scheherazade

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/v_to_z/v...nts/index.html

Maplease

Thanks for the link. Really interesting and I had never heard of it before. Not being in the legal profession I wouldn't know, but is it something that is widely used? I'd like to think so. I would imagine it would go a long way to helping the victims.

scheherazade

From what I've seen, they are pretty widely used but the quality and content vary according to the statement taker. If one hasn't been mentioned, Judges and Magistrates are known to enquire as to whether one exists.

It's pretty standard to ask a victim if they want to make such a statement. They can be a few extra lines added on to a statement of complaint or can be separate statements running into several pages. They can help provide context to a case so somebody who was burgled would usually make an initial statement listing what was missing but in a VPS might explain that the "plain gold band" stolen was of particular sentimental value because it belonged to their now-deceased wife and so on.