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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“It is not just a matter for the Department of Justice; it has to be a matter for all of us in our society.”
“<BR /> <BR />The recently launched HELPinHAND app is designed to help victims of race hate crime and BAME communities understand the processes of reporting hate crime to the police while providing useful information and details of support. The app is initially available in five different languages. <BR /> <BR />Building relationships in our community and more cohesive communities, however, is what will really make a difference. A whole-Executive approach is required if we are to tackle this, through the development of a strategies such as the racial equality strategy, the refugee integration strategy and all of the other anti-bullying and hate crime guidance in the curriculum by DE. Working with the Department for the Economy's stakeholders and PCSPs to support victims is hugely important.”
“It supports victims of hate crime through the criminal justice process and signposts them to the relevant support services and can assist with third-party reporting. <BR /> <BR />PSNI and crime prevention officers can also provide crime prevention advice. I encourage people who have been affected to keep in contact with the PSNI and ensure that all incidents of crime and antisocial behaviour are reported, no matter how insignificant they may seem at the time. Policing and community safety partnerships also work to identify issues of concern in the local area and to prepare plans to deliver practical solutions.”
“As I said, I am committed to playing my part in delivering a safer community for everyone, including victims of race hate crime and in partnership with others in government and beyond. DOJ, the PSNI, the Housing Executive and the Department for Communities continue to jointly fund the hate incident practical action scheme. That scheme allows, in particular circumstances, personal and home protection measures if a person's home has been damaged or if they have been a victim of an incident or crime at home because of their race, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, political opinion or religious belief. In addition to legislative protections for victims, direct support for hate crime victims is provided through the Hate Crime Advocacy Service, which is jointly funded by the PSNI and DOJ.”
“If my Department can do things in addition to the actions that we already take to provide support, we will continue to explore those with the sectors that best represent those voices and with my Executive colleagues to make sure that it is a joined-up approach.”
“Mel Jones stated in her public comments that she believed that paramilitaries were involved in some of that violence. She has been clear about that. Irrespective of whether paramilitaries are involved, however, the behaviour is not acceptable. It is important that we all speak with one voice. It is hugely frustrating to see people who come here to serve the community by working in our public services or in private industry to grow our economy or who come here in desperation to seek protection from harm at home being terrorised in their homes and communities instead of being welcomed, respected and treated with dignity. It is completely unacceptable.”
“I wanted to get the most impactful part of it through in this mandate, because I completely agree with the Member that the behaviours that we have seen on the streets of Belfast and other towns and cities across the UK and these islands are not acceptable. It is not who we are or aspire to be. I want to be sure that there is every opportunity through the courts to make sure that people face the consequences of their actions.”
“Before what happened over the summer occurred, before those considerations, I expedited the most impactful parts of that legislation. I have engaged with the sector: the BAME community, the Islamic community, the LGBTQI community and many others who will be impacted by it. Most of them recognise that the most impactful pieces of Judge Marrinan's report are those that create the aggravator and allow additional categories of protected characteristics to be added to the aggravator and those that will provide for special measures in court. We will proceed with the remainder of Judge Marrinan's report in the Department through policy development, because some of it will require cross-departmental working and full Executive buy-in.”
“The first thing to say is that the order of business is not agreed by me; it is agreed by the Business Committee, and all parties have Members on the Business Committee. If people are annoyed about the content of the Order Paper, that is for them to take up with the member of the Business Committee who represents them. However, with respect to the time that I have available to me, as I have said, I am about to introduce an extensive piece of legislation. That is the first one. It has already been prepared. The policy development work has been done, and it is ready to go. <BR /> <BR />When I came back into office, I realised in February that it would not be possible. It would have been the fourth of a series of five Bills. I realised that that would put it into the next mandate, which I did not want to happen.”
“Also, the Youth Justice Agency was much praised in the recent Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland (CJINI) report for the work that it has been doing to deter youth offending. Therefore, where young people are involved in antisocial behaviour, there are opportunities, particularly through PCSPs and community engagement, to get the engagement of the PSNI and the Youth Justice Agency before people engage in serious offending. Undoubtedly, however, it is devastating for a congregation to see its church razed to the ground.”
