Debate contribution: Victims and Witnesses of Crime Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on 30 June 2026.

MLA

Mr Paul Frew

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

30 June 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Victims and Witnesses of Crime Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5653402

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Minister for her intervention. She was absolutely right to take that action, as it means that victims' voices are right at the heart of the matters under discussion. It is now obvious to us that that should have been done years ago, but it is good that it is being done now. We should all be proud of the part that we are playing in producing such legislation. Legislation is what it is. It is always there to protect the people, but it does not directly address them. Rather, it creates offences that people are then judged to have committed or not. The difference with this Bill, however, is that it places victims and witnesses at its heart. It complements the two other recent Bills from the Department of Justice, namely the Justice Bill and the Criminal Justice (Sentencing etc) Bill. One can see from the wording and scope of those Bills that some of the clauses lean on one another. There has therefore been a step change as we have gone through first the Justice Bill, then the Criminal Justice (Sentencing etc) Bill and now the Victims and Witnesses of Crime Bill. That is really important. Credit where credit is due to the departmental officials. They got the sequencing right, as did the Minister. We had a very concentrated period in which to scrutinise the first two Bills, as we will with this Bill. I have criticised many things about the Justice Bill, but it was wise of the Minister to take the three steps that she did, and I commend her for doing so. While it is in my head, I give my commitment as DUP justice spokesperson to working with the Minister and the Department to ensure that we produce the best possible legislation. I cite the work that we did in partnership in the Chamber and in Committee on the Justice Bill. We had eight days — over 40 hours — of debate during its Consideration Stage. It was really important that we had that, as it proves that the House can be effective at passing legislation. That is all the more important with this Bill, as it has victims and witnesses at its heart. I really do look forward, therefore, to working with the Department, the Minister and Committee members on it, as well, of course, with the House at Consideration Stage.

I will speak to part 2. It is important that we have special measures and that victims of sexual crime or crimes of a hostile nature will not have to be cross-examined by their alleged perpetrator. That can be an offence in itself, if you like, because of the trauma that the victim will have gone through. You can see how that would impede someone's coming forward and why somebody would not want to be in that position again. Victims will not want to be in the same room as the perpetrator. They do not want to see them across the street, so you can understand that they would not want to be in a big, stuffy courtroom with strangers asking them questions. We need to legislate for that. It is important that no one can be cross-examined by the perpetrator in that way. There are other functions that can be utilised to have the court process as it should be. The court process should be adversarial and robust — that is how we do justice in this country — but there need to be special measures to protect victims and witnesses.

592 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 01:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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