RECENT comments by Dame Vera Baird, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, demonstrates once again the danger of the victim justice system that now exists across the UK.
Passing judgement on Sir Richard Henriques' report on police mishandling of sexual abuse cases, Dame Vera argued that his conclusion, that we should not simply “believe” complaints, would have a “chilling effect both on policing rape and in the confidence of sexual abuse complainants that they will be believed”.
Sir Richard’s report was triggered by the case of the paedophile fantasist Carl Beech but was broader than this, looking more generally at the police approach to cases of sexual abuse. It concluded that rather than calling alleged victims “victims” they should be called complainants and rather than believing complaints the police should investigate them. He argues that, “It should be the duty of an officer interviewing a complainant to investigate the facts objectively, impartially and with an open mind from the outset of the investigation”.
Henriques went on to explain that, “The policy of ‘believing victims’ strikes at the very core of the criminal justice process … it has and will generate miscarriages of justice on a considerable scale.”
This is basic stuff. So basic it’s hard to believe that anyone could argue against it. But the police do not only argue against this, they continue to pursue this irrational and illiberal approach to “justice” by encouraging complainants to come forward, calling them victims and telling them they will be believed.
The blanket policy of believing the victim, Sir Richard explains, is a “reversal of the burden of proof” and results in a police force who fail to appreciate that “a cardinal principle of the criminal justice system is that a complaint may be false”. In essence, the Henriques report argues that when it comes to cases of sexual abuse, the police are undermining some of the most basic principles of justice.
But this is clearly not only a police problem. It is not possible to imagine that the police, unilaterally, have gone off on a mad tangent unbeknown to politicians or the rest of the criminal justice system. Politicians and the police believe they are creating a better, more empathetic form of justice. The reality, in many respects, is that for two decades the culture of both politics and that of the police has been going backwards, moving towards a pre-modern vengeful form of victim justice.
The police should be professional, they should treat complainants with respect but then their job is to be impartial, rational and objective and to discover the truth of an allegation. A useful first step in establishing this more rational approach to justice would be to get rid of the post of Victim’s Commissioner once and for all.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel