Doug Beattie
Upper Bann · Ulster Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“I absolutely accept what the Minister said earlier, which is that she would not have been able to get such a Bill out of the Executive. That is the sentence that you would have heard from me, Minister, had you waited a minute. I absolutely accept that that is the case, and I think that we all do.”
“Just a minute. Minister, I guess that I disagree with you, because I too did my work. I accept that I do not have the resources that you and your Department have, but I sat with the Public Prosecution Service and talked through this very thing, and it said that it was workable.”
“The Director of Public Prosecutions would look at the seriousness of the offence — death by dangerous driving, risk of harm to the public, serial arson, assault, sexual behaviour that is a danger to the public — and he would also look at the best interests of the child, because we have not got away from diversionary measures here.”
“Had James Bulger been murdered by two nine-year-olds, we would probably be having a discussion about the minimum age of criminal responsibility being nine, such was the anger in 1993 when that horrendous crime took place. All the ages are arbitrary, and we need to deal with that.”
“That raises the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12. It is not what some people, who want it to be 14, want; it is not what others, who want it to stay at 10, want; but I believe that 12 is right. Why do I presume that a child can commit a criminal offence at 12 years of age?”
“In essence, however, that amendment would raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, apart from in the case of the offences in that closed list. It has been said many times, and I will not repeat what has been said, but the closed list does not make sense to me either.”
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“UN experts have documented the use of lethal force, torture and sexual violence against protesters, with thousands, including children, killed in recent protests alone. Collectively, those documented patterns, including recent mass killings, have led UN investigators to conclude that some Iranian state actions "amount to crimes against humanity". <BR /> <BR />The prosecution of the war, not the reasons for it, are of concern. We have seen limited aims and shifting mission statements, which have led to Iran's taking the limited economic initiative of closing the Strait of Hormuz. The US was not wrong to go in, but it did not go in with a clear plan. The closure of the strait is not a defensive action; it is a global reaction. It is economic terrorism, and it has an effect on people across the globe through increased fuel costs.”
“Iran's aim is to be the dominant force in the region. Under its dominance, Israel would not have a right to exist. <BR /> <BR />It is worth noting Iran's systemic and deeply institutionalised human rights abuses against its own people, in particular women. The regime enforces mandatory veiling through laws such as the Noor plan. It uses surveillance and has a violent morality police, which makes clandestine arrests and even targets girls as young as 15, in order to suppress dissent. Women face state-organised discrimination in their legal status, employment and education. Activism is often criminalised as foreign agent activity. The crackdown on the Women, Life, Freedom movement has been brutal. So, I cannot shed a tear for the Iranian regime, but I can shed a tear for their people, who are being oppressed by that regime.”
“Iran has been destabilising the region for decades and has been trying to acquire nuclear weapons along the way. Members should take their mind away from intercontinental ballistic nuclear weapons: we are talking about small, tactical, battlefield nuclear weapons that can fit in a suitcase.”
“Iran is not an innocent victim responding to aggression: that is just strategic fiction. The reality is that the Islamic Republic of Iran bears substantial culpability for the present conflict. Its guilt is not merely over retaliatory strikes but over a deliberate, decades-long strategy of escalation through proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) literally travels the globe exporting terrorism. It is a doctrine that is known as "forward defence". By creating conflict and destabilisation in other countries via global terrorism, it creates internal defence. It relies on Russia and North Korea for support, and that tells us all that we need to know. <BR /> <BR />The attacks by the US and Israel on 28 February were not the starting point of the conflict.”
“There is clear evidence and intelligence of a link between Hezbollah and the IRA. Released state papers show that even the Irish Government had concerns about Iran's backing of the IRA. I therefore have to ask what the motives are behind motion and whether Sinn Féin is willing to declare an interest. <BR /> <BR />It is really important not to see this as a Trump war. If we see it as a Trump war, we would change our opinion every 20 minutes; that is just the nature of the man. We have to analyse it far more deeply. Nobody wants war. It comes at us in many varied and complicated ways and for many varied and complicated reasons. This is a limited and targeted conflict to stop what would become a regional conflict, something that Iran is desperate for. Make no mistake: it is not a regional conflict now. We will know when it is.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I hope that there is no shouting at me, as I am deaf in one ear and do not hear great. <BR /> <BR />I am not surprised that there is a bit of Brit-bashing being thrown into the debate, as that is always the case. We seem, however, to forget — Members over there have certainly forgotten — that Irish airspace and Shannon Airport have, for many years, been used for the movement of personnel, equipment and ammunition from the United States to the Middle East and north Africa. I do not see Members on the other side of the House standing up to complain about that. Neutral? Really? <BR /> <BR />It is worth noting that, in Congress in 2002, the House of Representatives' International Relations Committee placed the IRA in a global terrorist network along with Iran.”
