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
CCRC refers 45 cases back to the courts last year, one of highest no. of referrals in its 30yrs and an 80% increase on two years ago. It received more applications than ever before: 1,841 applications, almost 20% up on the previous year https://www.thejusticegap.com/record-number-of-ccrc-applications-as-watchdog-makes-one-of-its-highest-number-of-referrals/
‘Shockingly low’: eligibility for criminal legal aid has not been lifted since 2009 despite prices rising by 64%. According to new @CommonsJustice report, dire state of legal aid represents ‘unacceptably high risk’ of miscarriages of justice https://www.thejusticegap.com/mps-warn-collapse-of-legal-aid-creates-unacceptably-high-risk-of-miscarriages-of-justice/
Justice cannot be reduced to managing prison numbers.
Fewer than 3% of rapes recorded by police result in someone being charged or summonsed. For victims who do see a conviction, early release can bring renewed fear and risk. For the wider public, it raises legitimate questions
Missing from the Courts’ sentencing in the Fordingbridge rapes is any reference to misogyny-having mates there to catcall the victims & film their degradation.
We have higher sentences for racially aggravated offending.
Time to legislate for misogyny-aggravated offending too?
Is the CCRC too risk averse ?
@KenMacdonaldKC and @TimOwenKC discuss this and other UK Law and Politics issues on this week’s episode of Double Jeopardy.
Listen here: https://link.podtrac.com/ydatd31r
More IPP sentences referred to Court of Appeal as watchdog reviews 180 similar cases: 11 sentences have now been referred to the Court of Appeal by the CCRC. Dean Mullins was 24 when he imprisoned for attempted murder for 4.5 years – served almost 20 https://www.thejusticegap.com/further-ipp-sentences-referred-to-court-of-appeal-as-watchdog-reviews-180-similar-cases/
Record number of CCRC applications – as watchdog makes one of its highest number of referrals – https://goo.gl/alerts/iYJS5a #GoogleAlerts
New evidence sees 1972 Stevenage murder case reopened | The Comet – #GoogleAlerts
Very cool, entertaining and with high production values: if I were @Nigel_Farage, I’d consider dipping into that £5 million to try to get out a video that can compare to it.
New ASBO-style Respect Orders to be rolled out within months. This is a big step forward for victims!
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 in the Sentencing Bill, which has its Second Reading in the House of Lords today (12 November). The very first clause of that Bill presents a very real risk of increasing, rather than reducing, the number of women who are imprisoned for short sentences, despite…
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, and had to chew through their umbilical cord, losing copious blood and, eventually, passing out, with Aisha wrapped in a towel beside her. By the next morning when the cell was unlocked, Aisha’s lips were blue. The prison had no baby-sized resuscitation masks, and this…
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 a shocking record, given the abundant evidence that more women are driven to suicide bytheir abusers than are killed by them [1]. In 2022-23, for instance, a National Police Chief’sCouncil report showed that 80 abuse-related deaths were homicides and 93 were victim suicides. The three…
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 along with it. Yet, it is almost two decades since Baroness Corston recommended, in her seminal Report, that there should be: “a distinct radically different, visibly led, strategic, proportionate, holistic, woman-centred, integrated approach” towards women in prison.” That need for a targeted approach to women…
