Bereavement due to traumatic death
The Victim Personal Statement
A legal inquiry follows a death whenever the cause is unknown, violent or ‘unnatural’ (see ‘The coroner’s inquest’). Once the investigation is complete, a decision will be made, usually by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), whether or not to charge and prosecute a defendant. The CPS prosecutes only if it has enough evidence to provide a ‘realistic prospect of conviction’ on each charge.
The CPS prosecutes on behalf of the public, not the family of the deceased, but when a serious crime has occurred, close relatives and others are invited to make a Victim Personal Statement (VPS), sometimes referred to as a Victim Impact Statement. This gives close relatives and partners an opportunity to tell the police and the court how the crime has affected them physically, emotionally and financially.
Some people write their own VPS. Others dictate it to a police liaison officer. The VPS has to be signed by the person who made it. All close relatives of the deceased should be invited to make a VPS. We talked to some who had made them.
Julie was devastated when her sister was murdered. Her life changed in many ways because she offered to care for her sister’s young son. She mentioned this in her VPS. Martin was upset because he mistakenly thought that only one VPS could be given to the judge, and that the VPS from his wife’s sister had been used instead of his own.
The VPS should not be confused with a witness statement- people are not asked to make a witness statement unless they are a witness in the trial. Once the VPS has been made it becomes part of the case papers and can be seen by the police, the prosecutor, the defence team and the magistrates or judge. The judge will see it after conviction but before sentencing. The jury would not normally read it.
It is possible that the defendants will also see the VPS via the defence team. Relatives of the victim are not usually allowed to see the case papers because they may be a witness or could speak to witnesses about the Statements and other paper work. Some people felt that this imbalance was unfair.
After Ben died Terri made a Victim Personal Statement. She was annoyed that it was not read out in court, and felt the trial was a farce.
After Ben died Terri made a Victim Personal Statement. She was annoyed that it was not read out in court, and felt the trial was a farce.
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Did you have to make a Victim’s Statement?
Yes, it wasn’t even read out. They didn’t even read it out. It was, you, you had to be there, honestly, to see what a farce it was. And then they wonder why people have got no faith in British justice.
Can you explain what a Victim…
Yes, a Victim Personal Statement is, my liaison officer came round to the house and basically said, “How has your son’s death affected your life?” And to me, I think how can you put that onto two sheets of A4 paper?
It’s bizarre. But I did. And told them all about plans for the future, about how I was much looking, how I’d always wanted a son, which I had.
No disrespect to my girls. I just thought if I have a son, I desperately wanted a boy. And I told them all about that and how I’d worked hard to get a good career to support him and how that post, posthumously he had got 9 GCSEs. That came a week after his death. All of it really. And what a void it had left in my life.
But, that, that wasn’t read out. That’s another annoying thing because them three get to read everything that I write and feel and yet we get to see nothing.
So the judge will have read it.
Yeah, and, and they read it as well. The three people that killed him, they read it.
Do they?
Yeah. Oh, yeah they read it.
Did you ever get an apology?
No, never. In fact one of them smirked at my mum when he was going down after getting four years. He stopped and looked at my mum and smiled. A 35 year old man doing that. They were just, they’re just low lives.
Depending on the circumstances the CPS prosecutor may read the VPS out in court. Alternatively the judge may read the VPS in private. People can tell the CPS prosecutor to tell the judge which they would prefer, but the final decision is left to the judge. People are not allowed to read out their VPS in court themselves.
Some people had wanted their VPS read out in court and were very upset when it wasn’t. Sarah was angry because the date of the court case was changed and she was misinformed about what would happen so she did not attend. As a result her VPS was not used (see Sarah’s account in ‘The court case’). However, she was allowed to make an impact statement for the subsequent inquest instead.
Ann was angry when the judge said that her Victim Personal Statement was too upsetting for the jury to hear. The judge allowed only three sentences to be read out in court.
Ann was angry when the judge said that her Victim Personal Statement was too upsetting for the jury to hear. The judge allowed only three sentences to be read out in court.
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Were you allowed to make a personal statement?
I was able to make a personal statement. In fact I wrote my own personal statement. I felt that I knew what my emotions that I felt were all about and it was a bit easier for me to put that in some kind of understandable chronological order, in terms of what we were feeling, rather than someone else trying to write it on my behalf. So I actually wrote it, but to this day I was very saddened by the fact that throughout that court process, we as a family were unable to show any emotion, they, it’s part of the court process that you must not show emotion. When the trial actually started, I in all ignorance in fact, sat in part of the public area, which was reserved for the journalists, and the defense actually said that we were to be moved because we could be influencing the jury.
Oh.
And that’s quite a common.
But did anybody see your personal statement?
Well ultimately after the trial the judge felt that it was too upsetting for the jury to hear, and only allowed three sentences to be read out. I felt this was very, very unfair because we had to listen to the very last moments, some very harrowing information about my son’s last moments, and that was far worse for a jury to hear and to see video, CCTV footage. I felt that that, that we should’ve been allowed the whole of that impact statement to be read out. Everyone that has since read that statement has said that it is impactive, surely that’s the purpose of it, to be impactive, but that wasn’t to be, so again that’s one of the reasons why I felt that to give Westley’s life meaning and purpose in a continued way, on another level, I had to channel the emotions and the pain and the grief, and those days where I felt angry into some kind of positive work.
Michael and his wife spent hours writing a Victim Personal Statement. Michael thinks the judge and jury read it after the case finished; his wife would have liked to have read it herself in court.
Michael and his wife spent hours writing a Victim Personal Statement. Michael thinks the judge and jury read it after the case finished; his wife would have liked to have read it herself in court.
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Were you asked to make a personal statement for the judge, or the court?
We were, we were asked. We were told to give, there’s a victims statement that we were told we would have, we’d have to read out. That was very difficult [writing it]. My, my wife did that actually because I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, and when we went to court the judge wouldn’t allow it. So we were a bit disappointed with that.
Could you just say a little bit more about the personal statement that your wife wrote?
Yes, the judge wouldn’t allow my wife to read it in court, although the members of the jury were all given copies of it, and the judge said it was, he wanted to spare my wife the anguish of actually going up and reading it out. But we spent four or five hours putting that together. There was a lot of tears putting it together and we wanted it read out, but the judge deemed that he didn’t want it done. But at least the jury got to read it.
The judge can consider the impact on the victim when he or she decides on the sentence, but the VPS is not likely to make a significant difference to the sentence given. Indeed, some people we talked to felt that the VPS had been a waste of time. However, others, including Linda (see below), thought it might have affected the length of sentence given to the offender.
Dolores hoped that her Victim Personal Statement would have some impact on the man who killed her son, Tom, but she doesn't think that the murderer understood any of it.
Last reviewed October 2015.
Last updated October 2011.
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