person doesn’t report, it could be something held on file in their counselling or survivor service for instance to be used later, like SARC’s hold FME evidence. Survivors Manchester agreed it would work with the Expert Reference Group to develop a service within it to offer every single individual the opportunity to create a ‘Survivor statement’
04. Have you ever made/ wanted to make a complaint about a service you received from CJ agencies? VBCSM10 stated that he once complained to the CEO of Survivors Manchester about his experience and the way the complaint was handled with so much care was heartening and wondered if the ‘system’ would do the same as its process driven. VBCSM4 gave an example of extremely poor treatment he received as a victim when he was contacted by the court by phone, as he was on the train on the way home after being in the court all day waiting for the jury to return to be told the verdict has come in and it’s a not guilty. VBCSM4 had only moments before been sent home by the Clerk and gone separate ways from ISVA to supposed to be returning the next day. To receive this information from a clerk by phone was shocking and upsetting for the participants to hear but the consensus in the room was “that’s how male survivors are treated, with little thought”. VBCSM4 said that the irony to this was that he received an email asking if VBCSM4 could reply with how good the service was. VBCSM12 stated that he wanted to make a complaint against Witness Care but was so angry with them. He felt that they took no thought with him after the case ended and the guilty verdict came in. So when the perpetrator was harassing him, when the perpetrator was being released, there was no ‘Witness Care’, as if they forgot about him. Why bother! VBCSM1 stated that if you look at the news you can see a litter of experiences where people complained to the Police and got no where. He said “there ought to be a process, and ‘it ought to be the case that if the service has failed then one can complain, somewhere or someone independent, this is where the Victims Commissioner could come in, they should be the person a victim is able to go to complain and that office should help you through it!”. VBCSM5 stated the fact that it isn’t one person that deals with a victim/survivors’ case, but multiple and so what if you want to complain about the system, do you have to go to each one? VBCSM1 makes the argument that ‘if an organisation isn’t transparent, then it resembles the same smoke and mirrors of the perpetrator’ One comment summarised this stating “if you’ve had such a shit time, why would you complain when all you’d want to do is get as far away from that system as possible as it’s hurt you enough at that point”.
