Naomi Long
East Belfast · Alliance Party · Northern Ireland
“Underneath the Facebook posts to say that he had passed away, people speculated with such comments as, "Probably high on drugs", "Probably drunk", and, "Typical boy racer". There was all of that speculation. It was hurtful to the family, and it was inaccurate.”
“There are circumstances that we need to consider and be careful of. I was told, for example, that, when the issue of good character references at trial was being looked at in New South Wales — Committee members may wish to look at this for themselves — one of the groups that opposed their removal was representative of domestic abuse victi…”
“It sets out the strategic direction adopted by the Department and key partners to tackle those appalling crimes and protect vulnerable victims of exploitation.”
“The provision seeks to provide protection, via legal advice and representation for complainants, against the use of non-relevant personal material and evidence of previous sexual history being used in the court process.”
“<BR /> <BR />On the wider issue of ensuring that a withdrawal of services never happens again, I think that most of us agree that, although everyone has the right to take industrial action, no one has the right to derail and hold to ransom the entire justice system in that way.”
“Those measures will go some way towards helping to support complainants and enable them to have input into the decision-making process about what records containing their personal and sensitive information are required to be shared with the defence.”
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“Your conclusion is a matter of political opinion.”
“I am glad that we have established that, if nothing else. <BR /> <BR />First, the PPS is not part of my Department: let us be clear about that. It is good to have identified something else that the Member is not an expert on. Secondly, that was not the point that I made. I am genuinely concerned that all the shouting that Mr Burrows is doing is impairing his hearing, because, every time that I make an intervention and state something clearly, he comes back and misrepresents the point that I made.”
“Does the Member agree that there are current cases, with adult complainants and adult defendants, where the victim has no say because the PPS, and not the victim, determines whether a case will be prosecuted?”
“is a slur not just on Assembly staff but, I would argue, on the Speaker.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The amendments that we are debating this evening went through the normal processes. First, they were considered by the Bill Office for drafting. While they might benefit from being finessed at Further Consideration Stage, they were nevertheless judged by the Speaker to be competent. I would be grateful if the Speaker's Office could reflect on the comments that Mr Burrows has made, because it seems to me that he is questioning not just the contents of the amendments but their competence. The fact that he said that they were:”
“Ten is also an arbitrary amount and a cliff edge. The Member is effectively arguing for having no minimum age of criminal responsibility and that every child, from birth, should be open to being prosecuted by the courts if they misbehave in public. That is the logical conclusion of what the Member argues. Otherwise, there is no particular reason why 10 should be chosen over 12 or 14.”
“I am surprised not only that the Member feels that he speaks on behalf of policing, justice, victims and everyone else but that he now presumes to speak on behalf of the youth justice system. I can be very clear in saying that the experts in the youth justice system who deal with young people every day support a change.”
“Yes, they would need a legal guardian with them, and, yes, they would have to give consent, but that is the case for anyone under the minimum age of criminal responsibility at present. Processes are already in place to deal with that. <BR /> <BR />I will repeat the question that I asked earlier, which you ignored. You are obsessing over one case, so answer me this: had the children who murdered Jamie Bulger been nine, would they have been able to walk away scot-free, with no action being taken against them? It is a simple question.”
“I have been listening all along. Trust me, I can multitask. <BR /> <BR />The issue is not that those things cannot be done. The issue here is that a child can be detained by the police. The rationale for doing so may be different, but, if a child who is under the age of criminal responsibility, as it stands at 10, were to commit any of the serious offences that you have mentioned, they could be detained by the police.”
“If some people would be quiet, I could finish the point of order. <BR /> <BR />Mr Deputy Speaker, is it in order for a Member of the House to take what I said and twist it into something that I did not say?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for a Member in the Chamber to, yet again, take something that I said and twist it into something that I did not say? I did not say that Back-Bench Members of the House should not propose amendments to Bills. That would be foolishness, because Committees regularly do so. I welcome amendments from Members on the Back Benches. What I said was, very clearly —”
“It does not mean that he is naive or incompetent. It simply means that further work is needed. No Back-Bench Member has access to the drafting expertise that we have in the Department, which is why we work with other Members who wish to work with us to ensure that what we end up with at the end of the day is good legislation.”
