Stolen futures

By Jan Corbett

Observe any courtroom where a violent criminal is on trial, and sitting in the public gallery, if there is an available seat, will be the participant with the fewest rights - the victim.

As part of this week's series on violence, we have spoken to people who tell us first hand what it is like to be a victim of violent crime.

They are ordinary people who were living ordinary lives until the attack.

They could have been people close to you. And if there is one theme to their experience it is that the future changes forever. The impacts of violence can cascade through a life for many years affecting relationships and work, leaving the victim with a pyschological burden long after their physical wounds have healed and the headlines that recorded their trauma have faded.

Although their evidence is usually crucial for a conviction and their testimony vital for a stiff sentence, the people who have been bashed and bruised, or emotionally shattered from losing a loved one, walk out of the courtroom more alone, more vulnerable and ultimately more angry than the criminal.

The New Zealand Council of Victim Support Groups has had enough of this wretched imbalance in the justice system.

This being election year, the council has produced a 16-page list of demands which it is circulating to all political parties.

Happily the Government has already signalled it will meet two of them - that victims are given the right to speak at parole hearings and have their travel expenses met, and that they get the right to read their victim impact reports to the court.

But that leaves one critical demand still to be fulfilled - that the Victims of Offences Act (1987) be given more teeth.

Victim Support chief executive Laureen Auttrim says compliance with the Act is voluntary. She wants the "you may" phraseology replaced with "you shall" so that, for example, instead of prosecutors being told that they should convey the victim's feeling about granting bail, they are made to do so.

Auttrim is also particularly critical of the unfairness in the amount of money that goes on punishing and attempting to rehabilitate offenders, and the paltry assistance victims can expect.

Compensation for victims is "the biggie" for any Government to face, she says. Since ACC stopped paying out for emotional harm, people who have been traumatised by crime get nothing, while a prisoner who breaks his leg escaping gets ACC coverage.

Is this just?