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
The sister of a man who has been in prison for 14 years without a fixed release date, has welcomed government plans to review “inhumane” indeterminate sentences.
CCRC refers three more IPP and DPP sentences to the Court of Appeal via @solicitornews.co.uk
We have referred another three indeterminate (IPP and DPP) sentences to the Court of Appeal. The three men were sentenced between 2006 and 2008. None were given minimum terms of more than three years but all remain in custody today. Read more here 👉
I spoke to ITV News about the first grooming gang victim to have her convictions quashed – convictions she received only because her groomer forced her into crime. The case reached the Crown Court following a referral by @ccrcupdate
PM announces rape and grooming offenders banned from early prison release https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/burnham-sentencing-review-prison-crisis-37509587
#votebinface #BinfaceforClacton #votethecount
I remember many occasions, inc during Peter Sutcliffe’s murders, when senior cops told women not to go out after dark – an unofficial curfew. But when a female officer suggests it for men – sacked.
Andrew Marr: ” The Commons rules are very clear and they forbid face coverings “
Count Binface: ” Well the Commons rules are very clear about what you can do with donations , but that seems to have got all murky so why can’t I see how the line can get tested ? “
#lbc #farage
Grooming gang victim’s 2002 convictions quashed after CCRC referral – Solicitor News – #GoogleAlerts
Did you plead guilty to a crime, you were compelled to commit by a groomer? Then, please read this & contact the CCRC to see if we can help quash your conviction.
I spoke to ITV News about the first grooming gang victim to have her convictions quashed – convictions she received only because her groomer forced her into crime. The case reached the Crown Court following a referral by @ccrcupdate
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…