“A number of amendments have been proposed by Back-Benchers in the passage of the debate, many of which were incoherent, including that from your former colleague, whose I do not believe was competent. However, the purpose of Further Consideration Stage — I know that the Member is an expert on everything, but maybe he has something to learn about legislation — is for the Assembly to have a further opportunity to refine any amendment that is made. The issues that have been raised will be taken away and looked at by the Department, and, should any additionality be required to give the complete suite of offences that fall under that determination and under the intention of the Member, that will be brought. <BR /> <BR />I have already discussed at length with Mr Frew the changes that will be required to some of the amendments that he tabled.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I understand that you will wait until all parties have had an opportunity to contribute to the debate. However, I stand here not as a member of a political party but as a Minister, and I will therefore not have an opportunity to address the amendments, even though all parties will have had that opportunity. Is that in order?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. All of us have these things in front of us called "microphones". Can you remind the Member that there is no need to gulder and wave papers? We are also not supposed to use props. I know that he is used to being theatrical, but it is getting a bit out of hand.”
“Would the Member like to set out exactly what would have happened if the people who murdered Jamie Bulger had been nine years old — just a few months younger than they were?”
“Everybody else is here, but your party is not.”
“Yet again, as the Minister who brings the Bill, but not the amendments, I will be disenfranchised, alongside my colleagues, because my vote will count for less than that of Mr O'Toole and everyone else on this side of the House. So, I thank the DUP on the record for reinforcing the case that I have been making about why it is an invidious provision in these institutions and why it needs to be reformed. I am glad that, finally, two Governments and at least four parties are talking about reform. As for Mr Burrows's chat on reform, we will take that with the pinch of salt that it deserves, because he clearly is not interested in making these institutions more functional. He is interested in slipstreaming behind the DUP and the TUV wherever they go, and you know what happens when you get caught in their backwash.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. Clearly, MACR was going to divide the House, but at least it was going to divide it along matters that we were debating and on which we had differences of opinion. The problem with the petition of concern is that it is utterly disrespectful to the House, because instead of letting the majority of Members debate the issues and reach a conclusion, we have a minority abusing a petition that is there to protect minority rights and using it to impose their will on the majority. <BR /> <BR />Frankly, that is why the public think that this place is farcical. Even on a night like this, when we are having serious engagement about serious matters, we cannot constrain ourselves to behaving like any other Chamber would and allow these matters to go through on a straight vote.”
“Sadly, the one area where, I think, we are failing — it is not solely the Youth Justice Agency or the PSNI but across the board — is the small number of young people who are involved in criminal activity as the result of grooming by adults who end up not being referred to the national referral mechanism, which we talked about earlier, because they are not seen as victims of trafficking or modern slavery but instead are seen as what? They are seen as criminals, because that is how they present in the first instance to the Police Service.”
“There are some young people who, when they go off the rails, see the person who is coercing them as a boyfriend, a friend or someone who has taken care of them, and they are afraid of getting that person into trouble. They are afraid of the consequences for themselves because they know that they have done something wrong, but they are also afraid of getting that individual into difficulties. Therefore, we need to maximise the opportunities, particularly at the younger end of the spectrum, for young people to come forward, make those disclosures and share that information without fear of repercussions on themselves.”
“I am not saying that it does not happen. The Member is right: we have special dispensation in our criminal justice system. Those of us who are familiar with what it does recognise the good job that the Youth Justice Agency does. However, the public have their own views. I have spoken with parents of children who have gone through the youth justice system who find that they and their other children are ostracised in the community because one of their children has ended up in the youth justice system or the police have come to the door or whatever it might be. It is not only the child who has done something wrong but the entire family who are stigmatised and ostracised by the community. <BR /> <BR />The Member will recall that we talked about coercive control in adult relationships.”
“That is the damage that is done, and that is what they are afraid of when it comes to making disclosures.”
“They are afraid because they have committed a criminal offence. They are fearful that they will end up in a youth justice centre or, when they are older, Hydebank Wood or that they will end up with a criminal record that might stop them ever being able to travel outside the jurisdiction. It is not that they are afraid of the individuals. My colleague already talked about the importance of relationship building in getting young people to have that trust and confidence. That is what the Youth Justice Agency does every day. With respect, it is not a failure of the justice system. The justice system engages with vulnerable young people who have committed offences to try to divert them from the system at the earliest point, but that will not happen until there has been some finding of fact against them.”
“For example, if a young girl is taken from a care home, fed full of drugs and God knows what else happens to her while she is absent from that place, the bigger fear on her part might be admitting that she has taken drugs. As a result, all the other exploitation that took place might never be uncovered. That is the difference between criminalising the behaviours of a young, vulnerable person and trying to put in place proper protective measures. I agree with the Member that such measures are not there yet. I have said that a number of times, but I believe that they can and should be there and that the justice system should not be there to take up that slack.”
