Ministers want to extend controversial reforms that allow grieving families of murder victims to voice their feelings in court to include fatal road traffic accidents.

Harriet Harman, QC, Minister for Constitutional Affairs, came out today in favour of widening the scheme across England and Wales, despite strong opposition from judges who argue that it makes their job more difficult by heightening the emotional atmosphere in the courtroom.

“Listening to what the victims’ relatives said before this experiment, they say it made it worse for them that nobody gave them the opportunity to speak about the person who died," Ms Harman told Today.

“Let’s take the view about whether it is made worse emotionally from the people who are most affected by crime, which is the victims’ relatives, not the judge.”

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Parents' moving tribute to their extraordinary Joe

The full text of the victim impact statement by Tom Geeling, Joe's father, as read out at Manchester Crown Court

BACKGROUND

• Victim statements marred by the law's vague guidelines

• Judges set against plans for victims' advocates

Ms Harman said it was “patronising” to suggest that families would not understand that the judge must take a whole range of other factors into account when passing sentence.

The scheme has been piloted in five courts since last April, with ministers due to assess the findings when it ends this April. So far there have been 21 cases in which victims have made statements, either personally or through their lawyers. Not all offered the chance have taken it up.

Ms Harman said the scheme was “about giving the family a dignified moment actually to say what the crime has meant to them”.

“Many families in homicide cases told me they felt gagged in court; that everybody would speak - judge, prosecution, defence, and even passers-by as witnesses to the crime. The only people who would never have a chance to say anything were those who actually cared most about the person killed. “

But judges remain firmly opposed and say that their original concerns have not been allayed. They claim the scheme falsely raises victims’ expecations in being able to influence a sentence, and that it transforms the court room into an emotional arena.

One senior judge said that “however it is couched to the families, there is bound to be an expectation that what is said will have an effect on sentence, although they are told that this is not the case”.

He added: “It is also felt that there will be cases where a parent or very close relative who is so closely involved will go off script, unchecked, and add to the emotional cauldron which just after verdict is pretty explosive in court already.”

A second judge said: “There are serious reservations. The difficulty it puts the judge in is: how is he or she expected to react to a statement that might not be restrained, that might be highly emotional and even abuse the perpetrator . . . what is the judge meant to do by way of reflecting that?”

The judge, he said, was an independent figure who was there to represent the interests of jusitce and to carry out an unemotional exercise which takes account of the relevant features of punishment.

“But if we are called upon to wreak revenge, which may be an entirely understandable emotion on the part of those affected, that is something we can’t do,” he added. Judges who resisted that pressure might then be accused of not doing their job properly, he said.

A third judge said that one or two recent high-profile cases where victims had expressed their views had only added to judicial concerns about the “imbalance between the articulate family member and the less articulate”.

Under present law, victims can already make a personal written statement describing the impact of a crime. This is currently under review, with revised proposals due to be issued shortly.

This is different, however, from the current pilot allowing a relative to address the court in person, after conviction but before sentence, or through a prosecution lawyer.

There is concern that the existing personal statement scheme does not work well because victims have to make their statements early in the proceedings, before the full impact of a crime may have become apparent to them.

The statement is also considered as part of the prosecution papers and so the relatives can be cross-examined on it, rather than being a free-standing post-script to their witness statement.

Ms Harman believes strongly that the current trial process excludes relatives and those most affected by a crime and pressed ahead with the pilot in the face of judicial opposition.

Officials have also been frustrated when judges opposed their plans to devise a media protocol to cover approaches by the media to families of victims.

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