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
Massive back peddling from Nigel Farage after his bluff was called by Labour Party chair Anna Turley who gave him 24 hours to report Russian hacking claim in ‘public and national interest’.
Now he says he,
“Wants to move on from the issue and no longer discuss it”.
Tony Blair might not like my plan, but he’s wrong: it’s changing Britain for the better.
http://keirstarmer.substack.com/p/tony-blair-might-not-like-my-plan
CCRC has sent what it believes could be first of many grooming gang cases back to the courts. ‘We are conscious there will be many other victims who were in a similar position and would assure them that we will investigate their cases too,’ said @VeraBaird https://www.thejusticegap.com/first-grooming-gang-case-sent-back-to-the-courts-by-ccrc/
Congratulations!
Some personal news: I hope it rubs off on West Ham this weekend
EXPLAINER panel of experts hosted by @CrimeandJustice discuss travesty of Joint Enterprise @CharlMHenry talks about case of her autistic brother ALEX HENRY with excellent contributions by @VeraBaird @felicitygerry and Patrick William’s @ManMetUni @JENGbA https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/new-footage-experts-reflect-joint-enterprise-and-prospects-reform
Rape and domestic abuse victims will no longer have to surrender their phones to police, because new technology means they can submit digital evidence to investigators themselves @ShabanaMahmood @LabourSJ @PoliceInspForum @DannyShawNews @EVAWuk @centreWJ @voice4victims
InsideTime on the injustice of Joint Enterprise and IPP prisoners languishing in jail and the resilience required to keep campaigning in that space. Good to see @VeraBaird actively engaging with the miscarriage of justice community. https://insidetime.org/ray-says/a-room-with-a-collective-view-on-joint-enterprise/
CCRC: England and Wales Crown Court had no jurisdiction over foreign holiday destination – #GoogleAlerts
A room with a collective view on Joint Enterprise https://insidetime.org/ray-says/a-room-with-a-collective-view-on-joint-enterprise/
Force installs body scanner for custody searches – BBC – #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 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…