“I am happy enough, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Thank you.”
“I thank the Minister for his answer. I fully accept that he is doing an awful lot on rates, but he will know that chapels of rest are places of religious worship in the same way in which churches are, and churches are exempt. Importantly, chapels of rest are used by an awful lot of people who have lost young children, because they offer a more intimate setting. That is why I ask the Minister whether he will consider removing business rates completely from chapels of rest.”
“I want it not just to do the small, narrow pieces that we can do, important as those are, but to look at wider sentencing.”
“The Minister laid it out well that some people are gaming the system. I sometimes wonder whether we should think outside the box. To speed up justice, we should make this clear: if you are guilty and you plead guilty early, you will get 33% off your sentence or maybe even 35% or a little bit more; but, if you delay your plea, you will get nothing. That would take away the ability to game the system and speed up justice. <BR /> <BR />I welcome the Bill, the words from the Minister and all the really good contributions that have been made in the Chamber. I want the Bill to be transformational. We have little time in which to achieve that transformation. I want to work achieve it. I want to work with the Minister and the Committee to create good legislation, but I want that legislation to look to the future in changing things.”
“The Member is absolutely right. I asked the Minister a question about that, and I got a really good answer. A lot of people make late guilty pleas in sexual offence cases, because they think that the victim will drop off before it gets to that point. The question is —.”
“That is an inducement for people not to plead guilty. Some of our cases last 750 days or more, and, as has been mentioned, some people say, "Do you know what? If I just hold off and don't make a guilty plea, even though I know I'm guilty, there's a good chance that witnesses will fall off and the victim will decide not to go any further". Some people are waiting —.”
“Thank you, Minister. That is good news. It is the very point that I raised. We can look at these things. If it turns out that what we are doing is right and proper and the best way to get things to work, that is what we will do. However, if it can be improved and can give families more confidence, it is right to do that. That is what could make the Bill transformative. <BR /> <BR />We need to review sentence discount, and we can do so through the Bill. At the minute, for a guilty plea made at the earliest opportunity, you can get 33% off your sentence. If you are guilty, that is a great inducement to say, "I'm guilty". That is fair. The issue comes with the late guilty plea. A guilty plea can be made as late as the day the trial starts, and, for that, you can get between 20% and 25% off your sentence.”
“The Minister was clear that she must ready life-sentence prisoners for release at the end of their tariff. There is, however, nothing in the Bill to show what that is supposed to look like. I know that the Minister disagrees with me when I say that there is a conflict between the Life Sentences (Northern Ireland) Order 2001 and the Prison and Young Offenders Centre Rules (Northern Ireland) 1995, but, as I see it, we can fix that if we put something into Part 3 to formalise that process.”
“I have to say this: does that not add to the debate? It is a complex issue, and the Minister is right. If we can all have a grown-up debate on the Bill, we can come up with something transformative. I really consider the Bill to be something that can be transformative, although, right now, it is a little narrow. Its scope could be widened slightly. <BR /> <BR />I will not speak to some of the other clauses, because they have been covered in great detail right across the House. I will, however, raise a couple of issues that need to be addressed in the legislation. Even we do not see an outcome, they need to be discussed. First, we need to formalise and put on a statutory footing the process for pre-release testing of life-tariff prisoners. That could be in Part 3 of the Bill. At the moment, there is an obligation to do that.”
