A new £1.2 million service to bring together agencies in support of families bereaved by murder aims to put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system, the Justice Secretary has said.
The Support for Families Bereaved by Crime service has been developed following a report from charity The Moira Fund, which showed families in Scotland were being let down by a lack of provision.
Bea Jones, mother of Moira Jones, who was murdered in Glasgow’s Queen’s Park in 2008, said the service intends to make victims feel “cared for at the very worst time of their lives”.
The Moira Fund was set up in Moira’s memory to support families bereaved by murder or culpable homicide after Mrs Jones recognised a gap in the system following the loss of her daughter.
Mrs Jones said: “I am very pleased to be here for the launch of the new service which is now up and running – pleased for the sake of those heartbroken, traumatised Scottish families who need it now and those who will need it in the future.
“It has been a privilege for The Moira Fund to work alongside the Scottish Government, Victim Support Scotland, the Crown Office and Police Scotland to establish this service and ensure that every aspect of necessary support has been covered.
“Strong links are in place to ensure a streamlined system of help is available
to desperate families who need much support and will surely benefit from
feeling cared for at the very worst time of their lives.”
Families accessing the service, delivered by the charity Victim Support Scotland, will have a dedicated support worker who will provide assistance with immediate practical tasks such as going to court, accessing specialist services including counselling, arranging funerals, and handling the media and finances.
As a result of the Moira Fund report to the Scottish Government in 2017, Victim Support Scotland was awarded £1.2 million over three years until the end of March 2021 by the Government to establish the new service.
Kate Wallace, chief executive of Victim Support Scotland, said: “I am pleased we have reached this point in the journey of delivering this much-needed service to families across Scotland.
“What’s been critical in the development phase is involving people like Bea, and others, who have lived through difficult and traumatic experiences. This has allowed us to understand their experiences and ultimately helped us to start the process of shaping better services for the future.”
The service is free and family members can access support via a Police Scotland family liaison officer.
Although the service is only available to immediate family, wider family members and friends can still access Victim Support Scotland’s other support services by self-referral.
Victim Support Scotland said the new service forms part of a movement across Scotland to take on a “victim-centred” approach to streamline points of contact, improve information flow and ensure victims of crime feel supported through the criminal justice system. This will reduce the need for victims to have to retell their story to several different organisations as they seek help.
The Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Humza Yousaf, said: “We want to ensure that victims’ interests are at the heart of our criminal justice system and that it is fair, accessible and efficient for all.
“We listened when victims’ families told us that they had faced difficulties in accessing the support that was available to them and that is why we have provided £1.2m funding to Victim Support Scotland to deliver this free and confidential new service.
“It will ensure that all families affected by homicide have a dedicated case worker to provide support and information at every stage of the criminal justice process, helping to reduce distress and the potential for re-traumatisation.”
Mrs Jones, a retired English teacher, and her husband Hu, set up The Moira Fund in the wake of their daughter’s death. She had previously written to the
Scottish Government to say the Moira Fund was having to “prop up” Victim Support Scotland’s victim fund.
The charity gave £10,000 to be ringfenced to help families of murder victims but this money was quickly depleted.
In a letter to Holyrood’s Justice Committee, Mrs Jones said: “I want things to be better for Scottish victims. They are the poor relations in the justice system and this is not right.’’
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here