Government guidance aims to safeguard vulnerable targets of ASB
Victims should have ‘guarantee of protection’
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The Home Office is preparing to tell housing departments how to deal with vulnerable victims of anti-social behaviour in the wake of the Fiona Pilkington case.
The news emerged as prime minister Gordon Brown said victims of anti-social behaviour should be given a ‘guarantee of protection’, at a meeting on Monday.
The Home Office is drawing up guidance, which will also be aimed at other agencies working with witnesses and victims, with help from practitioners including the police, councils and social landlords. Draft guidance could be out in the next few weeks.
Ms Pilkington, from Leicestershire, killed herself and her 18-year-old disabled daughter Francecca Hardwick in October 2007 after suffering years of abuse from youths.
Hinckley and Bosworth Council, the landlords of one of the families accused of harassing Ms Pilkington, has admitted better information sharing would have seen more concerted action to protect the family. It said it had since improved its systems.
The guidance is expected to look at how to identify vulnerable people in anti-social behaviour cases and assess the risks they face. It will also emphasise that victims and witnesses should be the focus of every agency’s work on anti-social behaviour.
Eamon Lynch, head of policy at the Social Landlords Crime and Nuisance Group, said: ‘If it is partnership guidance, it should both engage and be operable by all the key players, including housing associations.
‘The idea has to be to prevent as far as possible people falling through the gaps between partners because they are not effectively joined up, as in the Pilkington case.’
Meanwhile, speaking at Reading Town Hall Mr Brown said he wanted legislation in the next parliamentary session enabling victims to get an injunction against perpetrators if an agency had failed to deal with the anti-social behaviour. Mr Brown said the legal costs for the injunction would be met by the agency which had failed to help the victim.
The Home Office is also drawing up guidance to help organisations use new anti-gang injunctions.
The move follows a Court of Appeal ruling that Birmingham Council could not use civil injunctions against two alleged gang members, in October 2008. The orders, which the council used instead of anti-social behaviour orders, would have restricted the movements of the pair.
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