WHO ARE WE?

We are the Survivors Coalition Foundation (SVF) and Innocent Victims United (IVU).  SCF was established by 7/7 Survivor Beverli Rhodes to support survivors of trauma, including terrorism, natural disasters, child sex abuse, or military personnel returning from a tour of duty.  IVU is an umbrella organisation for 23 groups that have a collective membership in excess of 11,500 individual victims/survivors of terrorism throughout the UK.

We are supported by McCue & Partners LLP, the UK's expert in counter-terror litigation, who have represented thousands of victims of terrorism worldwide in cases against the likes of the Real IRA, HAMAS and Muammar al-Gaddafi. 

We need better access to justice for victims of terror.  That is why we are working on legislative reform to ensure that those who promote and sponsor terrorism are made to pay.  You can read more about this in an article for The Justice Gap.

Please consider donating and, importantly, sharing news of this campaign with your friends and family by pressing the Facebook button in the sidebar.

We have the support of MPs from across the political spectrum and we believe we can make this happen. In order to do so we need to raise £25,000 to conduct a comprehensive review of UK legislation and produce a policy paper to submit to the government

The laws of other countries provide their victims with such essential support.  It’s time the UK did too.

In 2011, a Parliamentary Inquiry recommended that the Government undertake a consultation on how “the victims of terrorist atrocities might be legally aided, financially or otherwise, in bringing civil actions where the criminal justice system has not brought the perpetrators to book".  This consultation never took place.  It is down to the victims to review the law and make the case for legislative change.  We need your help to do so.  

OUR AIMS

We are seeking to raise £25,000 to:

• Conduct a comprehensive review of UK legislation and its current failings.
• Carry out a comparative study of the laws of other countries that provide better and more effective remedies for their victims.
• Produce a policy paper on the issues to submit with recommendations to Her Majesty’s Government. 

We are starting with a target of £10,000, which will enable us to make a start, but for us to complete the work we need all the support we can get in raising the full £25,000.

Our aim is to bring about legislative reform to ensure that those who promote and sponsor terrorism are brought to justice and ensure that they pay their victims just compensation.

We are supported in our efforts by the Chair of the Tackling Terrorism All-Party Parliamentary Group, Mr Khalid Mahmood MP, whose role is to evaluate and develop policies on tackling terrorism. 

“This is a vital and important project that I believe will be the first step in changing the law to provide better protection and access to justice to our country’s victims of terrorism who, for too long and too often have been sidelined.  A review of the existing laws coupled with new policy recommendations will provide the basis for essential reform.  My committee and parliament will take this forward and press for legislation that will place victims’ rights front and centre of anti-terrorism law.”

Khalid Mahmood, Chair of the Tackling Terrorism All-Party Parliamentary Group

Our Government is Failing UK Victims

In the aftermath of any terrorist attack, Her Majesty’s Government makes much of its sympathy and commitment to supporting victims and bringing the terrorists to justice.  Too often, it fails in both. 

The victims may receive some aftercare from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, but this quickly fades away.  The foreign states responsible for encouraging, financing and supporting these atrocities remain unchallenged and the attacks continue.  In the years to come, the victims and their families are afforded too little state care to rebuild their shattered lives.

Post 9/11, the majority of UK victims are caught up in terror attacks overseas.  Too often, those countries fail to convict the perpetrators.

Even if they do, imprisoning the bombers and gunmen will not bring an end to the attacks.  For each one locked away, there will always be more to take their place.

More important and effective is to target the foreign states and private actors who finance, train and arm their terrorist organisations.  Without money, training or weapons, the terrorist threat is greatly reduced.

"UK law doesn’t properly help victims of terrorism.  We need better access to justice for victims of terror.  That is why we are working on legislative reform to ensure that those who promote and sponsor terrorism are made to pay."

Yet, for reasons of international diplomacy and state immunity, HMG has never prosecuted a foreign state for financing terrorism and rarely, if ever, in this modern era of terrorism, has sought to prosecute individual foreign state officials for their role.

If HMG won’t or can’t then the victims must bring such prosecutions themselves but too many barriers are put in their way.  There are time limits for bringing your case (within three years of the attack); exemptions from prosecution for states and its officials (‘state immunity’); arguments that you should take your case elsewhere, either in the country where the attack took place or, worse still, in the country who supported the terrorists in the first place (‘jurisdiction’); and too much discretion by the Legal Aid Agency to deny victims legal aid by deciding that prosecuting terrorists is not in the public interest (yes, this has happened). 

Furthermore, while many terrorist organisations are structured and organised just like a registered company -- conducting business to make money to fund their attacks -- they cannot be sued because they are not a legal entity.  They are protected from the law by the very fact that they are unlawful.  This perversion of justice cannot continue.

We lag behind other Western countries in providing much needed support to our victims.  Other countries, such as the USA and Canada, do not make it so difficult for victims of terrorism to seek justice.  Why does the UK?  In so doing, our counter-terror policy is inherently flawed.  This must change.

"imprisoning the bombers and gunmen will not bring an end to the attacks."

What Can Be Done?

We say:

There should be no limitation on when a victim of terrorism can bring their case to court; foreign states who sponsor terrorism should never be able to use state immunity as a shield against prosecution, our Courts should always have jurisdiction over terrorist acts against British citizens.

Legal aid should be readily available to victims when the state cannot or will not commence prosecutions itself.  It should always be in the public interest to bring terrorists to justice, whether it is by the state of the victims themselves.

Terrorist organisations should be directly liable for their acts and those of their members.

On behalf of Survivors Coalition Foundation and Innocent Victims United, we thank you for your support.