Debate contribution: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Doug Beattie MC on 16 June 2026.

MLA: Mr Doug Beattie MC
Party at the time: Independent
Date: 16 June 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Executive Committee Business
Heading: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5624758

Text

In fairness, Minister, what I am saying is that this is what I think. I think that, after all the screaming and shouting, few Members will change their minds and say, "Actually, 14's a bad idea; we're going to stick with 10". That is the point that I was trying to make, probably clumsily — I apologise. I wish that we were not approaching this substantial subject through a series of amendments.
The matter is so serious and fundamental to how justice is provided in Northern Ireland that I believe that it deserves a stand-alone Bill, much like the one in Scotland. You can stick your hands over your face, Minister. I will come to you in a minute, if I may. Scotland introduced the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Bill, which is now the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019. It allows for scrutiny. Having a stand-alone Bill would have given the Assembly the ability to scrutinise fully the issue of the minimum age of criminal responsibility, including the intended and unintended consequences, and allowed the public to have confidence in the decisions that we made on the issue.
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. Do I think that that means that the issue has gone away? No, it has not gone away, because the reality is that someone will probably introduce a stand-alone private Member's Bill in the next mandate. That is where, in all likelihood, we will go. That is probably not a bad thing, because it would lead to exactly what I said needs to happen: it would get the discussions going so that we might look at the intended and unintended consequences. I will speak to some of the amendments. I will try to be really brief. I simply cannot support amendment Nos 79 and 81, for two reasons. I believe that 10 is too young, but I do not accept raising it to 14, because I think that that is too old. I will explain why in a minute, but, to my mind, amendment Nos 79 and 81 do not really set MACR. Rather, they remove it. Amendment No 79 states:
"a child under the age of 14 years shall not be charged with an offence."
Amendment No 81 states:
"A child under the age of 16 years shall not be charged with any offence."
Charging someone is the outcome, however. A child of any age would therefore be able to be arrested, investigated and go through the whole criminal justice system but not be charged. For me, the two amendments do not set out what we want. I know without a shadow of a doubt what the policy intent is, but I do not think that those amendments achieve that, because a child of any age could be given an informal warning — a community resolution notice — which would go on their record and be discoverable by the police. I therefore cannot support amendment Nos 79 and 81, with the substantive reason being, of course, that I do not support the minimum age of criminal responsibility's being 14. That is OK. I support its being 12. We can disagree, but we can do so agreeably. Amendment No 82 tries to overcome that issue by being explicit in setting MACR, stating:
"no child under the age of 12 can be guilty of an offence."
It goes on to state, however, that children aged 12 or 13 can be guilty of an offence and then gives a closed list. That closed list of offences is the problem that has been raised time and time again:
"(a) murder, (b) attempted murder, (c) manslaughter, (d) rape, (e) assault by penetration."
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. For some people, raising the age to 14 while having the closed list meets the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child's minimum call for MACR of 14. The UN also says, however, that that minimum age of 14 should come with "no exemptions". That is what it says, so we cannot say that we are trying to match what the UN is telling us to do by having the minimum age be 14 but disregarding its saying that there should be no exemptions at 14. Amendment No 82 tries to ride two horses but falls off both. I do not believe that the Members who tabled it included that closed list just to stop outrage. Rather, I think that they were reacting to what the Public Prosecution Service said in its comments in the 2021 consultation, which is:
"in the event that the minimum age of criminal responsibility is raised in Northern Ireland, it may be prudent to make provisions for dealing with the most serious cases involving young children, as has been the case in other jurisdictions."
I think that is why they are there. I do not think that it is a cynical attempt to assuage anger, but it does not what we want it to meet. To be clear — people have given examples — someone who is 13 and steals a car, drives it recklessly, hits another car, killing the occupants, or hits a child at the side of the road will not have committed a crime because it would be death by dangerous driving and that is not on the list. That is where the concerns are. We are not talking about children's behaviours here; we are talking about serious crimes. That is the premise behind what is being said. Likewise, people have said the same about upskirting, downblousing and a range of sexual offences and vehicle offences. None would be viewed as a crime. Of course, 10- and 11-year-olds could also be involved in those offences, but it is less likely, and it could be dealt with through a more flexible youth justice system. Let me give you an example if I can. The number of files received by the Public Prosecution Service for 11-year-olds involved in sexual offences between 2022 and 2025 sits at 43. The number of files received by the PPS for 12-year-olds involved in the same range of offences is 123. Therefore, you can see that there is a real jump from the age of 11 to 12. The number of files received for driving offences for 10-year-olds sits at three; for 11-year-olds, it is three; for 12-year-olds, it is 13; and, for 13-year-olds, it is 28. Those files were received by the Public Prosecution Service. The latest figures for 2024-25 show that the Public Prosecution Service received in the region of 500 files involving children between the ages of 10 and 14.
Yes.
Yes. What age would you like?
