Chair Criminal Cases Review Commission. Member Women’s Justice Bd.
Ex Victims’ Commissioner, Solicitor Gen & PCC. Fellow St Hilda’s Oxford. Writer. Labour Party
Welcome and thank you for taking the time to look at my personal website. Here you will find a range of information on the work I do and my many other interests, such as VAWG, my role as Patron of Respect and Operation Encompass to name but a few.
Vera is a member of the Fabian Society
Invented in Northumbria, when I was PCC. Hurrah!!
Rape victims will get free legal advice throughout the criminal justice process as part of plans to make the experience less traumatic. https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/rape-victims-to-get-free-legal-advice-throughout-criminal-justice-process-5HjdW7P_2/
By 2035 it’s predicated there will be 200,000 criminal cases waiting to be heard in the Crown Court.
We’ve funded unlimited sitting days, record funding for victim support, and legal aid. But investment alone is not enough. We must reform to deliver swifter justice for victims.
Over 30 female MPs give verdict on Lammy court plan – ‘cannot come soon enough’
Scots Courts have now convicted a domestic abuser of homicide by driving his partner to suicide.
Where are the English Police & CPS?
Abuser convicted of killing wife who jumped to her death in first of its kind case
Former victims commissioner Dame Vera Baird tells @SophyRidgeSky that she doubts the safety of women, and the confidence of women has moved forward much at all since Sarah Everard’s murder.
https://trib.al/FOVZClS
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube
Today, I tell Sky News- Police must recruit cops keen to stop crime against women.
Post from Mark on my linkedin:
‘Dear Vera
The Met is working hard to drive trust..the Met recognises we need to change..we want people like you to join & help to make a big difference’
P.C Baird!
Defendants who plead Not Guilty to theft in the Mags’ Courts & go to Crown Court are:
• likelier to get a conviction
• likely to get a longer sentence
than if they stay in the Mags.
Data_Insight_Deciding_to_have_a_Crown_Court_jury_trial_for_a_theft_offence_May_2024.pdf
Fourteenth dodgy Ridgewell conviction referred to Court of Appeal – The Justice Gap – https://goo.gl/alerts/F2JCtE #GoogleAlerts
Laurence O’Neill: Convictions quashed for man (82) who was ‘tortured in barracks’ – #GoogleAlerts
Clumsy drafting of the Sentencing Bill may increase the number of women sent to prison Earlier this year, David Gauke’s Independent Sentencing Review was published making a range of recommendations aimed at reducing the size of the prison population, which has caused alarming overcrowding. However, there is a big problem for women with its interpretation
Rianna Cleary, an 18-year-old care leaver, was pregnant when she was remanded to prison, on a charge of robbery. She went into labour when locked in her cell, and, though she rang desperately for help, nobody came. When she rang a second time, the officers turned her bell off. She gave birth to baby Aisha,
Prosecuting perpetrators for manslaughter when domestic abuse leads to suicide In January, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) failed in the manslaughter prosecution of Ryan Wellings, a domestic abuser, whose victim, Kiena Dawes, killed herself. It was only thethird prosecution of this kind that the CPS had ever attempted, and they have lost two. That is
Our criminal justice system imprisons twice as many women now, as it did in the nineties. No increase in the quantity or gravity of female crime has happened, to justify this. Harsh penal policy, directed at tougher sentencing for men – who are 96% of the prison population – seems simply to have carried women
