featuring

Dame Vera Baird

Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales

Dame Vera will focus her talk on what steps we need to take to enhance the status of victims of crime from passive by-standers, to active participants within the justice system. This means participants with rights, a voice and access to professional support.

During her talk Dame Vera will set out the journey over the past twenty years and the potential for further and transformational change offered by the Government’s long awaited Victims Law. She will also highlight areas of real progress, such as the introduction of ISVAs and IDVAs as well as areas where we seem to be moving backwards, such as the collapse in rape prosecutions.

Dame Vera will also challenge those who wrongly claim that by giving victims’ rights, you are diminishing the rights of defendants and undermining justice.

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