“I am not directly involved in that. However, it is important to reference the wider issue. We should be encouraged, I suppose, that only about 4% of attacks on what we would call "significant key buildings" — places of worship, Orange halls and GAA clubs — have been identified as being driven by a hate motive. In the majority of cases, they are driven by antisocial behaviour and criminal damage motivations. OK, that is no comfort, if your building is absolutely destroyed in those circumstances, but it shows that deliberate attacks on buildings because they are places of worship are a relatively small part of the overall picture. <BR /> <BR />It is also important to note that, as part of another piece of work that the Department is doing, we are looking at how antisocial behaviour orders can be used.”
“During the recent disorder, the Home Office extended its protection scheme for mosques in the UK, which are vulnerable to hate crime, to provide emergency support. The Home Office also supports the Community Security Trust to provide protection for synagogues across the UK. Protection schemes for places of worship in England and Wales are based solely on vulnerability to hate crime. However, to date, there has been insufficient evidence to show that such a scheme is needed in Northern Ireland. We will, of course, keep that under review.”
“I recognise very much the harm that attacks on places of worship can have on members and the wider community. I condemn the recent attacks at the Bangladesh Islamic Centre in Newtownards, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God at Templemore Street in east Belfast and the Church of the Holy Name at Greenisland and the recent threats to the Belfast Islamic Centre. <BR /> <BR />My Department works collaboratively with the policing and community safety partnerships (PCSPs) in addressing crime and fear of crime. PCSPs have a legislative duty to address crime, fear of crime and antisocial behaviour by working collaboratively and engaging with their local community. Specific crime prevention advice is also available from the PSNI.”
“I hope that the strategy that will be laid out on behalf of the Executive in the coming days will further reinforce the fact that the Executive take a no-tolerance approach to violence against women and girls. I hope that that is a message that will be well received by the judiciary.”
“First, that was not consulted on in the sentencing review that was undertaken. Most sentencing in Northern Ireland is based on guideline cases and sentencing guidelines, which are a matter for the judiciary, not the Department. We have limited scope, other than in legislation, to set maximums; the rest is left to judicial discretion. What we have been able to do — I hope that it has shifted the dial with regard to confidence in the justice system in these matters — is work with the Public Prosecution Service (PPS), the judiciary and, in particular, the PSNI on our response to domestic and sexual violence and violence against women and girls.”
“We anticipate that the Bill will be introduced later in 2025. That will depend on the progress of earlier Assembly business that is going through at the moment. In the next few weeks, I hope to introduce my mixed content, miscellaneous provisions Bill — the modernisation Bill. The sentencing Bill will be the second Bill of the mandate, and then my intention is to have a third Bill that will relate to victims. <BR /> <BR />An Executive paper is being prepared by my officials to seek Executive approval for the policy content and drafting of the Bill during this term, so that we can get that under way as soon as possible.”
“We would not want to repeal the current rule, which says that all filming in a court is illegal, without knowing particularly the detail of what needs to be done. <BR /> <BR />One option that I had explored to expedite this is that we could put the repeal, if you like, on ice in primary legislation, as well as taking regulation powers, but only commence it at the point where the regulations were developed and then engage with the sector on that basis. I was advised that that was perhaps not good practice in legislation, which is why we did not proceed down that route, but there may be some things that we can do, even over the course of this mandate, certainly to develop the policy to support that change.”
“It is important, and it is something that I, too, would like to see. A difficulty that we have is limited resource in the Department and in the Office of the Legislative Counsel for drafting commitments. There is also a challenge in the development of policy in the area. For example, when it comes to the issue of what would be filmed in court, the current view of the Lady Chief Justice is that it would be in relation to Court of Appeal judgements and rulings. However, you will be aware that we saw in England recently, very powerfully, that sentencing remarks are also filmed there. Whilst the pilot looked only at Court of Appeal judgements and rulings, we would want to take a more holistic approach.”
“The Bill will also include measures to encourage the disclosure of the location of victims’ remains, to be known as "Charlotte’s law", and, as indicated in my written ministerial statement this morning, it will include provision for a statutory aggravator for hate crime.”
“The sentencing Bill will deliver on a number of recommendations arising from my Department's public consultation on sentencing policy. That will include a statement of the principles and purposes of sentencing; provision to allow further use of community sentences; statutory starting points for life sentence tariff calculation; expansion and simplification of the current unduly lenient sentence referral provisions; creation of a new offence of assaulting those providing a service to the public or performing a public duty; creation of a statutory aggravator for vulnerable victims; and increasing maximum penalties for offences causing death by dangerous driving.”
“However, if we are to recognise the seriousness of the issue — that people are losing their lives as a result of domestic and sexual abuse and that people's lives are being irreparably damaged as a result — we have to let our money follow where our good intentions lead.”