“Again, I thank the Minister for her intervention. It is a really important discussion piece, and I have raised it before. If we had been able to challenge sentences in the Magistrates' Court previously, we could have dealt earlier with some of the issues facing us. I have said before in the Chamber that, up until recently, cases involving non-fatal strangulation were, by a majority of some 300 cases, heard in the Magistrates' Court, and not one sentence was able to be challenged. Fifteen cases were heard in the Crown Court, and the sentences could be challenged, and that was up to a maximum sentence of, I believe, three years. I think that you said two, Minister, but I thought that it was three. That is why there needs to be alignment. I am not sure how difficult it would be to align the two.”
“That leads me on to an issue that Paul Frew raised, which is that of unduly lenient sentences. The Minister knows that I have already raised the issue with her as well. There needs to be a change made. At the minute, the only cases that can be challenged are those held in the Crown Court. The Crown Court could hand down a 12-month custodial sentence, and that can be challenged. If a magistrate hands down a 12-month custodial sentence, however, that cannot be challenged. I do not fully understand fully why the two should not be aligned.”
“I still think that it is a discussion that needs to be had, because Northern Ireland is the outlier in these islands on something that is important. <BR /> <BR />I welcome Part 7, including clause 41 and the increase in sentences from 14 years to 20 years for death or injury through dangerous driving or careless driving while under the influence of drink and/or drugs. I am slightly concerned about the small increase to the sentence for causing death or serious injury when driving while disqualified to just four years when tried on indictment and 12 months when tried summarily.”
“I thank the Minister for that. In some ways, I agree with her about the sentencing review, but the outcomes of that will not then move into the next mandate. As good as she is, she may not be the Minister in the next mandate. In fact, according to some, you may not even be in the Executive.”
“<BR /> <BR />I have raised it in the Chamber before, but I am still convinced that Northern Ireland requires a sentencing council in line with what is in England and Wales, the Scottish Sentencing Council and the Sentencing Guidelines and Information Committee in the Irish Republic. A sentencing council would ensure fairness, consistency and transparency. It would outline the effect of the sentence on the victim and how the sentence guidelines were followed. It is a discussion to be had; one that we need to have if we are to go forward. In passing the motion that I tabled last year, the House agreed that we should have a sentencing council, but that was just a motion that was not binding. We need to have that discussion about a sentencing council.”
“<BR /> <BR />It is that type of complication in sentencing in general that concerns me. Many people have lost confidence in our justice system and sentencing because it seems to many to be unfair, inconsistent, overly complicated and not transparent and not to match the stated purpose and principles of sentencing, which we have, for the first time, laid out in the Bill in Part 1, namely proportionality, fairness and transparency. The use of punishment sparingly is going to be difficult for victims to hear. When we use the term "use punishment sparingly", that needs to be explained to them. The stated purposes of sentencing are punishment, protection of the public, deterrence, rehabilitation and reparation.”
“Many have mentioned Part 5, failure to disclose information about a victim's remains. That is a heinous thing to do and really does have an impact. It is quite simple: if you fail to disclose the whereabouts of your victim's remains having been found guilty, time will be added to your sentence. At the minute, the mathematics and discretion falls to the judge, but that can be no less than 30% of the sentence. In simple terms, if you get 15 years, you could be looking at a sentence being extended to 20 years. That is the simple maths. The other thing that you then need to look at is this: if you have made an early guilty plea, does 33% get taken off? Having been given 15 years, you take 33% off that before you add the 30% aggravated. That is something that we will need to look at.”
“I welcome the Bill and thank the Minister for introducing it. The Minister was very clear and concise when she outlined the Bill's purpose, and I agree an awful lot with the Committee Chair's words on what he saw as some of the issues with the Bill. It is incumbent on us all now to work together on the Bill. Of course, we will be supporting it as it moves through Second Stage to Committee Stage. I do not intend to go through all of the Bill's clauses, but I will tap into a few of them with a few of my thoughts. Some aspects of the Sentencing Bill deal with issues that are very rare but have a huge impact on our society and, certainly, on victims.”
“I thank the Minister for that answer. The Local Government Staff Commission has played a really important role in overseeing the various councils from way back in 1972. Given some of the HR issues that we still have in our councils, what oversight mechanisms will be put in place to replace the commission, as opposed to just leaving it to the councils to deal with their own issues?”
