PROSECUTORS have been told to ensure "continuous training" for their Victim and Witness Care Unit staff after an inspection report found inconsistent treatment damaging public confidence and potentially stopping people reporting crime.
Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland (CJI) publishes its report into care and treatment of victims and witnesses by the criminal justice system today.
The unit provides information and assistance to victims and witnesses throughout the criminal justice process and, operated by staff from the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland (PPS) and PSNI, "is a beneficial step towards supporting and helping victims and witnesses".
The report calls for the PPS to "introduce enhanced induction and continuous training for staff attached to the unit within six months".
Chief Inspector said Jacqui Durkin acknowledged "dedicated individuals from across the criminal justice system and the voluntary sector working to identify personal needs and provide meaningful support to children and adults who were both victims and witnesses, during a very difficult time in their lives".
However, she said inspectors also found victims and witnesses are "fundamentally unaware of their rights to information, support and protection", with "services to assist them were still not being consistently delivered to a quality standard across Northern Ireland".
Ms Durkin said victims and witnesses "need to be listened to and they need to believe they have been heard", adding personal services and support will help them "give their evidence and contribute to the often long process to bring offenders to justice".
She said when the criminal justice system fails to properly support them "it had a negative impact on public confidence in the justice system and could deter victims from reporting crime, which in turn enabled perpetrators to go on to commit further offences creating more victims".
The inspection found "too much focus" on statistics, meeting targets and independence and "insufficient emphasis on personal experiences which often had a lifelong impact on the victim, their families and those closest to them".
It also uncovered "lack of knowledge and confusion among victims around the help and support they could get from the criminal justice system, with some questioning why they had not been provided with greater levels of support".
PSNI and the PPS chiefs have been told to "improve the identification of individual victim and witness needs" and "improve partnership" with organisations such as Victim Support and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
The PSNI and Victim Support have been told to review practices for the provision of victim information by police first responders to victims within six months after and review the latter's input to student officer and district training within three months.
The Chief Inspector said with the coronavirus pandemic causing further delays to court hearings and trials "it is vital that victims and witnesses are kept informed and engaged to enable them to give their evidence and support prosecutions".
Police and prosecutors have been told to look at a "future Victim and Witness Care Unit service model" which will have "enhanced provision of care for victims and witnesses" within three months.
PPS Victims’ Champion Marianne O’Kane said: “The PPS recognises that being the victim of a crime or witnessing a crime can be a traumatic experience. Engaging with the criminal justice system can sometimes add to the stresses created by this experience. We are fully committed to improving the experience of victims and witnesses within the criminal justice system and we support the recommendations made in this important report.
“We have made significant strides in recent years to improve our service to victims and witnesses. This includes the creation of a dedicated Victim and Witness Care Unit, a new Serious Crime Unit with a strong focus on victim engagement, a new website with clear, easy to understand guidance for victims and witnesses and a Stakeholder Forum to listen more closely to representatives of victims and witnesses from across society.
“The report highlights some of these positive changes the PPS and criminal justice partners have made and the PPS accepts the four strategic and operational recommendations contained within the report in which we are mentioned. An action plan to address the recommendations has been produced and we are consulting with criminal justice partners, including the Criminal Justice Board, on how best to implement these.”
