Crime victims ‘need better support’

The brother of the woman killed by Malcolm Webster called for police to be more victim-friendly as he revealed how he feared for his mother’s life during the investigation.

Peter Morris now campaigns for improved victims’ rights following the murder of his sister Claire, 32, by Webster.

Webster, from Guildford in Surrey, was given a life sentence earlier this year after he drugged his wife, drove the car in which she was a passenger off a remote road in Aberdeenshire and started a fire while she was still unconscious in the vehicle.

Yesterday, Mr Morris told MSPs about the impact the case had on his family as he put forward a petition aimed at improving support for victims of crime and their families. The 48-year-old said: “On four occasions before an arranged police visit to my 86-year-old mother, I had to take her up to the A&E department because she had extremely high blood pressure.”

After that, he agreed with police he would “gently” pass information about the case on to his mother, rather than have officers contact her.

But he said: “There were many times throughout the process, the very long process, that I genuinely didn’t think she was going to survive.

“I think a much more victim-friendly approach needs to be taken by the police.”

Mr Morris, from Gillingham in Kent, spoke out on the issue at Holyrood’s Public Petitions Committee.

While he said progress had been made in the way victims were treated, he argued more could be done to help them.

Mr Morris said: “Victims have progressed from being third-class citizens to second-class. With appropriate consideration I believe we can now progress this category of very special people to first-class citizens.”