Did Victim Support get involved at all? Did they come and see you?
Victim support did get involved yes, they did. I’m not sure if they did, they didn’t see me they saw my Mum, but my point is that everybody comes in the first three months.
And you’re not ready to access help then. I think they should’ve come a lot later. I think perhaps initially come then, but then followed up the call maybe six months later. Because that’s when people are more willing to talk, and as a result of that I ended up doing some work for a year for Victim Support actually.
Did you?
Yes. Just to see how it all works and so that perhaps, I wanted to really get inside the courts, to see how the witness protection scheme runs because I couldn’t understand why nobody was coming forward, and I just assumed that they would, and I found some, an insight into how it all works really.
Could you say a bit about Victim Support?
The work that I do, or I did or…?
Well perhaps both, in general a little bit and then what you did?
Right okay, well initially when you first start working for Victim Support you’ve got to go out and be filling out criminal injury forms and, with some people who’ve been burgled, before you’re allowed to go and do the witness protection work. And that’s based in the courts. The witness protection help, they are there to help victims of crime, and I was really concerned that with all gun crime people aren’t prepared to come forward for fear of intimidation, for fear of reprisal. I wanted to know how Victim Support supported victims in this way and was it enough. I found that Victim Support do their best, with what they’ve got, however it’s not fair that as a victim if you give information you’ve got to change your whole life. You can be put in a safe house, you have to change identity you know, I mean are you going to, are you prepared to do all that to, because most people aren’t. And this is the barrier that people face.
And it, it’s also the same with when there’s shootings and the police and the media say, “There’s a wall of silence.” Well it’s a wall of fear, because people do come forward, people are prepared to talk but they’re not prepared to sign what they’ve said, for fear of you know. And then having to move and uproute themselves, that’s the big problem.
And so how can Victim Support help?
Well, gosh.
You don’t know?
Yes, I don’t know, I think they should come, I think with what they’ve got, and what they, what they work with in terms of supporting victims, I think that they should go out perhaps after three months, not; initially go around yes. But its, you’re in such a daze after someone’s killed, I mean the last thing you want to do is sit down and talk and I don’t even think you you’re emotionally ready to start, even accessing counselling and things, so if nothings took up in the three month they don’t make another call.
And what did you do yourself for Victim Support?
We made a visit to victims in houses.
And what sort of help would you provide for them, a listening ear or anything else?
Yeah, but not for gun crime or anything like that, it was for people that was distressed from burglaries and robberies and things like that.
And it was listening ear and support. The role that I do now with Mothers Against Violence, we do provide that role. We do go out and see people, we do support women for as long as it takes and we do keep going back, and that’s where, a need that we’ve met, you know it’s like a gap that we’ve met. And also now with my other job, my paid work, working for Women’s Aid, I work very closely with Victim Support now, because we get a lot of referrals from them, so, there’s a lot of gaps but I think there’s other agencies as well working alongside that are meeting them.
