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These cookies will not be personally identifiable. Vimeo videos set third-party cookies to enable the video to play and collect analytics data. These cookies do not track individuals. Twitter widgets may add cookies to help analyse usage and remember your session if you are also logged in to your Twitter account. Victims of crime are close to my heart. In August , I became a victim when my husband Garry was fatally attacked by a gang on our family doorstep.
Read my story and advice for victims. Most of us have it mixed up. I was honoured to receive a peerage in for my campaigning work. They knocked him to the ground and kicked his head 'like a football', leaving the bloody imprint of a trainer on his forehead.
He died in Helen's arms three days later, after his life-support machine was switched off. Baroness Newlove, 58, a former legal PA, was made a Conservative life peer by David Cameron in in recognition of her campaigning work against youth crim. Mr Newlove's death became symbolic of 'Broken Britain' — but it was his widow and daughters who were left struggling to pick up the pieces. Zoe dropped out of university, unable to cope. Danielle didn't achieved her predicted GCSE grades, and Amy struggled to get out of bed each day to go to school.
Helen was suicidal with grief over the loss of her husband of 21 years. Now, nearly 13 years on, Lady Newlove smiles as she tells me that Zoe, 30, is a successful make-up artist and social media influencer.
Danielle, 28, is a supervisor for a beauty brand, while Amy, 25, works in media post-production. Helen, 58, a former legal PA, was made a Conservative life peer by David Cameron in in recognition of her campaigning work against youth crime. From to she was the House of Lords Victims' Commissioner, a champion for fellow survivors of crime.
But the foundations on which the family's hard-won happiness are built are now in danger of collapse and Lady Newlove, for all her influence and friends in high places, feels powerless to prevent it happening.
For this week they learnt that for the past 18 months, one of the youths responsible for Garry's death, Jordan Cunliffe, now 28, has been held at an open prison in preparation for his imminent release on parole. Unbeknown to Lady Newlove, he could have been free to wander the streets of Warrington, where the family, including the girls' year-old grandmother, still live. If he meets the appropriate conditions, he will be allowed out to work and visit his own family unsupervised at weekends, he could walk past them in the street or bump into them in a shop.
Allowed out to work and visit his own family unsupervised at weekends, he could have walked past them in the street or bumped into them in a shop. No one had told them this was happening. Garry Newlove, who had survived stomach cancer when he was 32, had rushed out of the family home in Warrington, Cheshire, to try to stop the youths vandalising his wife's car. In an exclusive interview, Lady Newlove says: 'It feels like an insult and a mockery for the Parole Board to allow Cunliffe to return to Warrington and not even consider the impact on us, his victims.
My daughters are terrified of bumping into one of the men who took their father away from them. My girls are in pieces. Yet again, we are made to feel Garry's life wasn't worth anything.
Well, I can categorically say that I haven't. Two youths aged 15 and 17 were acquitted. Zoe, Danielle and Amy bravely gave evidence at their trial at Chester Crown Court, enduring cross-examination from the defendants' separate barristers while the teenagers who killed their father laughed in the dock. One of the youths responsible for Garry's death, Jordan Cunliffe left , now 28, has been held at an open prison in preparation for his imminent release on parole.
Pictured right, Stephen Sorton. Twelve years on, the Newloves understand that the Parole Board has recommended Sorton's release and he has been sent to an open prison. Swellings will be eligible for parole in five years — and Cunliffe could be free in weeks.
Lady Newlove is calling for a Victims' Law to overhaul the parole system and redress what she sees as an unfair imbalance between the legal rights of offenders and those of their victims. There was a review of Parole Board procedures in after the public outcry that followed the initial decision to allow notorious serial sex offender John Worboys — the black cab rapist — early release from his life sentence, much to his many victims' horror.
Adam Swellings is one of the three teenagers who were found guilty of the murder of Mr Newlove. It led to the Ministry of Justice introducing 'greater transparency' in the parole process, to ensure that victims are kept informed of key decisions — and offered the chance to make a Victim Personal Statement at hearings, and to ask for certain conditions to the offender's licence once they are released, such as where they live.
Lady Newlove would like to take these changes further and introduce a Victims' Advocate Unit with access to legal aid — and for part of lawyers' training to include gaining an understanding of how traumatic the legal process is for victims; that they are not just a case number.
We can request conditions and exclusion zones but no one tells you whether they have been granted. What about our human rights? At sentencing, Swellings was given a minimum tariff of 17 years, Sorton 15 years reduced to 13 and then 12 on appeal , and Cunliffe 12 years. The court heard that the three renowned troublemakers were regularly seen drinking, vandalising cars and property, and intimidating anyone who dared to confront them. Swellings had at least 11 previous convictions including assault, battery and restraining order breaches, and had been arrested a week earlier for punching a man who caught the gang damaging his car.
Remanded in custody, he was bailed by magistrates on the morning of the day Garry Newlove was killed. Over the years, Lady Newlove, who believes a life sentence should mean life, has attended almost every one of the defendants' appeals against conviction or sentence, in her determination to keep them behind bars.
Lady Newlove knows Sorton has also been moved to an open prison in preparation for release, but has no idea where. He could soon be walking around Warrington too, as far as she knows. I find this an unusual quirk, that the women who put the role on the map gave up so much of her personal life to building the role was allowed no input or even knowledge of who might take her work forward.
Vera Baird QC has a prestigious hinterland — a QC, as compared to Newlove who was a legal secretary, a former MP and Minister of State and most recently a Police and Crime Commissioner with quite the reputation for defending victims, especially of sexual and domestic violence. Baird is a serious player and a serious woman, who comes from the opposite political side to Newlove.
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Baroness Newlove: "Nobody should be a statistic — these are human lives". Jess Phillips MP jessphillips.
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