Revising the Victims’ Code

The code of practice for victims of crime is central to our strategy for transposing the EU Victims’ Directive (2012/29/EU) which establishes minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime, and which comes into force on 16 November 2015. We are therefore seeking your views on what are technical changes required for compliance.

The consultation includes proposals to:

• extend the services offered under the code to victims of any criminal offence, not just victims of the more serious criminal offences that are notifiable under the National Crime Recording Standards (NCRS)
• make sure that victims are entitled to receive support and information from relevant public sector investigative and prosecutorial organisations, not just the police and Crown Prosecution Service
• make sure that a victim who reports a crime receives a written acknowledgment which states the basic elements of the criminal offence concerned

We are also proposing to make a number of smaller amendments to the Victims’ Code, which are described in the appendix to the consultation document.