Victim Notification Scheme (VNS): independent review

Section 13: What did users of the VNS scheme tell us?

When we contacted the support agencies, we requested they advertise the Review's existence to their service users, to provide them an opportunity to contribute to the Review's research. Several persons did come forward, whom we spoke to at length. They are necessarily self-selecting and cannot provide a scientific sample in data terms, but their testimony was particularly powerful. Whilst their experiences varied in terms of the nature of the offences against them or their family, common themes emerged.

• The VNS registration process was hard to understand, was mostly paper-based and presented to them at a very difficult time, shortly after sentence, at the end of a traumatic criminal justice process when they were emotionally overwhelmed
• Most found the distinction between Parts 1 and 2 confusing, if they understood it at all
• The impact of verdicts and sentences was profound, but few understood sentencing policy and what this means for release dates of offenders, often leaving victims to believe the offender would remain longer in custody than was the case
• How people were communicated with was key – a letter-based system was generally held to be intimidating and abrupt, likely to reawaken traumatic feelings, news often came by surprise
• The timing of communications was critical, particularly if at short notice or the victim was not expecting an event, such as liberation, so soon
• Letters were showing some improvement, such as giving less prominence to the offender's name and softer-worded letter headings, but they could still harm the recipient's feelings, for example by declaring a decision had been taken, but details of that decision could not be disclosed
• There were concerns around the parole process, the stress of a six-month notice period of an upcoming Parole Board hearing, the shorter deadline to submit written representations, the entitlements of a victim and the rights of the offender, and a lack of understanding about how risk assessments and decisions on liberation restrictions had been reached and by whom. Victims, particularly of sexual assault, told us it was highly upsetting to know the offender would be able to see what they had written about the impact on them; they felt this gave more control to the offender
• It was hard to complain effectively and feedback opportunities were limited
• The impact of the VNS could make them feel they lacked control and were uncared for by the criminal justice system, which seemed to them to focus more on the offender. It was repeatedly said it felt to them that the offender's rights seemed to have higher priority than theirs