“<BR /> <BR />It is a clear attempt to stifle scrutiny and critical analysis, and we should all be concerned that the Minister is doing that through WhatsApp messages sent directly to the police.”
“Lastly, the Minister tried to influence the police by implying that the police should ask us to take down the logo and suggesting that the PSNI should challenge the Ulster Unionist Party on social media. That is clear political interference in the operational activities of the PSNI, and it undermines the Justice Minister's credibility. <BR /> <BR />The word "hypocrisy" is used a lot: on this issue, it is apt. The issue is also raised of why the Justice Minister is using a non-secure phone app to discuss operational matters. If she is doing that for issues to do with a critical press release, for what else is she using WhatsApp? There now needs to be an audit of the Minister's messages to ensure that sensitive information is not being sent via insecure means.”
“<BR /> <BR />Although it was the PSNI that requested that the logo be taken down, that request came on the back of the Justice Minister interfering in police operational decision-making through a series of WhatsApp messages discovered via a freedom of information request. Those WhatsApp messages raise a number of points. First, the Minister had said that the Courts and Tribunals Service data release was not an issue, yet she described the data release as a problem to the police, clearly contradicting what she had told this Chamber. The Minister also tried to use the police to stifle scrutiny, as the press release had been critical of her and her Department. Secondly, she used the exchange as an attempt to undermine the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party's relationship with the police through derogatory comments.”
“Since this mandate resumed, the Minister of Justice has lectured many of the parties here about attempts to interfere in PSNI operational matters. I particularly remember one spicy and spiky moment between my friend opposite and the Minister on that issue. It is clear, however, that the Justice Minister, as leader of the Alliance Party, is using her position of privilege to interfere in PSNI decision-making. In early February, the Ulster Unionist Party press and policy team used the PSNI logo to accompany a press release about a data release from the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service (NICTS) that contained police officers' names. Using the PSNI logo is something that many parties do, including, I have to say, the Alliance Party. The logo should not have been used, and it was taken down at the request of the police.”
“My constituency office would not have worked without Rosmund Evans being part of it. She was part of my team, as important as anybody in this Chamber, anybody in my team or anybody else in government. It is right and proper that I stand here and pay tribute to Rosmund Evans.”
“Rosmund spent all her time looking after the grandkids, and do you know what? That is what an awful lot of women in our society do. Rosmund was smart, articulate and intelligent. She could do anything that she wanted to do. Instead, so that she could commit to her family, children and grandchildren, she took cleaning jobs early in the morning and late at night: a real hero of society, whom we do not get to hear about. <BR /> <BR />Sadly, on Tuesday last week, Rosmund passed away unexpectedly and suddenly. She was only 65 years of age. We buried her on Saturday. Where I lost an employee, a colleague and, dare I say, a friend, Simon, David and Katherine lost their mum. <BR /> <BR />Sometimes, we do not stand up and remember those people who do the jobs that make our constituency office work.”
“Rosmund grew up looking after the three kids by herself. Rosmund's children then had kids.”
“As we all debate global politics, few will know the name Rosmund Evans. Rosmund was not an academic, scientist or scholar; she cleaned my constituency office. We never really saw Rosmund during the day, because she cleaned the office at nighttime after we had done a day's work. She emptied the bins, hoovered and cleaned. She also had a cleaning job in the mornings. In between, she dedicated herself to her children and grandchildren. <BR /> <BR />I very rarely saw Rosmund, but, when I was working late, she would come in and we would have a good conversation. It is great to get a backstory, and I got Rosmund's backstory. She got married and had twin boys. Three years later, she had a daughter, Katherine Evans. Sadly, Rosmund's husband, Mark, died seven weeks later. He was a serviceman.”
“Let us remember what we are trying to achieve: an Iran that is not nuclear.”
“We are on the brink of a regional war that Russia and China may exploit in order to achieve what they want in Ukraine and Taiwan. <BR /> <BR />Do I like President Trump's foreign policies? Absolutely not: I genuinely think that he is unhinged. However, do I think that Iran should be prevented from having any form of nuclear weapons? Absolutely I do. Do I think that the UK should join the coalition of states to achieve that? Yes, I do. Should Aldergrove be used, if it is needed, for that action? Yes, it should, in exactly the same way as Shannon Airport in the Irish Republic is being used. Nobody complains about that, yet it is used every day to move men, materials, weapons and munitions through Irish airspace to the Middle East and north Africa (MENA).”
