Newhaven crime victim receives apology from offender

Sussex Police said the cyclist was later sentenced to a conditional discharge for 12 months and was ordered to pay compensation and costs to the victim, having pleaded guilty to causing criminal damage.

After sentencing, the victim, Jamie Crawford, 50, of Denton Drive, Newhaven, contacted Sussex Police and asked if he could meet the offender to seek an apology and an explanation.

Sussex Restorative Justice Partnership then set up a Restorative Justice conference, held at a local village hall.

Mr Crawford said: “I was pleased to be able to address the offender with confidence and speak my truth, without any sense of fear or anger.

“I was pleased that he was able to apologise at least to the minimum degree that I would find acceptable and that we were able to agree at the end of the conference that the matter had been resolved satisfactorily and that both of us could now put it in the past. “Very importantly for me, by the end of the conference I felt that some of the dignity I felt I’d lost by becoming a victim of crime in the way I did on the day of the offence and in the weeks following had been restored to me by the way I conducted myself in the conference.”

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