Catherine’s cachet

Camberwell resident Catherine Hinwood has been awarded an OBE for her vital work during the pandemic

BY LAWRENCE DIAMOND

Whether it be a request to confirm your bank details, pay the excess import tax on a parcel, or even a notification that your iPhone has been hacked, we have sadly all become far too aware of the perils of scam emails.

So when Catherine Hinwood received an email purporting to be from the office of none other than King Charles III, she understandably assumed it was spam. “But then I went, ‘Oh, hang on, I’ve worked in government. I know there’s something kind of official here’. So I looked again.”

It was a good thing she did, because the email was real, and attached to it was confirmation that she was to receive an OBE for her work during the pandemic, when for 18 intense months she led the government’s response to the impact of Covid on victims of domestic abuse as chair of the Covid-19 Victim and Witness Silver Command Group.

After realising the email was legitimate, her reaction was one of confused elation. “I sent it to my sister to check and asked, ‘Have I read this correctly?’ And then I was just praying for the train journey to end so I could jump off and ring my mum.”

Sharing that moment with her mother was especially important for Catherine and one of the drivers behind her accepting the award, despite her acknowledgment of the charged nature of such gongs.

“My mum grew up for part of her life in the care system in England and I was aware of how she had been let down by multiple systems. For her to be able to come full circle and stand proudly in Buckingham Palace with me – that would mean such a huge amount to her, and I wanted to be able to give her that opportunity.”

It may have been overwhelming for Catherine to receive that email on an intercity train bound for Manchester, but the important work that she and her team were involved in was more than deserving of such an honour.

In her role at the Ministry of Justice, where she was deputy director of family and criminal justice policy, heading up the victim and witness policy unit, Catherine was responsible for most government policy relating to victims of crime in England and Wales, with a £140 million annual budget for victim and witness services.

I ask her to run through what her world looked like as the pandemic began and she started to realise the impact it was going to have on those people her teams supported – namely victims of crime and their families.

”Very early on, even before full lockdown, a lot of the providers that I used to speak to were saying, ‘There’s a real problem here, we’re getting loads and loads of phone calls and people are really triggered. And also, we’re not set up to provide counselling services online. Furthermore, for those experiencing domestic violence we just saw a huge spike in the need for services.’”

Immediately Catherine kicked into action, calling on as many providers as possible to offer more services, or facilitate a different way of providing them.

“I just called up a host of third sector providers and said, ‘What do you need?’ It could be things like helping them move counselling services online or getting funding to ensure helplines were open longer hours, or indeed 24 hours.”

Alongside this she oversaw a huge project to address the problem on a more macro level, creating systems to gather data from as many sources as possible, as often as possible, to ensure that an accurate picture was being created that would make very clear to the major stakeholders –mainly government – the scope of funding that was needed and the urgency with which it was required.

“After a few sleepless nights, I thought, ‘We’re going to have to do something different here’. So I called a meeting and said, ‘Right, we have to start a data collection process. And you’re going to have to send me data every week. And we’re going to have to meet every second day just so we can try to understand what that data is telling us.’”

The evidence Catherine and her team provided helped to secure government funding of more than £50 million a year for domestic abuse and sexual violence services during the pandemic, ensuring vital service provision despite demand increases of up to 200%.

“It was great. Because I had the data I was able to say, ‘This is going on, this is what we need and this is why it is important.’ We were able to distribute it out to the charities really quickly too. It was really, really amazing.”

When Catherine describes her work schedule of 18-hour days to ensure the message was getting through, the money was being obtained and those in need were getting it, it doesn’t feel trite to say that most heroes don’t wear capes. The toil of Catherine and her team in those early weeks and months undoubtedly saved lives, while also setting up models and structures that would then assist the government and other agencies to deliver funding and help through the full stretch of lockdown, and to an extent beyond.

That the government took her findings so seriously was in itself – separate from the accolade bestowed on her in the King’s new year honours list – validation that the work Catherine had been doing since she came to the UK from her native Australia in 2003 was worthwhile. And further, that work in this sector in general – of helping people who have suffered abuse or violence, as well as those who are at risk – is rewarding, important and needs to be recognised as such by the world at large.

“I’ve had a lot of people, generally women, but also a lot of men, who have wanted to work for me or have wanted to work in this space. And they’ve been discouraged, as I was, on the basis that it’s a career-limiting option. You become labelled as an activist or some such. So this award has helped give the work the profile it deserves.

“There are so many people who work so tirelessly to try to bring this agenda to the forefront of people’s minds, which is really hard. This [the impact of domestic abuse] costs the healthcare system alone £2 billion a year. So why are we not as a society doing more to try to tackle it? And for conversations about how we do that to have taken place at the highest levels, I think is incredibly important.”

After 14 years at the Ministry of Justice, in July 2022 Catherine was appointed NHS England’s senior lead for domestic abuse and sexual violence. She is heading an ambitious programme to improve the way the NHS responds to domestic abuse and sexual violence for both patients and staff.

The programme considers these crimes through a public health lens, looking at prevention, early intervention and resulting health inequalities, as well as improving support for victims.

Away from her day job it’s the creative side of south-east London – and nights at local jazz hotspot the Crypt – that provide some vital downtime. And while she helped create deep and wide support networks for thousands of people across the UK during the pandemic, her support network locally is slightly more, shall we say, homespun.

“I made two of my best friends during the pandemic. Our balconies faced each other and we would throw yeast over the balcony to each other. And my dry cleaner [on Southampton Way]. I love my dry cleaner. I go in to say hello to them all the time and just chat. And I know I can always get my copy of this newspaper from them too.”

For anyone who may have experienced domestic abuse or sexual violence, you can find information about available support at gov.uk/guidance/victim-and-witness-services and via yellowdoor.org.uk/start-here/immediate-help