“<BR /> <BR />Iran and its proxies — Hezbollah, the Houthis and Hamas — are the largest sponsor of global terrorism. Many Members seem to want to forget about the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, who have literally butchered thousands of their own citizens, and about the repression of women in that country. Just imagine a terrorist state such as Iran having nuclear weapons. We all think of ballistic nuclear weapons, but we do not think about the nuclear weapons — the so-called dirty bombs — that you can stick in a suitcase. We are in a dangerous place. Right now, Iran is indiscriminately attacking the United Arab Emirates, Dubai, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and Incirlik in Turkey. Those are places that I know well, because I have visited them.”
“War is not a video game. Some of us may be looking at the situation in a voyeuristic way as we see it play out on television. However, let us not minimise the effect that it is having on the people of the region. It is having a real effect on innocent people throughout the region. It is right to debate the matter, because it affects our citizens who are working in, holidaying in or transiting through the region. It affects our citizens who are members of the UK armed forces — the Royal Navy, the army and the Royal Air Force — and their families, who will be worried at this time. That is why it was right that the deputy First Minister attended a security briefing to understand how the situation affects our citizens. If you did not attend it, you failed our citizens.”
“I ask my colleague to acknowledge that I made a slight mistake in my contribution, which is that Máiría Cahill did not go to the IRA for an investigation: the IRA forced her to have an investigation. I just want to put that on the record.”
“The use of sexual violence by terrorists and paramilitaries during the Troubles was not an accident: it was a feature of a conflict in which power went unchecked, and justice was held hostage by politics. We must commit to uncovering those hidden histories. We must listen the voices that were silenced for so long. Be it violence against women and girls in the future, the present or the past, we must take a stand. Where there are barriers, we must overcome them. By ensuring that sexual violence is included in the legacy Bill, we can go some way towards doing that.”
“It largely failed to acknowledge the suffering of the survivors of sexual violence. That silence is its own form of violence. It tells survivors that their suffering was collateral damage, less important than the larger political narrative. <BR /> <BR />It is only recently, through the courage of women such as Máiría Cahill and projects using artistic storytelling and theatre, that those voices are finally breaking through. They are forcing us to widen our lens and see the Troubles for what it truly was: not just a war between states and paramilitaries but one where the bodies of women and children were often treated as part of the battlefield.”
“Those who were subjected to that brutal form of violence should not be forgotten, and they must be given the opportunity to seek justice as part of our legacy mechanisms. The retention of biometrics, including DNA, is set to change with the Justice Bill that is going through the Assembly. However, there will be exemptions for legacy cases to allow retention of those biometrics. Adding sexual crimes investigation criteria to the Bill that will establish the Legacy Commission, as proposed in the motion, will ensure that those biometrics will be retained. <BR /> <BR />The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 ended the political violence, but it did not end this legacy. For decades, the story of sexual violence during the Troubles was a story yet to be told. The peace process focused on decommissioning weapons and releasing prisoners.”
“The same dynamics existed in loyalist areas, where a rigid militaristic culture created the same opportunities for abuse and the same institutional pressures to stay silent. The victims were left in a kind of limbo. They would not go to the police because the police were the enemy. They could not rely on the paramilitaries because the paramilitaries were the abusers, or were protecting the abusers. They were trapped in a silence that was enforced by the very nature of the conflict. <BR /> <BR />The way in which women were targeted can be viewed in the brutal ritualised act of gender-based violence known as tarring and feathering. That was public humiliation directed only at women and girls. It was symbolic violence to drive community compliance through fear — shaving women's heads to remove a symbol of femininity.”
