gets it for free.

Proposals for support for road victims continue to be on the basis of one to one support from volunteers in spite of the growing difficulty of attracting volunteers and of the obvious need for highly trained professional help for those deeply traumatised. The sheer number of road victims, one of the main reasons for not supporting road victims for so long, makes this approach massively costly in terms of hard cash and human resources. The RoadPeace system of a Helpline and follow up when requested would be far more cost effective and to use a current buzz-word - targeted where needed. We are even denied referrals.

Road Victims continue to be excluded from both road safety and victim government bodies. In road safety - from the Road Safety Advisory Panel, from the HSE Road Safety at Work Task Force, although we are involved in London on the Pan London Road Safety Forum and work closely with Transport for London.

We are excluded from the Home Office Victim Forum and are only represented on the Victims' Advisory Panel because I applied as a private individual. Murder victims have 6 representatives, only 2 of whom had to apply in their own right. There are 5 times as many road victims as murder victims. Most victim bodies prefer to use victim experts who themselves carefully avoid any contact with an actual victim, who might bring some real experience and genuine feeling to the issue.

Our expertise and knowledge and experience is eagerly sought for consultations, our free research and advice is very welcome to Government funded researchers like the CPS Inspectorate, research by Pearce and Halliday, the Review of Coroners', Scotland Yard, but we find it hard even to get our travel expenses paid. Victims are very welcome to give talks, contribute to training but in almost every case victimised over again by being expected to give their time, skill and hard won knowledge for precisely nothing.

The emphasis on including victims is just another opportunity for further victimisation. The Compact for Government partnerships with the voluntary sector is just another lot of words, which evaporate when we try to invoke this; most civil servants have not even heard of this wonderful Compact.