• Minister for Justice Helen McEntee launches Supporting A Victim’s Journey: A Plan to Help Victims and Vulnerable Witnesses in Sexual Violence Cases
• Specialist training for judges, lawyers, An Garda Síochána and others to ensure victims are supported throughout investigation and prosecution
• Supporting a Victim’s Journey outlines reforms to ensure a victim centred approach to the investigation and prosecution of sexual offences
• Free legal advice to victims of sexual assault even where there is no prosecution
The Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee TD, today (Wednesday 28 October) published ‘Supporting A Victim’s Journey: A Plan to Help Victims and Vulnerable Witnesses in Sexual Violence Cases’.
The Minister’s plan outlines how she will reform the system of investigating and prosecuting sexual crimes to create a victim centred approach.
Supporting A Victim’s Journey details over 50 individual reforms; assigns responsibility within government for each reform and also sets ambitious timelines for their completion.
Minister McEntee said,
When a person becomes the victim of a terrible crime, I want them to have confidence that the criminal justice system, and all those who work within it, will treat them with dignity and empathy and will support them at every turn.
Tackling sexual, domestic and gender based violence is a key priority for Minister McEntee and the actions in Supporting A Victim’s Journey will place the victim of the centre of the criminal justice process from the moment a crime is committed.
Among the actions which will be implemented are training programmes across the Justice Sector to better support victims. These include:
• A commitment from the Judicial Council that training for judges on how vulnerable victims will be treated during sexual offence trials will be completed in 2021.
• The Bar Council will develop a course within its Continuing Professional Development framework to train barristers on how to treat victims, including how they should be questioned, and to gain a better understanding of the victim’s experience.
• The Law Society will examine if its current training structures can be adapted to provide updated training. Its annual Criminal Law Conference in March 2021 is envisaged to provide such training for criminal practitioners.
• The Department of Justice will ensure that all personnel in State Agencies who are likely to have to deal with victims of sexual crime should have appropriate training. Specific proposals will be developed as part of the 3rd National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, which will be in place by the end of 2021.
• All serving members of An Garda Síochána engaged in front line policing will receive specialist training for engaging with victims of sexual crime and vulnerable witnesses.
• This is in addition to the nationwide rollout of the Divisional Protective Services Units (DPSUs), which has been completed in recent weeks.
The national rollout of the DPSUs was a recommendation of the O’Malley Review of the Protections for Vulnerable Witnesses in the Investigation and Prosecution of Sexual Offences, which Minister McEntee published in August.
The Minister promised to bring forward a detailed implementation plan for the recommendations made by Tom O’Malley and Supporting A Victim’s Journey fulfils Minister McEntee’s promise to publish such a plan within weeks.
As well as the national rollout of DPSUs, other actions already taken by the Minister include securing €2.3 million in the recent budget to fund the reforms outlined in Supporting A Victim’s Journey.
This includes providing free legal advice to victims of sexual assault even in instances where there is no prosecution.
The actions in Supporting A Victim’s Journey will improve how the criminal justice system work for, supports and engages with the victim in very practical ways from the moment a crime is committed through the investigation, prosecution and trial of the offence and beyond, regardless of the verdict.
Minister McEntee added,
The delivery targets for the recommendations are ambitious but I am determined we will achieve them because vulnerable victims deserve a system that supports and works for them.
This report is not the final say on how better we can support victims. ‘Supporting A Victim’s Journey’ is a living document and I will establish a consultative body to ensure organisations and groups working with victims continue to have an input into how we will implement change.”
Other key actions highlighted by the Minister include:
• A range of initiatives will be taken to educate people around the meaning of consent including a major awareness campaign, dedicated website and a number of actions within primary, secondary and third level education.
• Measures to raise awareness of victims’ rights provided for in law by the 2017 Victims of Crime Act.
• Support for the provision of intermediaries, including by developing a training and accreditation framework for intermediaries and increased grant funding for court accompaniment and other supports for victims.
• New legislation to give effect to the recommendations on preliminary hearings to help reduce delays which will be published before the end of December 2020.