“As we have gathered from the announcement today on the Programme for Government, funding remains the most challenging issue that faces the Executive. It is particularly challenging in the Department of Justice and, indeed, the Department of Health, and it is a shared strategy. <BR /> <BR />Funding and affordability issues remain challenging, and I cannot excuse the fact that that is the case. We will continue to have impact on the scale and pace of delivery within the strategy. However, we have looked at the statutory and contractual commitments and prioritised those so that we can make progress and try to create a programme around the domestic and sexual abuse strategy that is scalable, depending on the funding that is made available to us.”
“<BR /> <BR />One of the sentencing areas that I hope to bring forward in this session is an aggravator model to protect those who deliver a public service or are public servants. I hope that the aggravator model will allow us to reflect in sentencing the seriousness of threatening a prison officer, police officer, member of the fire service, shopworker, bus driver or whoever it might be. Making those threats is very serious, and making threats that would not be acceptable outside those environments to people who are working in the public sector should not be more tolerable; it should be less tolerable. Those threats affect those people's ability to deliver to and for society. The aggravator model will send out a very strong message.”
“That is a very important point, and it speaks to a recent conversation that I had not just with prison officers but with police officers about the level of abuse that is shown towards people in public service. It is almost taken as read that that is a norm when it should be the exception and treated seriously. If people are engaged in that kind of behaviour, particularly threats of sexual violence or racial abuse, they should be prosecuted. We have to take a zero tolerance approach in the prisons. The fact that somebody is in prison does not mean they cannot offend in that setting. We need to treat that as seriously as we treat violence against the police and others who provide a public service.”
“Where it works, it is to everyone's advantage, because it may mean that the perpetrator can go on to have happy healthy relationships in the future, which is to the benefit of everyone in society, not just their current partner.”
“For example, when we do rehabilitation work, whether in prisons or in the community, with those who have already been found guilty, we will focus on the nature of their offending and the reasons for their offending, and we will take a trauma-informed approach to the work. That already happens. <BR /> <BR />Also, before people have been convicted of an offence but where complaints have been made, we offer them the opportunity to voluntarily engage with perpetrator and education programmes in order to try to improve things. Performance is much better when someone voluntarily engages with such programmes, but the most important part is catching those people early enough in the system to prevent serious harm.”
“That is a really important point, because many of the men who are engaged in those behaviours have also been victims of abuse, often as children, and have been exposed to domestic violence in the home. Many of them view that as a normal part of an adult relationship. Therefore, the earlier that we can do the education piece and talk about what a healthy relationship and respect look like, the better it will be for changing those attitudes. We all wish that every child grew up in a home where perfect behaviour between parents in an adult relationship is properly modelled, but, unfortunately, that is not the case. Therefore, if people model their behaviour on their parents', very often they will perpetuate the tragedies of the past. <BR /> <BR />We work with perpetrators.”
“I look forward to further opportunities to do so, because education is absolutely crucial to changing attitudes. By the time that my Department gets involved, victims have already been created. The further upstream we can go to change attitudes, the less victimisation will occur.”
“Ultimately, responsibility for cross-departmental working on the ending violence against women and girls strategy falls to the Executive Office Ministers. The First and deputy First Minister will take forward the action plan, which they also hope to publish next week, and it will include the contributions that individual Departments can make. <BR /> <BR />On the domestic abuse and sexual abuse strategy, my Department has taken other actions to protect victims of violence, such as Operation Encompass, which your colleague Linda Dillon championed when she was on the Justice Committee. That has been very effective in providing better protections and wrap-around support for children who are affected by domestic abuse. We continue to work with the Department of Education on those projects.”
“The Minister of Health and I also plan to publish a new domestic and sexual abuse strategy in the coming weeks. That is a gender-inclusive strategy that recognises the impact on male as well as female victims. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by domestic and sexual abuse, however, so the strategy's implementation will also directly support the delivery of outcomes under the ending violence against women and girls strategy.”
“Violence against women and girls is wholly abhorrent. The stark reality is that, in August, we saw two murders and one attempted murder of women in Northern Ireland in a single week. That is shocking, and we have a collective responsibility to take action. My Department is fully supportive of the ending violence against women and girls strategy, which is, at my request, led by the Executive Office. It was agreed by the Executive last week, and I understand that plans are under way for its full publication. I recognise the key contribution that Justice can make in reducing risk, enhancing protections, improving victim confidence in the justice system and holding perpetrators to account when they offend. <BR /> <BR />My Department has supported the strategy’s development and played an active role in the co-design process.”
