Survivors and their representatives of the Nottingham attacks are to meet Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, The Rt Hon Alex Norris MP for Nottingham North and Kimberley (and its predecessor Nottingham North) and renew their call for the Prime Minister to undertake a roundtable meeting to fully understand the impact of the Nottingham attacks from all of those affected.
Wayne Birkett and Sharon Miller, two survivors of the 2023 Nottingham attacks, are due to meet the Lord Chancellor, Justice Secretary and MP for Nottingham North and Kimberley, The Rt Hon Alex Norris MP, following the end of closing submissions made to the Chair of the Nottingham Inquiry on 9 September 2026. [see written SUBS0000015 – Closing Written Submission of The Survivors – The Nottingham Inquiry].
The closing submissions were the final opportunity for Core Participants to address the evidence orally at the hearings before the Inquiry Chair, ahead of the final Inquiry Report and recommendations expected in May 2027.
For Wayne and Sharon, the end of the hearings is a further reminder of their life changing injuries which should never have been caused.
- They continue to recover from their serious injuries.
- They continue to live in Nottingham.
- They continue to rely on the same public services whose failings have been examined and repeatedly exposed by this Inquiry.
Their campaign for accountability, candour and much needed change and improvements in these public services and from these state agencies in Nottingham will continue.
Greg Almond, Partner and Head of Serious Injury at Rothera Bray and solicitor for Wayne and Sharon, has written repeatedly to Government ministers on their behalf, including the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister, asking that their voices, experience and concerns are heard directly. The Prime Minister has not as yet responded to that recent request.
Wayne and Sharon have met with the previous Health Secretary The Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP, recently with Minister Allison McGovern MP, and are grateful to meet with The Rt Hon Alex Norris MP today. The Minister for Policing and Crime, Sarah Jones MP has offered to meet with the survivors on the 22nd September 2026. That engagement is welcome.
However, the Survivors believe the Prime Minister should also meet with them (and their representatives) to hear what happened to them, their experience as surviving victims of attempted murder who have felt, and as evidence given to the Inquiry has shown, have been repeatedly overlooked, and what must now change for Nottingham and for victims generally. In addition, we suggest that a roundtable meeting is required too.
The evidence before the Inquiry has exposed serious failures across mental health services, policing, criminal justice and with victim communication. Many agencies have referred to stretched resources and capacity. Those pressures matter, but they cannot excuse failures to carry out basic public protection responsibilities or to treat surviving victims with proper dignity, communication and support.
This matters beyond the Inquiry.
The Government has spoken about transferring greater powers, resources and functions from central government to regional and local authorities and about tackling regional inequalities in public investment.
Nottingham and the East Midlands are precisely the kind of areas where those commitments must be turned into a reality. Yet Nottingham too often lacks the powerful national voice enjoyed by other cities. Wayne and Sharon are Nottingham residents. They were injured in Nottingham. They still live with the consequences in Nottingham. Their experience should be central to any Government response.
Their request is straightforward. They want the Prime Minister to hear directly what happened, what was missed, and why proper resources, accountability and communication are essential if public confidence is to be rebuilt. They want the Government to explain how it will address the gaps in mental health care, policing, public protection and victim support exposed by the Inquiry, so that others are not failed in the same way.
To use an apt quote of the Independent Public Advocate Cindy Butts, “The burden of seeking truth and justice must rest with the system never on the shoulders of victims and families, who have already experienced unimaginable pain.”
Failures before the attacks
The evidence has exposed a pattern of numerous and repeated serious individual and systemic failings, including:
- VC was repeatedly discharged from specialist mental health services without any long-term treatment plan despite a history of serious psychosis, violence and non-compliance with treatment and medication.
- VC had numerous encounters with the police prior to the attacks which were not properly documented, responded to or progressed. Significantly, following first contact with police, VC caused the victim to jump out of a first-floor window and sustain a fractured spine which was incorrectly recorded as back pain and never prosecuted.
- An outstanding warrant for VC’s arrest not backed for bail remained unexecuted for months before the attacks.
- Police guidance concerning suspects with serious mental ill-health was not properly understood by officers.
- The evidence has raised wider concerns about how mental health services assess and manage the risks that seriously unwell patients may pose to the general public.
Failures affecting surviving victims
The Inquiry has also exposed serious problems in how surviving victims were treated and supported after the attacks, including:
- A failure to recognise and respond appropriately to the seriousness of Wayne Birkett’s brain injury in the immediate aftermath.
- Support that did not reflect the scale and seriousness of the survivors’ life changing injuries.
- Failures to provide accurate and timely information, including about VC’s previous interactions with Nottinghamshire Police.
- Basic communication adjustments in light of their sustained injuries from the attack not being made by the Police or CPS.
- Survivors learning distressing information through the media that should have been communicated to them directly and sensitively.
- Police officers, and other state agents, accessing and sharing highly sensitive material relating to victims.
- Still awaiting from Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust the outcome of the investigation of data access by a significant number of staff despite this having occurred three years ago.
Wayne and Sharon believe surviving victims have too often been treated as an afterthought by the Police, CPS, NHS, local authorities, Government, and the media. They have on many occasions been the forgotten victims of the Nottingham Attacks.
Their experiences should be heard, their concerns addressed, and the recommendations when published must lead to lasting change.
Read more about our involvement with the Nottingham Attacks victims here.
