A FORMER Bradford police officer has backed a charity's campaign to give a gift to young victims of crime.

Many will know Julie Clegg as one of the shrewd TV investigators on Channel 4’s popular reality shows Hunted and, spin-off, Celebrity Hunted.

But Julie earned her stripes as a detective with West Yorkshire Police in Bradford – a career motivated by her experience as a victim of serious crime in Yorkshire in her teens.

Now she is urging people from her former patch to get behind a Christmas appeal to give young victims of crime in West Yorkshire a Christmas to remember for all the right reasons.

Julie, a celebrity ambassador for children’s charity Embrace Child Victims of Crime, is backing its seasonal appeal ‘Dear Santa’ which will fund longed-for gifts for children affected by serious crime across the county.

It is part of a national campaign to bring a smile to the face of children who have suffered trauma as a result of crime including homicide, sexual abuse, domestic violence and neglect.

Chief executive Anne Campbell said: “Embrace CVOC is the only national charity that is solely focused on supporting children and young people who have been the victims of serious crime and their immediate families. Children are among the most vulnerable victims in our communities.

"Embrace believes that support should be tailored to the needs of individuals and offers a range of emotional, practical and specialist services along with a flexible approach. Whatever is needed to help a child cope with what has happened, recover and move on is what we aim to deliver.

"Since discovering that there was no national response that prioritised the needs of young people traumatised by crime, the charity has been working to develop a specialist counselling service that young people could access across England and Wales.”

In 2017, the charity supported 255 children and families across West Yorkshire, with help including counselling and specialist therapy, practical support for households on low income, and the chance for families to enjoy much-needed family time away on day-trips and short breaks.

Dear Santa allows children, nominated by police officers and safeguarding professionals, to choose their own gift which is then listed on Amazon for people to purchase directly – Embrace will wrap and deliver the gift in time for Christmas day, and include additional supermarket vouchers where requested.

The Embrace gift wrap for The North is hosted at Airedale Enterprise Services in Keighley where hundreds of gifts will be dispatched across the North of England and Scotland.

The public can purchase a gift for a child victim of crime directly from Amazon Smile by choosing from the wish-list for the area. Further information can be found at www.embracecvoc.org.uk/dear-santa.