28 February 2025

  

The Crime and Policing Bill was introduced in Parliament this week - this package of new laws includes measures to ensure tougher enforcement action against perpetrators and better protection for victims, including addressing violence against women and girls, treating it as “the national emergency it truly is.”

The measures proposed will affect many of the people supported in Hestia’s services across London.

 

Commenting on the proposals, Patrick Ryan, Chief Executive at Hestia said:

"We welcome the Government’s focus on tackling violence against women and girls, particularly measures addressing stalking, spiking, and the non-consensual recording of intimate images or videos.

“We are also pleased to see that the ‘victims’ right of review’ introduced by the Independent Office for Police Conduct will be placed on a statutory footing. This means that victims will have a legal right to ask for a review if the Police have made an initial decision not to refer an investigation report to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

“We welcome the proposal to make cuckooing a specific offence, allowing those whose homes are used by others to commit criminal activity to seek justice, and sanction the perpetrators of this invasive and coercive crime. We have worked with many survivors of cuckooing through our modern slavery response service, and they tell us that they are living in fear while those who have exploited them walk free. This proposed change will be a welcome acknowledgement of what they have endured.

“It’s also great to see the proposal for child criminal exploitation to become a specific offence. Criminally exploited children are not criminals. They are victims, and this will give us tools to sanction those truly responsible for these crimes.”

 

You might also be interested in...