Victims and Courts Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for outlining the detail of the amendments in this group. I was slightly surprised by what he said, because I understood that it was not about whether a prison term was suspended or not, it was the conviction itself that acted as the trigger for the victim’s rights. I see the Minister is nodding. Just to double-check, I went to the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime. This makes it absolutely clear that the moment there is a possible crime against somebody which falls within something that could be considered by the code, the victim is entitled to support and help. For certain particular crimes, they are entitled to enhanced rights and help. I am sorry: I printed it off the web and it does not have a page number, but it states that victims of the most serious crimes are eligible for enhanced rights under this code. There is no question at all of them being reduced or stopped if a conviction is suspended. Once again, I repeat that this is exactly what happened to me. In my particular case, the offender was given a prison sentence and it was suspended, but the victim support continued in spite of that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity of setting out the Government’s position. Our approach is carefully considered. I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, seeks to make party-political points out of this by using language such as “insult to victims”, particularly when, in relation to the principal part of his argument, he is just plain wrong.

The starting point is that we must prioritise public funds to ensure that they go where they are most needed. We have done this by providing proactive support to those victims where the court has imposed a longer sentence, because a longer sentence reflects the seriousness of the offence. Of course we recognise that all victims of crime will want information about the offender in their case. For that reason, we are introducing a new route for all victims—the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is quite right about this—to request information via a dedicated helpline.

This is why new Schedule 6A is in three parts. Part 1 ensures that the most serious cases, involving victims of violent, sexual, and terrorism offences where the defendant has been sentenced to a custodial sentence of 12 months or more, can receive proactive support through the victim contact scheme.

Part 2 ensures support for victims of stalking and harassment offences, regardless of sentence length. We recognise that, even where there is a short sentence, this cohort of victims needs and will receive proactive support through the victim contact scheme.

I am just trying to ensure that the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, can hear the information I am giving him back, because we think that what the noble Lord said is not right, so I thought he might be interested in hearing what I have to say about it.

Part 3 ensures that victims of other sexual and violent offences, and breach offences linked to violence against women and girls, will be able to get information through the helpline should they request it, including for those offences in Part 1 where the sentence for the offence is less than 12 months. We consider that this is the right place to draw the line, but we will keep eligibility under review to make sure that we are reaching the right victims.

The Bill includes regulation-making powers for the Secretary of State to amend the list of offences, and the specified lengths of sentence of such offences, which determine eligibility for either service. The Bill also includes a discretionary power that enables victims of any offence, where the offender is serving a sentence of imprisonment, to be provided with either service, where they request it and probation deem it to be appropriate.

The victim contact scheme and the victim helpline will apply only where there is a custodial sentence. That is not only because of the consideration of public funds but because the information provided via these routes, such as the date of release on licence and conditions of licence, self-evidently does not apply unless there has been a custodial sentence. Where a suspended or community sentence is imposed by the court, under the victims’ code, the police witness care unit will explain the sentence to the victim.

Finally, regarding Amendment 54, I am pleased to reassure the noble Lord that there is already a route for victims to request a senior probation officer review of a decision about what information to provide, so this is already catered for. In the circumstances, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, I inform the Committee that if Amendment 59 is agreed to, I will not be able to call Amendment 60 by reason of pre-emption.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for tabling these amendments and to the Government for the expansion of the Victims’ Commissioner’s powers as set out in the Bill.

However, there are some broader issues that it might be helpful to air here, which are not the subject of amendments, for obvious reasons. It is 22 years since the office of the Victims’ Commissioner was created. I wonder whether, given the legislation that is going through to remove police and crime commissioners, that will change the landscape in which the Victims’ Commissioner’s office works. Therefore, it may be worth reviewing exactly what the roles of the Victims’ Commissioner are. I have some sympathy with the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, in that context.

