Nick Clegg reveals plans to help riot victims

The Government is to establish an independent panel to give victims of the riots a chance to "have their voice heard", Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said today.

Mr Clegg told a Whitehall news conference that the communities and victims panel, chaired by an independent figure, would produce a report within six to nine months to be presented to the leaders of all three main political parties.

"It won't be a public inquiry, it won't be established under the Inquiries Act, but it will serve as a way in which victims and communities can have their voice heard," he said.

Mr Clegg said the Cabinet Office would also be tendering for a contract to do research into the communities affected by the disturbances to find out more about "what happened, who did what and why they did it".

"It is really important at a time like this that we should not allow hope and optimism to be suffocated by fear and pessimism," he said.

Mr Clegg also confirmed plans for a "riot payback scheme", with offenders helping to clean up areas hit by the disturbances.

Victims will also be given the right to confront those who tore up their neighbourhoods to hammer home the fact that the actions of rioters had consequences, with additional money provided to make that possible.

Mr Clegg said: "In every single one of the communities affected there will be community payback schemes, riot payback schemes, where you will see people in visible orange clothing making up the damage done, repairing and improving the neighbourhoods affected.

"I also want them to face their victims. I want them to face people like the woman I met on Monday last week in Tottenham, who said to me that she was still wearing the clothes ... she was wearing when she ran out of her flat before her own flat was burned down.

"The offender who did that, who set fire to that building, should have to face her and understand that there are human consequences, to explain why he or she did what they did and to apologise."

As part of the measures to end the "dismal cycle of repeat crime", Mr Clegg also said that those released from jail from March next year would be "met at the prison gates" by providers in the Work Programme.

The offenders will be put through a "tough process so that they find work and they stay on the straight and narrow".