“Whilst that may be a dated provision, it is, nevertheless, one that can still be applied and ought to be operated where appropriate.”
“There is. Many behaviours that constitute criminal offending are treated in the same manner, regardless of whether they are carried out offline or online. The provisions of the Online Safety Act 2023 create a range of offences that can be used to tackle and prosecute offensive online behaviour. Additional legislation includes the Protection from Harassment (Northern Ireland) Order 1997, the Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, the Protection from Stalking Act (Northern Ireland) 2022, the Communications Act 2003 and the Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. It is important to recognise that, for example, stirring up hatred is already an offence under the Public Order (Northern Ireland) Order 1987.”
“<BR /> <BR />It is important — I reflected on this in a recent interview that I did with a young researcher who is looking into this — that, in the context of Northern Ireland, with all the division that we have, we can show a united front when it comes to that kind of abuse. Irrespective of the party political views of the Member who is being attacked, if people are being attacked because of who they are, how they look or the fact that they are a woman or have any other defining characteristic, we need to stand united and say that it is unacceptable.”
“<BR /> <BR />I have not had a discrete conversation about it with the Electoral Commission, but I have spoken informally about the issue to some of the Electoral Commissioners, because they approached me and asked specifically about the impact that it is having on political discourse. Not all of the traffic is driven by legitimate actors. A number of them are not local people criticising our local politicians but are funded from rather nefarious sources, and there seems to be a drive to attack those who speak up for democratic norms in order to undermine them and to intimidate women who try to speak up and raise issues of misogyny, sexism and other forms of hate.”
“I have discussed that with representative bodies of the social media companies, and I am concerned about it. I know from personal experience of women who were interested in getting involved in politics but took a cursory glance through some of our collective social media threads and decided that the level of abuse was intolerable and that they would not expose themselves and their families to it. It is a real issue, and we lose out on a significant talent pool because people feel intimidated and threatened and are worried about their families in that context.”
“<BR /> <BR />For me, the key is that, at times, self-regulation is no regulation, in many cases. Certainly, part of my concern is that, with self-regulation of those platforms, anything that causes controversy also drives traffic on the site and advertising revenue and is therefore unlikely to be curtailed by the people who are responsible.”
“First of all, if I may, I congratulate the lord on his elevation. I think that it is the first opportunity that he has had to ask a question in this House on that basis. <BR /> <BR />I am working very closely with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on the work that it is doing, and with the Home Office on the work that it is doing on radicalisation as well as bullying. Recently, I met my Scottish counterpart to discuss some of those issues, including online safety. The bottom line is that the various platforms have various degrees of engagement, it would be fair to say. Some take a slightly more radical view and view it as essentially a free-for-all, where all is permitted to be said and nothing is out of bounds, whilst others, I think, try to more robustly enforce some kind of community standards.”
“I am very happy to support any Minister who is dealing with issues of cyberbullying and online harassment, whether in schools or elsewhere. The Member will be aware, however, that I have serious concerns about whether it is necessary to spend £250,000 in order to do so when most schools already have both policy and practice in place to deal with those issues.”
“We must take a holistic approach that is focused on prevention and education, as set out in the cross-Executive online safety strategy, which has been put in place to assist children and young people to participate in the online world in a positive, safe and responsible way.”
“In the previous Assembly mandate, I brought forward legislation that strengthened existing law and introduced new offences such as stalking, upskirting, downblousing and cyber-flashing. Those offences have added real, tangible and valuable protections against both online and offline abuse. <BR /> <BR />I am also mindful of the dangers that are associated with online radicalisation. Young people, in particular, are at risk of being radicalised through access to harmful online content. I am engaged with law enforcement partners about what we can do to address that risk. <BR /> <BR />A criminal justice response alone cannot improve online safety.”
“Whilst telecommunications legislation, including the regulation of social media platforms, is a reserved matter, my Department has sought to take a proactive approach to supporting online safety. I sought to influence the content of the Online Safety Act 2023, urging that more be done to address the lack of accountability of anonymous account holders, which is a key issue when seeking to prevent and detect online harms and offences. Recently, I have also met Ofcom representatives to get an update on the implementation of the Online Safety Act and the plans for it to be put into practice. <BR /> <BR />In addition, the Member will be aware that, previously, I held a round-table forum to take views on tackling online abuse and intimidation, particularly in the light of incidents during the last Assembly elections.”
