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Mind has been running a campaign for a number of years called Another Assault which is about
achieving equal access to justice for victims and witnesses of crime who have a mental health
problem and there was one particular case, a man known as FB, he was a victim of quite
a horrific assault where part of his ear was bitten off in this kafuffle and he reported
the crime, it got to the Crown Prosecution Service but they decided to drop the case
quite late on. The prosecutors decided he was not a reliable
witness because he had schizophrenia and so his evidence couldn’t be relied upon and
that was a really blatant breach of his human right not to experience inhumane or degrading
treatment, so not to be a victim of crime and more importantly of everybody’s right
to have equal access to the justice system when they do experience such an appalling
crime and the Human Rights Act was really pivotal in the appeal that FB took to the
High Court so that appeal was heard in 2009.
The Judge found the Crown Prosecution Service to be in breach of the Human Rights Act of
Article 3, of the right not to be subject to inhuman or degrading treatment. Because
they failed to uphold the State’s obligation to protect people from that kind of treatment,
to protect people from crime.
Mind intervened in that case, we gave evidence on the basis of our research for Another Assault
which found that people experience really high rates of crime and victimisation but
they’re not given access to the justice system when they try and report those crimes
and there are a number of barriers right through from the Police not believing people to Prosecutors
deciding to drop cases and even in the cases that do get to Court, defence barristers sort
of using mental health as a stick to beat the witness with and to undermine their testimony
when they’re giving it before the Jury and so lots and lots of people just don’t see
these cases brought to Justice and Mind gave evidence in the case to that effect.
The High Court judgement – it was huge it was ground breaking for the CPS to be in breach
of the Human Rights Act is clearly a really big deal and the CPS to their credit responded,
the Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer held his hands up and said ‘I recognise
that this has been an area where we perhaps are not doing as much as we should be for
these victims of crime who are particularly vulnerable because of their mental health
problems’ and because of the case decision and i mean this is only one person – there
are lots of other people who have not had the chance to go to the High Court with their
experiences of human rights being breached in this way.
But that case had led to really big changes in policy and in practice within the CPS and
Mind has been working alongside them to deliver those so now there is a very clear public
policy statement on how witnesses and victims will be treated by the CPS when they have
a mental health problem, what support they can expect and things like that.
There is legal guidance, technical guidance for prosecutors now around mental health in
particular and recently Mind just published a prosecutor’s toolkit, a mental health
toolkit for prosecutors and other advocates as well like Barristers so they know what
mental health problems are, breaking down some of those stigmas and myths about mental
health problems and really practical advice about support you can give people, how to
use psychiatric evidence properly in a way that doesn’t undermine people's credibility
and reliability in the court room and that was funded by the CPS and The Bar Council
and The Law Society and is being disseminated widely at the moment electronically to prosecutors
and these are all really big steps forward obviously the case of FB is really tragic,
the fact that he received compensation for his treatment in the appeal hearing but you
know the reality is that he has experienced an assault and that person can’t be tried
because it’s too late now so that’s really appalling for him individually but I think
for the future for how people will be treated ,that case and the Human Rights Act in particular
was so pivotal - that was the key to the case, that means the Human Rights Act and the way
Mind used the Human Rights Act in our campaigning for Another Assault has really helped us bring
about these changes.