“Absolutely. I have met Máiría on many occasions, and she is exactly all the things that you described. I do not think that anybody here can say anything other than that about her. <BR /> <BR />That example was not in isolation. Historians and former members have noted that the IRA's civil administration team often dealt with sex offenders not by punishing them but by moving them out of the area. They were spirited away; as one source put it, not out of kindness but to protect the reputation of the organisation. Rape was seen as a stain, a political liability and an embarrassment to the cause. That reality was starkly emphasised by the rape of 17-year-old Paudie McGahon by an IRA man who had been moved to a safe house in the Irish Republic. Instead of facing justice for rape, the rapist was exiled.”
“Instead, she was subjected to a secret interrogation in a community centre, re-traumatised by her own community and eventually told that her rapist had been cleared by the organisation. She was warned not to go to the police. The message was chillingly clear: protecting the political movement was more important than protecting its women. Thankfully, she did not stay quiet but was vocal, and I commend her for her courage.”
“Absolutely. In that very short sentence, you hit the nail on the head. The Troubles created an environment in which they stayed away from the law enforcement agencies. <BR /> <BR />That leads us to a painful reality: sexual abuse was not just a by-product of the Troubles; it was enabled and covered up by the Troubles. There was a paramilitary justice system on both sides. We saw that clearly in the case of Máiría Cahill, a young woman from a prominent republican family who was raped by a senior member of the IRA in west Belfast when she was just a teenager. Bound by her community's distrust of the police, she did what was expected of her: she reported the crime to the IRA and trusted it to deliver justice.”
“That monopoly on power created a terrifying vulnerability for victims of sexual crimes. If the police were the enemy, who could a young woman turn to when her abuser wore a balaclava?”
“That violence was facilitated by the unique conditions of the Troubles: the breakdown of normal policing; closed structures of armed groups; and a culture of silence that was enforced by the very organisations that claimed to protect their communities. <BR /> <BR />Without a doubt, the Troubles were overwhelmingly dominated by men — by men. In working-class neighbourhoods, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was often viewed as the enemy. In republican areas especially, the police were not welcomed, and people in many areas looked for local solutions to serious crimes, as going to the police was frowned on. Into that vacuum stepped the paramilitaries and terrorists. They became the law. They punished petty criminals and antisocial elements with kangaroo courts, brutal beatings and shootings.”
“<BR /> <BR />When we talk about the Troubles, the images that normally flash through our minds are stark: soldiers on street corners; the plume of smoke after a bombing; and the crack of gunfire. We think of conflict fought with guns and bombs: a political battle between armed factions. However, for as long as war has existed, sexual violence has also been used as a weapon of war, and the terrorist campaign in Northern Ireland is no different. That weapon does not discriminate between religions or ideologies but preys on the vulnerable; it leaves no rubble but destroys lives just as completely; and it has historically been neglected. For 30 years, while the casualty count rose, a different kind of violence was happening in the shadows.”
“<BR /> <BR />I must be clear from the start: any person who has experienced sexual violence, whether that be in the past or the present and whether it is Troubles-related or not, should use our criminal justice system now. I urge them all to go to the police. However, the motion tries to address the sexual violence and child abuse that still echoes from our troubled past, and the persistent fear caused by republican and loyalist terrorist groups. Many years after the Belfast Agreement, that fear still exists in some communities. It is unspoken, controlling, isolating and leaves victims afraid to come forward lest they be seen as a traitor to their community, even many years after the abuse. It is in this instance that the unique attributes of the Legacy Commission may well give those victims hope.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The motion is moved against the backdrop of all our political parties looking at the legacy mechanisms that have been proposed by the Labour Government. We are all in a position to try to shape those legacy mechanisms, which will exist through the proposed Legacy Commission, but I do not think that any political party has yet fully endorsed them, or said, "No, we don't support them at all". We are all working to see what we can do to make the legacy mechanism that best meets victims' and societal need. It is about shaping the legacy Bill. The motion is an attempt to shape the Bill. It comes on the back of an amendment to the Bill to include sexual violence as a bespoke criterion, along with injury and death, for an investigation by the Legacy Commission.”
“It is interesting, Minister, that you talked about the tripartite arrangements, because, in the independent review, they are described as being like "a two-legged stool" or a "parent-child relationship". Your Department said that it had a dedicated resource to look at a new partnership agreement and that it would report in 2025. Are we any closer to having that new partnership agreement, as opposed to just regular meetings in the present tripartite arrangement?”