From these Benches, we have argued that the entirety of the responsibilities of the Victims’ Commissioner should be broader than they were up until the presentation of this Bill. But there is another point that we have raised consistently—not just in legislation but in Questions and at other times—and that is the disparity of resources between the Victims’ Commissioner’s office and the office of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. I have been told that this is partly because the Victims’ Commissioner’s office looks only at policy, but we know the reality in the complex world of victims is that it sees many more things. If the Government would consider a review of the role in light of the change with police and crime commissioners, it might also be a time to look at whether the Victims’ Commissioner’s office has the resources that it needs to deliver the very important job that it does.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I am very doubtful about Amendment 58. It would expand the role of the Victims’ Commissioner very substantially indeed if the Victims’ Commissioner is going to take action to support or protect individuals who act in good faith to assist victims of crime. That would involve a great deal more work for the Victims’ Commissioner. I am very doubtful, with the resources available, that the role of the Victims’ Commissioner should be diverted from the primary responsibility of considering victims of crime.

Of course, one has every sympathy with the bus driver whom the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, mentioned—his behaviour was heroic and his treatment seems to have been very unjust indeed. I understand he does not actually want his job back, but that really is not the point. The point is that to expand the role of the Victims’ Commissioner to other persons who have assisted the victim seems to me to be unjustified and a diversion of resources.

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[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I support the principle behind Amendment 61. The real question is: how quickly can this be done?

I want to give an illustration of a problem that has arisen in civil courts across the world: the ability of artificial intelligence to hallucinate—to create cases and precedents for lawyers to use that do not exist. All civil courts across the world, including those in this country, have realised that this is an immense problem. It is being dealt with by practice direction—in some cases, very quickly indeed—because it is corrosive to the proper conduct of litigation, and it seems to me that there is no reason why, when this comes back on Report, it cannot be dealt with. It is not a difficult problem, and if it has been around for two years, that is 18 months too long.

The other point I want to address, in a slightly different manner, is Amendment 62. This is a much more difficult problem and has arisen because of the way in which drill music, and similar music, has been used in the prosecution of cases. The admissibility of such evidence is quite complicated.

What is very worrying—as can be seen by the attendance here today of one of the counsels involved in these cases—is that the way in which this evidence has been used in some cases has caused a lot of deep misunderstanding and suspicion about the way our criminal justice system operates for certain minorities. The thought that you will be found guilty because of the music you listen to is deeply troubling.

However, it seems to me that what we need to do first is look at the cases where this has been used. I looked at the case of the Manchester 10 and, coincidentally, in that case, the evidence had been admitted by agreement, and the Court of Appeal upheld the way in which it had been used for certain purposes.

It seems to me that this is a more complicated problem, and it would be helpful if the Minister was able, between now and Report, to put before the House a short letter explaining what the problem is. I think it would be easier to look at the amendment in the light of a better understanding. The last thing I want to do is to bore the Committee by explaining the ways in which evidence can and cannot be used legitimately. It is much better that members of the Committee have the benefit of reading that on a piece of paper.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I have two brief points on Amendment 61, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, for tabling it. It is really wrong that computers or systems have ever been deemed to be reliable, let alone infallible. My husband is a research and design engineer who has worked in Cambridge Science Park for well over 40 years. He and his friends have a phrase that they use among themselves and about themselves: “Garbage in, garbage out”. When we started hearing about the Post Office Horizon scandal and Fujitsu, the first thing he said to me was, “Garbage in, garbage out”. The problem we have is that too many people, the courts and the court of public opinion believe that computer systems are infallible.

I also want to touch very briefly on AI because we are seeing cases in the courts now. Facial recognition cases are coming up. Big Brother Watch reported on one last June. I notice that not quite weekly, but quite frequently, an individual is arrested as they go into a store and are accused of taking something very small and then evidence is produced of them on a facial recognition watch list. It then transpires some time later that they are not that individual. One particular firm’s name keeps coming up—I will not go into that —but the reaction of the shop is exactly that: it is infallible. I support the amendment, and I urge the Minister and the Government not to pause on this at all. It is needed, not just for the legacy of Post Office Horizon, but for cases in our courts right now.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

I rise in support of Amendment 62, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. Perhaps I can help the Minister with some of the intricacies of this. We have heard from Members who have a legal background. I have a youth work background, and I would like to say this: much of the music that is being talked about—drill music, rap music—is horrific. The content of the music is horrific and it is horrible, but, unfortunately, it is also very entertaining. Many young people will listen to it just by association. The music is entertaining, people party and you have no other choice. So for someone to view your output as an individual through your membership of that genre is a very slippery slope. Many years ago, I dealt with a group of young men who made a video that pointed to some serious criminality, and the police dealt with it in the right manner. They used it to understand who they might further investigate. They did not use the evidence, except one part that was quite blatant, as a reason to prosecute individuals.

