# Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, Section 44N: Victim impact statements where hospital order made with restriction order

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.
Status: prospective

(1) This section applies where—
(a) one of these applies in respect of a person (“the patient”) charged with an offence—
(i) the patient is convicted of the offence;
(ii) a verdict is returned that the patient is not guilty of the offence by reason of insanity;
(iii) a finding is made under section 4 of the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964 that the patient is under a disability, and under section 4A of that Act that the patient did the act or made the omission charged against the patient as the offence,
(b) a hospital order is made with a restriction order in respect of the patient by a court dealing with the patient for the offence,
(c) the provider of probation services provides information in accordance with section 44M about the patient to a person who appears to the provider to be the victim of the offence, or to act for the victim of the offence,
(d) either—
(i) an application is made to the First-tier Tribunal or the Mental Health Review Tribunal for Wales by the patient under section 69, 70 or 75 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (applications concerning restricted patients), or
(ii) the Secretary of State refers the patient’s case to the tribunal under section 71 or 75 of that Act (references concerning restricted patients), and
(e) the provider of probation services considers it appropriate to give the person who appears to the provider to be the victim of the offence the opportunity to provide a victim impact statement under this section.
(2) The provider of probation services—
(a) must take all reasonable steps to ascertain whether the person who appears to the provider to be the victim of the offence wishes to provide a victim impact statement to the provider, and
(b) if the person provides such a statement, must forward it to the tribunal.
(3) Where a victim impact statement has been forwarded to the tribunal under subsection (2), the tribunal must—
(a) allow the person who made the statement to request permission to read the statement to the tribunal at a relevant hearing, and
(b) grant such permission unless the tribunal considers that there are good reasons not to.
(4) The tribunal may have regard to the statement when determining any of the following matters (but must not have regard to it for any other purpose)—
(a) whether the patient should be subject to any conditions in the event of the patient’s discharge from hospital while a restriction order is in force in respect of the patient;
(b) if so, what conditions;
(c) what conditions the patient should be subject to in the event of the patient’s discharge from hospital under a community treatment order.
(5) In this section—
“relevant hearing” means any hearing held by the tribunal before making a decision which disposes of proceedings on the application or reference mentioned in subsection (1)(d);
“victim” includes a person who is a victim within the meaning of section 1 of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 by virtue of subsection (2)(a) of that section;
“victim impact statement” means a statement about the way in which, and the degree to which, the offence has affected and (as the case may be) continues to affect the victim or any other person.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/28/section/44N (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/domestic-violence-crime-and-victims-act-2004/section-44N
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.