Princess Anne visits helpline for victims of crime in Wales

Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal this week visited Victim Support’s National Contact Centre in South Wales. The centre runs the charity’s 24 hour national helpline, Supportline, as well as several other helplines on behalf of partner organisations.

Supportline has been key in helping survivors of major incidents such as terrorist attacks, as well providing out of hours help for vulnerable victims.

Patron of the independent charity, Princess Anne, met with staff and trustees, as well as representatives from partner organisations and had the opportunity to talk to call handlers about their work.

Sara Brown, Manager of Victim Support’s National Contact Centre, said:  “It was wonderful to have Princess Anne join us today to help highlight the wonderful work of our staff and volunteers.

“Last year our Supportline took over 55,000 calls from victims of crime and every day of the year we are able to offer immediate emotional support as well as practical help and advice. From here victims are referred to the team in their local area for longer-term support, should they need it.

“We provide support and information on every crime type and around half of the calls we receive between 8pm and 8am, which is an essential service as out of hours support is often difficult to access.”

The Princess Royal also had the opportunity to meet members of Victim Support’s Hate Crime team in Wales to discuss how the issue is being tackled across the country.

Tom Edwards, Contract Manager for Wales at Victim Support said: “It was a pleasure to meet Princess Anne today and the team were delighted by her visit.

“We know from recent figures that incidents of hate crime are continuing to rise, driven by religiously and racially motivated attacks. Our work in this area is more important than ever as more people feel able to come forward and seek support and so it was great to be able to discuss something so important with Her Royal Highness.”

The Princess Royal also unveiled a commemorative plaque to mark her visit.

Victim Support is an independent charity that provides specialist practical help and emotional support to victims of all crime, whether or not the incident has been reported to the police.