Antisocial behaviour is not 'low level' and endangers lives, Baroness Newlove warns

The nation is missing the chance to stop antisocial behaviour spiralling into lethal violence, Victims’ Commissioner Baroness Helen Newlove has warned. She has first-hand experience of how yobbery can escalate into murder. In 2007 her husband, Garry, was fatally injured by youths who repeatedly kicked him in the head on a Friday night outside their home in Warrington. He had stepped outside to see if her car had been vandalised.

The area had been plagued by youth violence before the barbarous attack and she insists society fails to take antisocial behaviour seriously at its peril. She remembers walking back from a community meeting before the killing, saying: “Nothing will be done until somebody is murdered.”

Baroness Newlove dismisses talk of “low level” antisocial behaviour. She knows how victims can be targeted for years throughout the day and night.

The toll of their mental health can wreck their jobs, leaving them with money worries. In some cases they are pushed to the brink of suicide.

“They are even scared of stepping outside their homes,” she said. “That’s how bad this is.”

As Victim’s Commissioner and as a member of the House of Lords, she wants to wake the nation up to the dangers of neglecting the torment endured in many neighbourhoods. In conversation, she speaks not with anger but with hope disasters can be prevented, and with gratitude she has the chance to make a difference.

“The moral compass in our policies has got to be corrected,” she said.

The peer has no time for state bodies which come up with excuses for turning a blind eye to louts.

“It’s not acceptable to say we’re under-resourced because if you nip antisocial behaviour in the bud the violence will not escalate,” she said.

She published a report last year – Still Living a Nightmare – which described how 63% of victims still faced unresolved issues despite making a report to authorities.

“The time has come to stop this because we’re seeing a lot of people suffering in silence,” she said. “And I don’t want to see anybody else suffer the way we suffered.”

The mother of three daughters turned off her 47-year-old husband’s life support machine. She remembers being “goaded” by offenders during the subsequent trial – which has left her with lasting insights into the challenges victims face as the wheels of the criminal justice system turn.

Three youths were given life sentences for murder, and anyone would have understood if she never wanted to step into the spotlight again.

Instead, the former committal court assistant founded Newlove Warrington to make the community a better place in which to live and grow up. Comedian Peter Kay and singer Rick Astley helped launch the initiative.

She also campaigned against binge drinking and in 2010 she was appointed a Government champion for “active, safer communities”. That same year David Cameron nominated her for a peerage.

She said at the time: “You can either sit back and do nothing or you can act, and I chose the latter.”

From 2013 to 2019 she served two terms as Victims’ Commissioner. She returned as an interim commissioner following the resignation of Dame Vera Baird and her term was extended to run until the end of this year.

“I was very honoured to go back,” she said. “I live and breathe this.”

She is dismayed by the backlog in the courts system, with the number of open cases hitting nearly 77,000 at the end of March – up from just under 70,000 in the previous year. She noted that more than 1,600 rape cases were open for more than a year.

It is “heartbreaking” for victims to learn they will have to wait years for justice, she warned.

“They must be reliving the trauma every single day waiting for this court to go ahead,” she said.

Early experiences working as a typist at a magistrates’ court and later as a legal PA taught her the “nooks and crannies” of the legal system. And now she has the chance to shape legislation in Parliament.

“I never thought I’d be in the House of Lords,” she said.

When David Cameron first contacted she assumed it was a hoax and took action.

“I reported him to Cheshire Police,” she admitted.

In her remaining time as commissioner she is intent on pushing the issue of antisocial behaviour up the national agenda.

“People are absolutely traumatised,” she said.

Attention often focuses on intimidating youths in town centres but Baroness Newlove is most concerned about what takes place away from CCTV cameras in residential neighbourhoods.

It is “awful”, she said, when people are “paying for a house and you don’t feel safe” in it.

And she challenges the idea it is only young louts who make people’s lives misery.

“There are a lot of older people now who are causing this,” she said, warning of how residents are “harassed by neighbours constantly”.

She understands why people are fearful of confronting such bad behaviour on their doorstep.

“Garry went out to ask one simple question,” she said. “Who’s damaged my wife’s car?”

Yet she also knows how damaging it is to society when “feral youths” think they have “carte blanche to do what they want”.

“We need all the agencies to work together,” she said.

She wants people to feel safe in community spaces and can see an important role for park wardens. People also appreciate, she insists, being able to call into a manned police station instead of having to go online.

Last year she admitted to being disappointed “so little meaningful progress has been made” since she published her original report on antisocial behaviour in 2019. Baroness Newlove will not want to step down from her position with a sense of unfinished business.

“I keep pushing at ministers’ doors,” she said. “I won’t give it up.”

She knows that if local thuggery is not tackled, much worse can follow.

“You leave it – it will bubble,” she warned.