“However, here is a question: do you accept that, if somebody lures a child into criminal activity, child criminal exploitation or other things, that child's fear of being prosecuted for the actions they have undertaken, even if it was under coercion, or their fear of not being recognised as a victim of coercive control and of child criminal exploitation might drive a wedge between the child, the police and the other services, because they will be afraid of saying, "Yes, I took drugs", "Yes, I delivered drugs" or, "Yes, I committed criminal offences at age 12, 13 and 10"? The risk is that, instead of a child seeking help for what happened at that young age and being diverted away from that activity, they will be afraid of disclosing what is happening to them.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. He has been generous with his time. I do not doubt that what the Member says and believes is sincere: that the criminal justice system is often the only intervention that young people get. I hope that he agrees that it should not be. If young people are starting to go off the rails, we want to intervene more quickly.”
“If it believes that there is sufficient evidence, it would be able to prosecute such cases as it does currently.”
“To be absolutely clear, as things stand, the decision on the charges that are brought against an individual is made by the PPS, not by the barrister or defence counsel representing the potential defendant. The charge to which they would plead would therefore be the one that the PPS has brought. I accept the point that the Member makes that if, for example, the PPS is fearful that a charge of rape would not be made out in court and would not be proven beyond reasonable doubt, it might offer a reduced charge. He is right that, in that case, it would not happen. The point, however, that he is making about it having anything to do with a choice on behalf of the young person or their defence team is simply incorrect. The decision is one for the PPS.”
“Exceptionally, however, if the health and social care trust, the Youth Justice Agency, the Prison Service or the Probation Board consider that that multi-agency risk assessment is required and that additional management is necessary, that can be provided in the case of a young person who, if they were an adult, would go into PPANI automatically but, as a young person, would be assessed on a case-by-case basis.”
“First, we dealt with the issue of the recording of incidents. That would still happen because a victim will still have been created. We acknowledged that earlier. That will not be recorded as a crime, but it will still be recorded as an incident. The management of the risks posed by children and young persons who are under the age of 18 and fall under the definition of a relevant sexual or violent offender is not normally required to be multi-agency management, because they are normally under child protection from health and social care trusts. That is the normal way that an under-18 would be dealt with, so this is perhaps slightly different in that we are talking about a different age group.”
“The Department is trying to support the increase in the age of criminal responsibility but hold off on implementation until the point at which all the systems are in place. It could not be done ahead of tonight, and, even if it could have been done, it would not have been in the primary legislation.”
“The Member has also brought amendments to the House that did not have every protocol covered, with every i dotted and every t crossed, yet we agreed that we would work on what those would look like going forward. Legislation is not the place to set down every scintilla of detail; legislation is the place where you set the boundaries within which policy will then be formed. Tonight, we are being asked to agree the age limit and the exceptions. Once we have the agreement, we will then design a system to meet that. To be completely frank, there was no point in my Department spending its limited time and resources on defining and designing a system for a set of amendments that may not pass. We do not have those resources at our disposal. It is that simple, and the Chair is well aware of the constraints faced by the Department.”
“However, deprivation and poverty are the underlying causes of the behavioural issues that bring many of the young people whom we are talking about to the attention of the Police Service. Frankly, we should not wait until Justice comes along; we need to get the Department for Communities, the Department of Education, the Department for the Economy, the Executive Office and all the other bodies, including the health service in particular, to step up and intervene before there is nowhere for those children to go but to prison.”
“I can very clearly say that it should not. The problem in our society is that, too often, the justice system is the provider of last resort in all circumstances. Where do we put people with serious mental health problems? We put them in prison. Where do we put people with undiagnosed neurodiversity, people with learning difficulties and people with speech, language and communication difficulties? If we do not know where to put them, we put them into the justice system, and that is a problem. Not everyone who enters the criminal justice system has necessarily found the right place. There are other therapeutic interventions. The Member was on the same side of the argument as we were last week when we said that deprivation and poverty should not be criminal offences.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. He is correct to say that we have not got that framework. That is why we have said that we would want the provision to be commenced not on a given date but at the point at which the framework is fully in place. That would give Members the assurance that they will see the framework and know how it will operate before the provision is commenced by the Department. We would not want to see a commencement date set that could lead to any gap in provision or protection. That would be the worst of all outcomes and is not what any of us wants to see.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, it would be helpful for those of us who were present in the Chamber last week if a reminder to that effect could be circulated, because that was not the ruling from the Chair on that occasion.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Last week, there were a number of very long interventions, so it was ruled that, if a Member decided that the intervention had continued for long enough and stood up again, the Member making the intervention should desist and sit down. That ruling was made in the Chamber last week. Can we have clarity on that?”
