The Minister for State for Crime and victims, Norman Baker (Liberal) visited Tyneside, following his move to the Home Office in October of this year.
As minister with responsibilities for Domestic Violence Forced Marriage and Honour Based Violence, it was particularly welcome that he chose to visit the Angelou Centre, the specialist BME centre for women and children. Some of their work is funded by the MOJ, and their holistic approach to working with victims in recovery is nationally acclaimed.
Also present was PCC, Vera Baird, and Solicitor Cris McCurley, in her role as co-chair of the Black and Minority Ethnic women’s Domestic Violence network.
The minister took part in a discussion about the evidence threshold for proof of domestic violence for LASPO. He was provided with a dossier of case studies of high risk victims not able to get Legal Aid. He promised to make sure that these were raised with the MOJ on behalf of victims falling through the LASPO domestic abuse evidence cracks.
Perhaps most importantly, he met with survivors of Trafficking and Forced Marriage. This part of the visit took place in camera so that the victims/survivors could say what they wanted to, to the Minister. Afterwards, he described them as “impressive, inspirational” and agreed that they were what services such as this are about.