When someone tells you that they are an expert in interpreting the music, I am afraid they are wrong. I was born in that community, I come from that community, many members of my family make that music, but because young people make the music and technology allows them to make it so quickly, the words they use, the meanings they use and the characters they build change almost on a daily basis. If you were to say to my son, “the man dem”, he would understand. Would noble Lords? When I grew up, “the man dem” existed as a concept, but the words did not, so he and I can have a conversation about the same thing and not know that we are talking about the same thing.

Very rarely will you hear me stand up, talk about race and accuse the police of being racist, but this cuts very close to that because when a lovely, well-meaning, educated, middle-class man or woman listens to the music, they have no understanding of the cultural background of that music or of the fact that that music might have been produced in the way it was to display a character. Much of the bragging and the boasting is simply that: bragging and boasting about fictitious situations that they hope they will never be in and that we also hope they will never be in. To present that in court as some kind of evidence of their associations and their behaviour is a slippery slope. If you want to destroy the relationship between young people, particularly young Black people, and our system, this would be the way to go.

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I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I signed Amendment 63, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I will not go into any of the detail that he has just given so comprehensively, but I did want to give your Lordships’ Committee the chance to hear two voices of victims who have found that VRR really worked for them.

In September 2021, “Daria”, an anonymous survivor, reported offences of harassment, stalking and image-based abuse to the police. The perpetrator was arrested in November 2021; however, confusion between police forces and errors in case handling resulted in delays and lapses in time limits for some offences. By December 2022, the CPS issued a decision of no further action for the most serious charges of disclosing and threatening to disclose private sexual photographs and films with intent to cause distress. This was despite Daria providing detailed evidence that the intent threshold was met.

Daria immediately requested a review under the victims’ right to review scheme. Over the following months, the CPS kept her updated and requested further statements, and in May 2023, a district Crown prosecutor overturned the original decision. The CPS authorised two counts of disclosing or threatening to disclose private sexual images with intent to cause distress. In December 2023, the perpetrator was convicted on both counts and sentenced in the Crown Court in March 2024. The CPS formally apologised for the distress caused by the initial wrongful decision.

Daria has said:

“Without the Right to Review, my case would have ended in silence. The CPS originally decided not to prosecute—despite everything I’d reported and the evidence I’d provided. It was only through the VRR process that my voice was finally heard, and justice was served. The man who targeted and humiliated me online was ultimately convicted. Survivors deserve this second chance. The right to review gave me mine”.


Victoria was groomed and sexually abused from the age of 14. When she reported the crime years later, the CPS initially decided on no further action, wrongly re-aging her as 16 and dismissing the evidence that she had been below the age of consent. Victoria requested a VRR. The first review upheld the decision, but she escalated it further. In 2021, after a second interview, the CPS overturned its decision and charged her abuser with seven counts of indecent assault. A further charge was added at trial. Her abuser was unanimously convicted on all eight counts and sentenced to 23 years in prison. He was also placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely. Despite this, Victoria had endured nearly six years of delays before her trial, which left her with PTSD, agoraphobia and severe anxiety. She said:

“After the CPS refused to charge my abuser, I requested a VRR. This led them to overturn that decision, and my abuser was later convicted. He would not have faced justice without the VRR process. My case highlights the need for VRRs to be permanently accessible to complainants so mistakes can be addressed”.

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[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments concerns the terms of the unduly lenient sentence scheme, which we consider has too narrow a window to effectively allow for victims to reflect upon and review the sentences given to their offenders. Amendments 64, 65 and 66 aim to increase the existing 28-day window for applying to the unduly lenient sentence scheme to one of 56 days.