“The PPS is also concerned that the amendment is not compatible with article 7 rights in the European Convention on Human Rights. The Departmental Solicitor's Office has agreed with that, and the Attorney General's office has also raised a concern with us. On the basis of that analysis, I am concerned that it may fall outside the Assembly's legislative competence. I understand the idea of 12 becoming some kind of threshold with exceptions, but, as I said, I am worried about the operability of what the Member proposed.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. I agree with everything that she has said about amendment No 86 to date, but I also have concerns about its operability and its creating additional responsibilities for the Public Prosecution Service (PPS), which is challenging for us to do in this legislature, based on our legislative competence. The PSNI has expressed a number of concerns about the practical, legal and infrastructural consequences of amendment No 86 as drafted, as it would be a barrier to operationalising the system that is proposed. The PPS has said that it would create a lack of certainty in the law, be an inappropriate encroachment on the Assembly's lawmaking role and be an overextension of the Director of Public Prosecutions' (DPP) prosecutorial remit.”
“The Member just answered the question. It is, of course, possible to take a DNA sample. If it is not a criminal offence, it is a voluntary process, but the police can get DNA samples in those cases with permission from parents. It can be done in a voluntary way.”
“I do not think that any of us wants a child as young as 12 and 13 to be making the calculation that they would be better off in the Juvenile Justice Centre than they would be in a care home, secure care or their family home, because that failing is much wider than the child's; it is a failing of society as a whole.”
“However, what none of us should want is to find that a young person of between 10 and 13 years of age is either becoming reliant on the justice system for support — we know that that happens, where young people see it as a safe space and commit offences in order to go there — or is normalising that in their life so that they think that being arrested, charged and processed through the justice system and ending up in Woodlands or, when they are older, Hydebank is the normal course of life. It should never be normalised for anybody. It should be reserved for cases that are extraordinarily serious and cases where no alternative is available. That is what at least some of the amendments are trying to do.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. The issue is not about depriving people of a safe place but about looking at why, for example, when Professor Ray Jones did his review of children's services, he said that the Youth Justice Agency was doing an excellent job but highlighted the flaws in secure care facilities in Northern Ireland and how they needed to align more closely with the way the youth justice facilities operate. There are ways to assure young people and members of the public that there are secure alternatives to prison.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. Will she agree that there will always be exceptional cases, where it will be necessary to hold the person in a secure facility to protect the public, even if they are under the current minimum age of criminal responsibility? That is why we have more than one kind of secure facility; some are run by the criminal justice system, and some are run by health and social services. There can be a genuine reason why a person who is under the current minimum age of criminal responsibility may need to be held securely for their own protection and the protection of others. However, they do not need to have a criminal record for that to happen, and that is the crux of the matter. It is not about letting people off without accountability, and it is not about leaving the public without protection.”
“We say that those young people can be held accountable and can still be protected as potentially both a perpetrator and a vulnerable person without us having to criminalise them. That is key, because the stigma of criminalisation — deep contact with the justice system — tends to breed further contact with the justice system. We know that from studies that have been done. If we can divert people from the justice system at those younger ages, we are unlikely to have to deal with them again when they are 14 or older. That is an important point, because that is when offending tends to get more serious and to be of greater concern to most people than cases in which young people perhaps get swept up in things when they are much younger.”
“It does not necessarily remove the police from the initial phase of investigating what happened and identifying who was responsible, but it means that it will not be investigated as a crime and that the young person will be diverted automatically into other multi-agency areas. Records will still have to be kept. For example, if somebody who is nine years old and has committed an offence that is of concern then commits more than three offences in any rolling 12-month period, that would be brought to the attention of social services, the care system and others. <BR /> <BR />Provision for children who are younger than the minimum age of criminal responsibility is already in place. It is not about saying that they are not accountable for their actions; it is about that accountability being age-appropriate.”
“A fallacy seems to have grown up that, because something is not a criminal offence, the police will have no role in it. That is not the case. The police can still have a role. For example, if a nine-year-old or an eight-year-old commits what would otherwise be a criminal offence, the police have the right to detain that young person for their own safety before engaging with other services to ensure that that young person is able to get the support that they need. That applies particularly in the case of a vulnerable young person who may be subject to criminal exploitation.”
“The number of young people under the age of 14 who are in custody is relatively small, which is good. It is possible to do much of the reparative and restorative work without bringing children into the justice system at all, by using the same techniques we have been able to use in the criminal justice sphere on young people who do not end up with a criminal record as a result.”
“The Member has raised an important point. It is important to recognise that, yes, the Youth Justice Agency does a lot of good work. However, if you talk to those who deal with vulnerable young people, most agree that the stigma of being in the criminal justice system can lead a child to become more and more involved in criminality and to see themselves as different from other children and as criminals rather than as children in need of support. That is one reason why early diversion is so important. Many such children will, because of safeguarding and other concerns, have been in repeated contact with other agencies. It is the responsibility of those agencies to keep them out of the criminal justice system, and we have an opportunity to make that possible. The system works better in that regard than most people give it credit for.”