Women who commit 'minor crimes' should have criminal records wiped, former victims' commissioner tells LBC

21 May 2025, 06:01 | Updated: 21 May 2025, 06:14

The former victims' commissioner Dame Vera Baird has told LBC that women guilty of low-level offences like shop theft or fraud should not be burdened with a criminal record for their entire lives.

She said that in many instances, women are committing minor offences because of a life of domestic abuse or poverty.

“Domestic abuse is a great imprisoner of women. 67% of women in custody suffer domestic or sexual abuse, and a large proportion of those suffered immediately prior to offending, so it is clearly linked."

"Striking back if he beats them up very badly.. or it’s survival crime because they are starved of funding… or it is being told to deliver his drugs or else. It shows a pattern of women suffering more than anyone they have ever made suffer."

Dame Vera Baird sits on the Women’s Justice Board, set up by the government, to look at ways to reduce the numbers of women in prison. Speaking to LBC in a personal capacity, she says that DBS checks are preventing women from getting jobs, often in caring roles, which keeps them in a revolving door of poverty and offending.

Dame Vera Baird is referring to women like Kelly.

Kelly was a young mother, with stability at home, and with an award winning career as a carer, until she met and married a man who turned her life upside down.

"On the plane on the way back from getting married he hit me."

Kelly has told LBC that this is when the cycle of domestic abuse began.

She says that things also started disappearing from the house, including her little daughter’s piggy bank money, which is when she discovered that her husband had been stealing from her to pay for his heroin addiction.

She was lured into a life of domestic abuse and drug use.

Kelly lost her job and was pressured by her then husband to use credit cards stolen by gangs to remove cash from banks.

She was convicted of fraud and given a community sentence, but her criminal record made it impossible for her to get a job.

“I thought... I’ve got a criminal record now. That’s when I realised I had become trapped in a revolving door. There was no help, no digging to find out what had happened to me to make me do this.”

Kelly ended up reoffending, this time going to prison.

Despite her best efforts, she was unable to get a job when she got out, and a life in poverty led her to commit shop theft.

“I remember going to a Co-op and stealing dog food. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. There were times that I was stealing things like fruit and clothing for my daughter."

It’s precisely this cycle of criminality that Dame Vera Baird is looking to break. She believes criminal records are not the answer for women like Kelly.

Instead, she wants to see a much greater rollout of schemes launched in County Durham and Wales which favour deferred prosecutions.

“There is someone called a navigator who can see what is happening and what is making the individual offend. You can come to an arrangement with them where they say they have the evidence and can prosecute you...but if you go on a training course or do whatever the navigator says, then they won’t prosecute you. There is a sort of stick but also a big carrot.”

More than 70% of female convicts are non-violent offenders.

Dame Vera Baird thinks there is much more that can be done to break the cycle of criminality, unemployment, and poverty amongst women.

The government has said it is committed to reducing the number of people in prison to address the overcrowding crisis.

The justice secretary Shabana Mahmood has also said that “it is a simple truth that we are sending far too many women to prison. It is high time that we found better solutions to help vulnerable women turn their lives around.”

The Independent Sentencing Review is expected to make several recommendations on how to address the prisons crisis, including how to address vulnerable women being sent to prison, and getting trapped in a life of criminality.