Blake Stephenson

Last week, I met one of my constituents, Tracey Hanson, in Parliament to honour the 10-year anniversary of the tragic loss of her son Josh, who was murdered in an unprovoked knife attack in Hillingdon, west London, in October 2015. We spoke about the tireless work that she has put into campaigning for victims’ rights, and I heard more about how the law that she wants to introduce—Josh’s law—would ensure that the rights of victims and their families to appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme are clear and equal to the rights of offenders. I will speak specifically to new clause 12, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for the beautiful Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan). After cruelly taking the life of Josh Hanson, Shane O’Brien absconded and evaded police for three and a half years before he was finally caught. Dubbed Britain’s most wanted man at the time, O’Brien was sentenced to at least 26 years in prison, just one year above the minimum sentence. After just missing the deadline to appeal the sentence as a result of unclear information about victims’ families’ rights under the unduly lenient sentence scheme, Tracey has spent years campaigning to ensure that no other victims face what her family did. Unfortunately, far too many victims and their families face the same problems, simply because they are not being made aware of their right to appeal sentences. There are also concerning numbers of cases in which clerical errors—in one case I heard of, it was an email stuck in a barrister’s outbox—lead to the Attorney General running out of time and missing the deadline to appeal a sentence. While appeals from offenders will still be considered by the Attorney General outside the 28-day window in exceptional circumstances, appeals from victims or their families will not. Historically, victims were at the centre of the justice system. Victims were the driving force in bringing criminal cases, and played a central role throughout the process. It was not until the 19th century that there was a significant shift towards state-led prosecutions, with the victims, rather than criminal cases, significantly diminished. The focus only started to shift back towards the victim with the very recent introduction of the first victim’s charter in 1990. I believe that we must recapture more of the focus from the state, and divert it back to those who are most directly impacted by crime. The lives of Tracey and her family will never be the same again. They should have been a central focus in the criminal case, and should have received the same rights, and information about their right to appeal against the sentencing decision, as the offender did. It is vital that victims and their families are clearly informed about their right to appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme. New clause 12 would require the Crown Prosecution Service to write to victims, or their next of kin, within 10 working days of a sentence being passed, providing details of the unduly lenient sentence scheme, the application process for the scheme and the deadlines, which would also be extended, giving victims a better chance of benefiting from the scheme.