Role: Witness Care Officer REF 377871
Contract Length: Until 30/10/27 (30 hours - Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday)
Location: Plymouth
IR35: Inside
Pay Rate to Intermediary: £18.55 per hour
Security Clearance: BPSS
Spinwell is recruiting for a Witness Care Officer for an excellent opportunity within the public sector.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE WITNESS CARE OFFICER
The principal responsibility of the Witness Care Officer is to provide a single point of contact for victims and witnesses in all Prosecution cases securing attendance in both Magistrates and Crown Courts. Delivering a quality service meeting individual needs and requirements contained within the No Witness No Justice requirement and the Victim’s Code of Practice, to have a positive influence on the willingness of victims and witnesses to attend court.
In particular to:
- Conducting, reviewing, and continually assessing needs and risk assessments, to tailor support and provide advice and guidance as appropriate.
- Manage varied and complex workloads, with cases at various stages
- Understand and apply the rights within the Victims Code of Practice Comply with the Victims Code, Witness Charter, Working Practices and Force Policy as applicable to contribute to compliance.
- Maintain accurate records ensuring timely updates to any case management system and to any other systems in accordance with the relevant legislation, force policy and good practice. To include accurate recording of any unseen crime and or intelligence.
- Build, maintain and continue to develop relationships with external partners such as Victim Partner Agencies, HMCTS, CPS, Witness Service etc in support of effective service provision and understanding local practices.
- Undertake necessary training and CPD to develop skills, knowledge and understanding of the Criminal Justice System.
- Engage with members of the public through a variety of communication methods, which could include face to face.
- Dealing with victims and witnesses who are extremely emotionally distressed, assessing risk and using the National Decision Model (NDM) to respond appropriately.
- Provide specialist advice and guidance to colleagues, including training inputs into Teams.
- Management of logistics, including worldwide video links and application of agreed processes, for example but not limited to, special measures, witness statements, restraining orders, and presenting information to the Court.
- Warning of Police Officers to provide evidence into court via CVP (Cloud Video Platform) set up and liaison of such with Partner Agencies.
- Liaison and management of Section 28 Pre-Recording of evidence covering all vulnerable victims and witnesses defined by S16 and within compliance of the enhanced rights of the Code of Practice.
- Potential requirement to give evidence to the Court.
This list of duties is not restrictive or exhaustive and the post-holder may be required to carry out duties from time to time that are either commensurate with/or lower than the grade of the post. In some posts this might include the ad-hoc provision of guidance and informal training of new colleagues.
SKILLS/EXPERIENCES OF THE WITNESS CARE OFFICER
- Essential qualifications, experience, knowledge and skills required for this role. To be used for recruitment and selection purposes.
- Experience of dealing with a wide range of people from a cross section of the community, in varying circumstances
- Ability to communicate sensitively and effectively verbally in writing and face to face when required with a wide range of people, particularly the vulnerable or distressed.
- Experience of working collaboratively with other agencies (such as statutory, voluntary and community).
- Proven ability to plan and prioritise a challenging workload.
- Experience of working collaboratively with Partner Agencies (such as CPS, HMCTS, Probation Service and Judiciary).
- Knowledge and understanding of the Criminal Justice System and Courts processes to be able to comply with Victims Code of Practice, Witness Charter.
- IT skills with the ability to use Microsoft packages including Word, Excel etc. and ability adapt to new Force systems and upgrades as they are introduced.
If you are a Witness Care Officer, apply now or send your CV to Spinwell!
We welcome all applications regardless of background, in line with our commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion.
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