Abuse victims giving up on justice after Labour Budget’s ‘ludicrous’ cuts to support charities, warns Baroness Newlove
VICTIM support services are facing “ludicrous” cuts due to Labour’s tax-raising Budget, a Government adviser has warned.
Baroness Helen Newlove said groups helping those affected by serious crime to navigate the court system face regional closures and redundancies.
And she fears some people may even give up on seeking justice if they do not have the charities’ specialist backing to hand.
Baroness Newlove, who is the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, has written to ministers calling for such bodies to be exempt from the controversial Employer National Insurance hike. They also face funding cuts.
She told The Sun on Sunday: “You wouldn’t run a business like this. If you don’t invest, your business falls down.
“It’s just ludicrous. It does feel very much like it’s breadcrumbs on the table again for victims.”
Baroness Newlove said it would have been “common sense” to omit victims’ services from the NIC increase, adding: “The public sector was being protected yet these were not. These are charities.
“These are very emotional sectors that feel like they are being thrown to the wolves. Will this encourage any victim to come forward?”
Rape Crisis, Victim Support and Women’s Aid have written to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, warning that the NICs hike is putting services “in danger” and denying a lifeline to thousands.
‘We’re going backwards’
They say they will have “no choice” but to lay off staff or cut services.
Their work is crucial in helping victims through the court process, as well as providing free, confidential advice and help.
Baroness Newlove said: “Victims are going to think, ‘Well, what’s the point?’ before they get to court.”
Studies show victims with advocacy backing are 49 per cent less likely to withdraw from the criminal justice process.
Victim Support estimates it faces a seven per cent real-terms cut in funding once unexpected costs such as the NICs rise are taken into account — effectively equalling £3.5million or 84 employees.
And nearly a third of Rape Crisis centre directors fear they will have to close their hub.
Meanwhile, the backlog in courts handling the most serious crimes reached an unprecedented high, with 73,000 trials unheard at the end of September — around twice the number in 2019.
That means some victims reporting crimes such as rape will not see suspects tried for up to four years.
Baroness Newlove said this, along with funding cuts and tax increases, meant the landscape looked “bleak”.
She explained: “Victim services are now going to struggle. They are going to have to make redundancies.
“How do we then support victims? Not just from the beginning, but through the years they’re going to have to wait to get to court.”
She insisted that while volunteers do a “grand job”, they cannot fill the void if experts are laid off, adding: “With rape, sexual abuse and child sexual abuse, these are very qualified people who take the pressure off. To have that person who knows their way around, the victim will then get the therapy or the counselling.”
She added: “We talk about rehabilitation of offenders. This is part of a victim’s rehabilitation.
“These people are damaged, traumatised.”
Baroness Newlove’s husband Garry was kicked to death in front of their daughters when he confronted a gang of youths who vandalised her car in August 2007.
Voice to crime victims
She has been dedicated to giving a voice to crime victims ever since — first serving as Commissioner in 2013.
She said: “Once the court trial is over, everybody thinks the garden is rosy, but it’s the loneliest place to be.
“I remember closing my front door, looking at my daughters and thinking, ‘What do we do now? Where do I go?’.
“And that’s what people really need to understand.
“It’s all about the liberty of the offender then. There’s no system in place, again, for the victim.
“There’s nothing. It’s the hardest place to be in.
“They expect you to go back to being normal, and you’re never normal.
“You’re not the person you were, and it takes guts and resilience to do it. That’s the bit that’s missing, and that’s where you really need the support services.”
Baroness Newlove also hit out at last year’s controversial early release scheme, that saw thousands of jailed cons freed in a Government bid to tackle overcrowding.
She said: “I don’t think anyone in this position as Victims’ Commissioner would want this to happen.
“No way would I want it, personally and professionally.
“All governments are guilty of this. If they were aware of this landscape, we should have been better prepared.
‘Better choice’
“But the Government are in the position they are in today, and they had no choice. I wish they did have a better choice.”
Because they did not “opt in” to the official contact scheme when their court proceedings ended, hundreds of victims are thought to be unaware that the offenders in their case are now free.
So Baroness Newlove wants victims to be automatically enrolled, with the option to drop out.
She also questioned why criminals could not have been held elsewhere rather than released.
“We’re on about putting migrants in an old Army base,” she said.
“Why didn’t we put prisoners in that base?”
Sadly, Baroness Newlove feels support for victims is going in the wrong direction.
She said: “I had hope at the very beginning and I believe in it. It’s like my baby, this Victims’ Commissioner role.
“I have worked really hard and have a great team, but I do feel we are going backwards instead of forward.”
She admitted she still considers the country to be “Broken Britain” — the term famously coined after the death of her husband.
“Sadly I do,” she said. “And victims email me saying the same.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said last night: “This Government inherited a criminal justice system under immense pressure and a black hole in the nation’s finances.
“We must now make difficult decisions to ensure we can deliver the justice victims deserve, through our courts and across the system.
“By protecting support for victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse, we are ensuring help is available to survivors of these awful crimes as they seek to rebuild their lives.”
RAPE CRISIS
YOU can contact the Rape Crisis 24/7 Rape And Sexual Abuse Support Line and speak to a specialist free on 0808 500 2222.
Or go to rapecrisis.org.uk/get-help.
If you have been affected by crime, contact Victim Support 24/7 free on 08 08 16 89 111.
Or go to victimsupport.org.uk.