Similarly, Amendment 69, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, seeks to allow the 28-day time limit to be extended in exceptional circumstances. We thank the noble Baroness for this amendment. We on these Benches are very receptive to the idea of including an “exceptional circumstances” clause in the unduly lenient sentence framework. It is a safeguard that recognises that victims may, for one reason or another, not always be able to act within the current timeframe. Currently, there exists an asymmetry between offenders and victims. Offenders might be able to seek extensions or have certain deadlines adjusted, whereas victims are rigidly bound by the 28-day window. This amendment helps to address that imbalance.

The process of applying for review of a sentence is not one that can always be readily undertaken within four weeks. It requires a knowledge of the law that often requires the instruction and subsequent direction of a lawyer, which in and of itself is a process that can often take up to, if not beyond, the 28-day window that victims are given in which to appeal. Crucial to this process is the availability of the sentencing remarks, a problem which we have partially solved in the Sentencing Act by requiring their release within 14 days, but that occupies, none the less, half the time the Government currently offer to appeal a lenient sentence.

Perhaps the most effective case for change is a human one. Victims must face and relive the most traumatic events of their lives in court. They have to re-encounter their offender in some cases—not due to the current drafting of Clause 1, I accept—and in the cases we are concerned with, they have to deal with what they believe to be an unjust sentence.

An increase to 56 days is not a drastic one; it simply increases the window to two months, and it allows slightly more time for the process to be completed. We on these Benches are also open to the idea of a longer window to apply specifically for victims and, where they are murdered in cases of extremely serious crime, their next of kin. That may be for another day.

I turn to Amendment 72, which seeks to place a clear statutory duty on the Crown Prosecution Service to notify victims or, in the case of a deceased victim, their next of kin, of their right to request a review under the unduly lenient sentence scheme. At present, whether a victim is informed of the scheme can depend upon practice rather than principle. In some cases, of course, victims are advised promptly and clearly. In others, awareness depends rather upon chance, whether it is mentioned to them by their legal advocate or at some other time during the court process, or whether they independently discover its existence. That is not a satisfactory basis on which to safeguard a right of such importance, and particularly one that is time limited within a strict statutory window.

A right that expires after 28 days, or indeed 56 if our earlier amendments are accepted, is meaningful only if the person entitled to exercise it is made aware of it in good time, and before time starts to run. Without notification, the right is illusory at best. Amendment 72 therefore proposes a straightforward and practical safeguard; namely, the CPS must write to the victim, or their next of kin, within 10 working days of a sentence being delivered, informing them of their ability to seek a review. This is not burdensome. The CPS is already engaged with victims throughout the prosecution process. Contact details are held; communication channels should exist. This amendment simply makes notification consistent and mandatory. Amendment 75, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has the same aim as our amendment, albeit with a marginally different mechanism. I hope that we can work together to achieve this reform.

If we are to maintain a short and strict time limit for challenging unduly lenient sentences, the least that we can do is to ensure that victims are properly informed of that right. Without such a duty, access to the scheme may depend less on justice and more on happenstance. We trust our judges, but we know that even they are not infallible. Some will be more sparing with their sentences; some will be more certain in their own judgment and not feel the need to alert victims to the scheme. Others will simply forget on occasions. This should not be the case. The Government are very well equipped to create a system in which a letter is sent out, within 10 days, alerting victims of their right to apply for a review of the sentencing. They do it endlessly in other departments; it should be a seamlessly transferable process. All are equal before the law. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, my two amendments in this group, Amendments 69 and 75, also make proposals for unduly lenient sentences, as the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, has mentioned. From these Benches, we have been keen to improve the access that victims have to challenge what they believe is an unduly lenient sentence. I had amendments to try to achieve this in the Victims and Prisoners Bill in 2023-24.

