Debate contribution: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Peter Martin on 16 June 2026.

MLA

Mr Peter Martin

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

16 June 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Justice Bill: Consideration Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5624659

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I will speak on amendment Nos 79 and 82. There has been much talk about some of the backgrounds that we have been considering. For declaration purposes, I was a youth worker, like the Member for North Antrim, for about 20 years. I have also written a detailed report on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and I am more than familiar with ACEs and trauma-informed care. I am also more than aware that children with six or more ACEs are more likely to get involved with our criminal justice system. As I approach the debate, my view on the matter, which, to be fair, has been referred to by a number of parties in the course of the debate, is that we should be intervening earlier and quicker, before those children actually perpetrate a crime. There should be more support in the early stages so that they do not find themselves in the situation of committing a crime at the age of 12 or 13. It is clear from the debate that the amendments that we are discussing, which are supported by Alliance, Sinn Féin and the SDLP, want to raise the MACR to 14, with five exceptions, which have been discussed throughout the debate. I should say that I will not speak for 20 minutes or half an hour; my contribution will probably be about five minutes, and I want to try to be fairly concise. Those exceptions are murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, rape and assault by penetration. In the early stages of my contribution, I want to pick up on the debate that we had late last night, which was not very orderly, but a lot of those things were discussed. One such thing was why we were looking at these specific amendments and what was their backstory. I have worked with the Bill Office on a number of occasions and found its staff to be excellent at what they do. However, any MLA who has been here a while or worked in the Assembly will know that an MLA who takes an amendment to the Bill Office usually has some level of what we might call "policy intent", in that they want something to be done. They hand it over to the Bill Office, and, accordingly, it drafts an amendment that is in line with that policy intent. The Bill Office, however, can draft only on the basis of what it is given. I remain confused by the five exceptions on that list. It was not even clear in the rather fractious debate last night why those five offences had been picked. I am quite happy to take an intervention from any of those who tabled the amendment. For example, one of the crimes listed is murder, and a second is attempted murder. Why do we have rape on that list but not attempted rape? I remain confused about why the crimes on the list were picked.

I will indeed.

I thank the Member for North Antrim, who tabled one of the amendments, for answering that. Although I am still unsure why those crimes were picked and why others did not make the list, I certainly accept her answer. When we look at what is and is not on the list and how the exceptions apply, we see that the offences that a 13-year-old could no longer commit, because they would no longer be viewed as crimes, include very serious crimes. I have picked just three: grievous bodily harm with intent, attempted rape and arson endangering life. Were the Assembly to pass that amendment, a 13-year-old who perpetrated those crimes could not be prosecuted for them. I considered it more. I thought about the circumstances and the impact that the amendment would have. In doing some research around the issue, one example that I considered was that, under the amendment, if a group of 13-year-old boys were to sexually assault, grope or fondle a 10-year-old girl, that would no longer be a prosecutable crime. I agree with the comments of my colleague the Education Minister, who spoke as a Back-Bencher this evening. I fully accept that some of those who tabled the amendment believe that it is the right thing to do and that it will improve our criminal justice system and support young people. I accept that they are sincere in those beliefs. I believe that the amendment will not do that, and I hope that they will accept the sincerity with which I make that argument. We have talked at some length about the perpetrators of those crimes.

I thank the Member for her question. We do have age-appropriate RSE in our schools. It is part of a review that the Education Minister is conducting to make RSE provision in our schools even better. I can speak only for myself and my family. We have two boys in our family, and, as we bring them up, we are, of course, teaching them to respect women and their young female school friends. I would hope that every father and mother in Northern Ireland is doing that. We are dealing with misogyny in our society. We have the ending violence against women and girls (EVAWG) strategy, which we talk about a lot. I will stay on that theme for a second. We have the EVAWG strategy, but, in the example that I have just provided to the House, that offence would no longer be prosecuted. I accept that those occurrences are very rare. I gave the Member an example last night. I fully accept that the age range of the case in Hampshire is above what we are talking about, and I was simply giving an example. Those crimes do happen, however. My reasoning around this is that, if I was either that 10-year-old girl or her parent, in the example that I just gave, there would be no recourse to justice. The Member made a reasonable point. When we look at violence against women and girls, there absolutely needs to be better education, but we also need to address what happens when a young girl is subjected to something that is completely heinous.

With respect, I will take an intervention from the Member for North Antrim first.

1,040 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:56 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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