“In closing, I will make two appeals. First, to anyone with information about either those who are involved or about other planned disturbances, I ask that you please bring that forward to the police and support us in bringing those who are responsible to justice. My second appeal is for calm. I appeal to people to step back and to all those who have influence to continue to seek to calm tensions and show support for and solidarity with those who are suffering most directly and are impacted on most profoundly by the violence and hatred. That is not who we are, and we cannot allow it to be.”
“When there is a crisis such as unrest on the scale that we have witnessed over the past week, it is incredibly hard to manage. I therefore met the Secretary of State on Monday evening and again yesterday morning, and I was clear that policing needs access to the additional resources and support that is available to England and Wales during the current unrest and beyond. I also welcome and thank the Finance Minister, who has been clear in highlighting the need for further investment in public services across Northern Ireland and continues to fight on behalf of the Executive for the proper funding of our public services. I continue to support those efforts on behalf of policing and justice.”
“Whilst, in my view, structural changes are required that partially can deal with this, it is clear that the effects on policing and justice of being actively starved of investment have never really received the same public attention. My colleagues and I have fought for years to highlight the risk in underfunding public services and justice, although, sadly, that has brought little to the table. No one, however, can claim to be surprised that there is a backlog in our courts, that our prisons are full and that our Police Service is at its lowest ever number of officers. The effect of those numbers in policing, amongst other things, is a lack of resilience. Services get scaled back, particularly in relation to work in neighbourhood policing.”
“As I have said many times, policing and justice have not been this stretched since devolution in 2010. Though the total Northern Ireland block grant has increased by 53% in the past 13 years, the DOJ has seen just under 13% growth in its budget allocation. Policing makes up around 65% of our budget, and so it has endured the same sustained and profound squeeze. I say that in order to demonstrate that there are consequences of past decisions, some of which were made when the Northern Ireland block grant was in a much better state than it is today. <BR /> <BR />We know that, despite comparative investment, the health service and the education system are still not in a good place.”
“There have already been 16 arrests and 11 people have been charged, and that number is due to rise in the coming days. I have also been made aware of work that is being done with an Garda Síochána to identify those who crossed the border to engage in riots in Belfast at the weekend. I thank Minister McEntee for engaging with me on those issues earlier this week. <BR /> <BR />I visited the Belfast Islamic Centre yesterday to hear from some of those who have been affected by this situation. I heard very clearly that people have lost confidence in the police, and that concerns me. When I say that lessons will have to be learned, one of those is how to restore that trust and confidence. I pay tribute to the Chief Constable and his officers for the work that they are already doing to address those concerns.”
“Despite those challenges, however, I am determined that foundational new hate crime legislation provisions will be in place by the end of the mandate. I hope that I can rely on the support of colleagues here today in progressing those reforms, which, I believe, will offer significant assurance and shift the dial on our hate crime response and, indeed, the conversations in this space. I intend to make a statement in the Assembly setting out the details of my intentions following the summer recess. <BR /> <BR />The PSNI has had a very difficult task in policing the complex and rapidly evolving events of the past few days. I know that work is ongoing to bring those involved to justice and that they will face the full force of the law.”
“The police say that they are treating that incident as a hate crime. <BR /> <BR />Just before recess, I spoke to the Assembly about my determination to expedite progress on updating our hate crime legislation and strengthening the protections that we offer to victims of hate crime. The recommendations from Judge Marrinan's independent review of hate crime legislation in 2020 have provided the impetus for that work. The implementation of those recommendations will make a real and tangible difference for victims of racist hate crimes. The loss of two years of Assembly business and the constraints on resources in the Department and the wider justice system have restricted the range of legislative reforms that are possible in the remainder of this mandate.”
“We need to ask ourselves honestly as a society: how long before someone is accepted as being part of our community? How many generations need to have passed before they are fully accepted and welcomed? If they continue to be othered because of the colour of their skin, their religion or their ethnicity, then let us be clear that that is racism, it is xenophobia, and it is Islamophobia. That is not and can never be legitimate, and we need to work collectively, as political leaders, to combat it. <BR /> <BR />I now want to make some remarks as the Justice Minister. Obviously, I was horrified to hear media reports of a man who was attacked in the street on Monday, and who is now in a serious condition in hospital after his attackers stamped on his head. I send my very best wishes to that man for a speedy recovery.”