It is worth pausing to review what has happened since 1988, when the ULS scheme started and victims were given the right to ask the Attorney-General to reconsider the sentence of their offender. One of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, concerns guaranteeing that victims are informed. Currently, the victims’ code places responsibility for informing victims about the ULS scheme on witness care units. For bereaved families entitled to the Crown Prosecution Service bereaved families scheme, the CPS should where possible, through the prosecutor and the trial advocate, meet the family at court following sentencing—if they attend the hearing—and inform them about the ULS scheme where appropriate. However, evidence from victims and bereaved families shows that this often does not happen, with many learning about the scheme only when it is too late to apply. By contrast, the offender and their legal representatives are present at sentencing and able to start planning any appeal against the sentence. In extenuating circumstances, the offender can also be given more than 28 days to launch their appeal. The offender also has post-sentence meetings with their legal representatives. It was clear then, and it remains so now, that the offender had and has more rights and support than the victim. This is not a level playing field.

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[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I rise with a degree of caution. I entirely understand the motives behind the amendments moved by my noble friend Lord Sandhurst, and that moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. Shall we begin by trying to remember what an unduly lenient sentence is? It is one that falls outside the range of sentences that a judge, taking into consideration all the relevant factors and having regard to the sentencing guidance, could reasonably consider appropriate. In other words, the sentence must be not just lenient, but unduly lenient. One of the things the Court of Appeal must consider when it is looking at an application to review a sentence is that the offender has been put through the sentencing process, or will be put through the sentencing process, for a second time, and that it will not intervene unless the sentence is significantly below the one the judge should have passed.

Law officers often receive applications—I say this with some experience, as I was a law officer from 2010 to 2012, and in England and Wales it is the law officers who have the ability to make these applications to the Court of Appeal Criminal Division—on the basis that the person complaining about the sentence just thinks it is not adequately severe, but that is not the test. One therefore needs to not encourage an expectation—this is what may follow from the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton—that, by getting a government department or the Crown Prosecution Service to write to a disappointed victim or family member, it must follow that the CPS, or whichever government department is required to do this, agrees, or that it will lead to a successful appeal before the Court of Appeal.

I remember that all sorts of people used to read newspaper articles about a particular sentence that often bore very little resemblance to the sentencing remarks or the details of the case. Sometimes, in some newspapers, you would get an editorial saying that it was a disgrace that this lenient judge has done this, that or the other, and that something must be done, and all sorts of people would then write to the law officer’s department demanding that something be done. Very often the sentence was passed in relation to an offence that did not come under the scheme, or, if it did, on proper examination it did not fall within the ambit of what the Court of Appeal was likely to disturb. So I suspect that all sorts of expectations could be built into the public mind, which could lead only to disappointment.

Secondly, there is something to be said about finality. Although one does not always have any sympathy for a criminal defendant, they are entitled to justice and finality. Having sentenced people, I assure noble Lords that sentencing can be difficult, certainly for a judge who is dealing with, shall we say—I do not mean this in a silly way—the less serious types of criminal offence that none the less come within this scheme. I always found sentencing to be the most difficult part of the judicial function. This is a generalisation, but if you are a High Court judge dealing with criminal cases, the chances are that you will probably have to decide the tariff only on life sentences. But if you are sitting in the Crown Court as a recorder or circuit judge, you may very well have to deal with all sorts of quite complicated considerations when working out the just sentence for a particular defendant based on the facts of a particular offence. It is not always easy.

In my experience of having to seek the advice of the Treasury counsel and making up my own mind about whether an application should go to the Court of Appeal, I found that, by and large, the overwhelming majority of judges passed a just and correct sentence—when I say “correct”, it is not a binary exercise—that was entirely defensible and not the sort of thing that the Court of Appeal would have disturbed. To encourage people to make applications would be a mistake when it is going to lead only to disappointment.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

The amendment would not encourage the CPS, or whatever the notifying body is, to encourage the victim to appeal; it would merely be notifying them of the right. Does the noble and learned Lord accept that?

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

I can see what the printed words say, but if the Crown Prosecution Service was to write to the victim saying, “Do you realise that you can apply to the law officers to have this sentence reviewed by the Court of Appeal?”, it would give an imprimatur and an indication. That is the implication, and we should resist it.

I do not want to go on too long. Anybody can write to the law officers to say, “Will you review this sentence?” It does have to be a victim, or the family or next of kin of a deceased victim. There are plenty of avenues available to the public and to victims if they wish to explore this. To come back to my first point, we need to exercise a degree of caution before opening the floodgates to lots of disappointment.