I will not go through them all, but I will pick one age group. Let us go for 12-year-olds: indictable prosecution, two; summary prosecution, 51; cautions, 14; informed warnings, 22; youth conferences, 34; and no prosecution, 71. The information is there. I am not trying to be smart in any shape or form. Please do not think that I am, but the information is there. The point that I am trying to make is that there is a real jump between the ages of 11 and 12. That is where my concern lies.
Yes, of course.
I know your background, and I cannot disagree with a lot of what you have said. However, the reality is that we still need to catch those people reasonably early. The point that I am making is that 10- and 11-year-olds are less likely to get involved in serious crime, but, from the age of 12 upwards — I will talk about that in a minute — there is more of a chance. That is where we need to have an intervention. If we have not intervened early, we may lose those people in the system. Let me crack on and try to explain the point I am making. I am concerned about the size of the cohort that may no longer be engaged until it is possibly too late. We already ensure that incarceration of children between the ages of 10 and 18 is a last resort. The Woodlands facility, which was mentioned earlier by Peter Martin, has room for 48 offenders, but it regularly sits with about 10 or 12 between the ages of 10 and 18. That is a real positive. Let me give you another example. People have asked what other countries are doing. Let me give you one that is quite close to ours. Latvia has a similar population size to Northern Ireland and a MACR set at 14; its incarceration level for 14- to 18-year-olds sits at three times that of Northern Ireland.
There is no one solution that fits all. The figure in Latvia is not three times the number here every year, but it is regularly three times the number here. Latvia has a principle of diversion, which brings me to the amendment that I have tabled. Amendment No 86 aims to deal with the extremely low age of criminal responsibility — I have said already that 10 is too young — by setting a new minimum age of 12, while ensuring that there are measures in place to deal with serious offending by 10- and 11-year-olds. I do not have a closed list; it is just serious offences. My amendment has four parts. The first part is clear:
"no child under the age of 12 can be guilty of an offence."
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? We already know that 10- and 11-year-olds can commit offences, but there is a jump in the seriousness and number of offences committed by children when they get to the age of 12. Some children's behaviour becomes less manageable at that age: they have left primary school; their friend groups have become less filtered; they are more susceptible to external influences from other children and adults; and they may well have their first phone, which allows them to reach into the darkest recesses of the internet. There is a real difference between an 11-year-old and a 12-year-old. We know that many children as young as 12 are already watching extreme pornography and, in some cases, acting it out. There was one case of non-fatal strangulation. I do not want to criminalise children — I really do not — and I do not think that our system does so. However, while we are mindful of helping the child, we must also be mindful of the victim. We have to help the victim. For me, the sharp edge between 11 and 12 is the cliff edge. Statistics show that the crime rate doubles and triples between the ages of 11 and 12. Of course, I know that all ages are arbitrary: 16, 14, 12, 10. 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. The second part of my amendment makes it clear that the police must have the power to arrest and investigate children who are 10 or 11 years of age. The police have to do that for a number of reasons. The first reason is to make sure that it was that child who committed the serious offence. If the child is not arrested or investigated and their necessary biometrics are not taken, the police are not able to prove that that child committed the crime, and, likewise, they cannot prove that that child did not do the crime. There will be adults who will tell children to take responsibility for their actions, knowing that they are below the minimum age of criminal responsibility. There is an important principle here that the police need the freedom to investigate. If that means making an arrest, the police should arrest. If it means taking biometrics, the police have to take the biometrics. If an 11-year-old burns down a derelict house, the police investigating the arson may arrest a child. In the course of that investigation, it may be proven that it was not that child but somebody else; or it may be proven that it was that child, who is below the age of criminal responsibility, and the case will go into a different process. The investigatory part of my amendment is incredibly important.
The third part of my amendment gives the Director of Public Prosecutions the power to look at a crime committed by a child of 10 or 11 years of age and decide whether that crime should be prosecuted. As you can see, I am not giving a closed list of offences, but I am giving the director more latitude when it comes to the seriousness of the offence. Take death by dangerous driving as an example.
Of course.
I kind of accept that in part, but remember what we are talking about here. We are talking about a very small number of cases, not a raft of cases. We are not talking about thousands of cases. It could be something as simple as the police doing an investigation and sending a no-file prosecution file to the Director of Public Prosecutions, and he then accepts it and that is where it goes. We are not talking just about bad behaviour; we are talking about the most serious offences. That is why I tried to give the example of death by dangerous driving, which would be one of those offences. 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. Ultimately, that is what we are looking to do. We are not about criminalising more children. This is about ensuring that they get the support that they require and that we also support the victims of crime. The last part of my amendment simply ensures that all interested parties in the youth justice system, including the PSNI, the PPS and the Youth Justice Agency, are prepared for the change from 10 to 12. I set a figure of two years — I think that you raised that, Sian. That was a fair point, and it made me go away and think. I am willing to work with anybody at Further Consideration Stage to come up with something that works.
Yes, Minister.

2,602 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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