Witness Service - Bristol Crown Court

A vital service for victims of crime, including domestic abuse. The Witness Service, based in Bristol Crown Court, is part of Avonvale Victim Support. The national charity recently celebrated its 30 year anniversary.

What does the Witness Service do?

We are a specific service run by Victim Support, a national charity for victims of crime. We are based at the Bristol Crown Court. Our specific role is to take care of victims and witnesses when they come to give evidence in court. Volunteers help witnesses, mainly prosecution but also defence witnesses, and their families and friends throughout their time in court. The two prime things that we do for witnesses are give emotional support and information about what’s happening in their court.

What are the challenges you face in providing this service?

Lack of information is a problem. The more information we can glean about witnesses’ needs when they are coming to court, the better able we are to help them. Even basic information like how many people we will be dealing with, can mean a difference to the quality of service, due to limited room space. We are sometimes met with a sea of faces and then it can be difficult to know who is really vulnerable and may need to be taken into a separate room, need special measures or might have learning difficulties, for example. Something as simple as reading a statement could be difficult, and witnesses may not like to admit to these problems especially in front of families and friends. If we can get input from the police or prosecution about specific personal issues or problems we can alert our volunteers when they work with witnesses.

How do you provide the service in your organisation?

Through volunteers we organise support for witnesses, facilitated by our staff. We also promote our service to outside agencies such as the police or defence solicitors, so that they are aware of what we can offer witnesses. We do this by getting out there and doing talks, etc.

What are the issues when dealing with victims of domestic abuse?

One of the biggest worries for people is having to face the person who has abused them. We can feedback vital information (such as will there be screens in court so that witnesses will not see the accused) from our communications with agencies like the police. These things are actually out of our control, but we can ensure that information is fed back and that correct procedure is followed to try and get in place such measures. It can often be years after the event that someone faces the person who is accused of abusing them. The emotions can start flooding back even after the person has started to put their life back together, which can have a knock-on effect and take someone back to square one in terms of confidence.

What sort of training do you give your volunteers to deal with domestic abuse cases?

We do an intensive training course for our volunteers around this issue. We try to get volunteers who have had some experience of visiting victims of crime and feel confident in doing that before they would go on the course. There is a victim support volunteer course (4 day course) that witness support volunteers can attend. Outside agencies will talk to volunteers in this course. It is very much about how volunteers can empathise; enabling volunteers to empower women to actively look at their lives and perhaps do something about it. Whilst we train volunteers to deal specifically with these cases, all volunteers are made aware of the issues of domestic abuse, as often one crime may uncover hidden domestic abuse.

Who are your funders?

The Home Office funds seventy per cent of our cost. We have to raise the rest through charities. For example, Children in Need funded equipment for witness suites suitable for children and young people. We have also received support from the Local Network Fund and the Star Project has funded our work around domestic violence abuse in North Somerset.

Background:

We are not a counselling service - we would refer people to more appropriate channels. We are independent of other criminal justice agencies and we are not involved with evidence. We have background on cases, but we do not have detailed knowledge of evidence so we cannot be accused of coaching or collaboration of witnesses.

Contact details:

Ginny Tyrrel, The Law Courts,
Bristol Crown Court, Small Street,
Bristol, BS1 1DA.
Tel. 0117 976 3069

email: bristolcc@victimsupportavonvale.org.uk

For Victim Support in Bristol:

Tel. 0117 9631114
email: bristol@victimsupportavonvale.org.uk
or visit www.victimsupportavonvale.org.uk

If your group would like to be profiled in a future Voscur newsletter or on our website, please contact Darron Thevarajah at the Voscur office Tel. 909 9949, or email: darron@voscur.org