Debate contribution: Sexually Motivated Attacks in the North-west

Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on 4 November 2024.

MLA

Mrs Naomi Long

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

4 November 2024

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Question for Urgent Oral Answer

Heading

Sexually Motivated Attacks in the North-west

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4625818

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I was shocked and saddened to learn of the attacks on two women in Derry/Londonderry over the past weekend. Rightly, we are all deeply concerned about the increase in incidents of violence against women over recent times. We must all do everything in our power to challenge and change the attitudes and behaviours on which those are predicated. There has to be a collective effort from across society and across government to address those important issues. Work is ongoing to reduce risk and contribute to an end to violence against women and girls. That includes work under the domestic and sexual abuse strategy. Led by my Department and the Department of Health, that was launched by the Health Minister and me on 25 September 2024. The interdependencies between that strategy and the strategic framework for ending violence against women and girls (EVAWG) are evident. However, given that women and girls are disproportionately affected by domestic and sexual abuse, the two are complementary, albeit we must always recognise that not all victims of violence against women and girls are abused in a domestic setting and that not everyone abused in a domestic setting is a woman or a girl. All efforts made to address domestic and sexual abuse under the strategy will, however, directly contribute to the broader goal of ending violence against women and girls. My officials worked closely with the Executive Office on the development of the EVAWG framework, and we are committed to continued collaboration and partnership. Our governance structures will ensure the alignment and support of ongoing joint efforts to protect everyone. What we can do best to reassure people at this stage is to move upstream and tackle the underlying causes.

I appreciate what the Member said, but she will appreciate, having previously served as the Justice Minister, that it would be inappropriate for me to engage with the PSNI directly on how it polices any particular crime or set of circumstances. It would be particularly inappropriate to do so now, given that these are live cases. It is important that I allow the police to do the work that they have to do and allow them to be led by the evidence and where it leads. We can, however, demonstrate collectively that we wish to protect women and girls from this kind of violence. We can work with the PSNI and the rest of the Executive on budgets to ensure that there is a police presence and that the reassurance on the ground that is required in the aftermath of such attacks is there. I have to acknowledge, however, that the PSNI is operationally independent, and it is important that I recognise that.

I understand that the PSNI has increased high visibility patrols and police presence in the area to reassure women in the community that there is no place for violence against women and girls and to provide the reassurance that people will be safe. There are ongoing conversations all the time, whether with the Executive Office, my Department, the PSNI, Women's Aid or lots of other organisations. I have met most of those organisations in the past couple of weeks to have further conversations about how we can better protect women and girls. By the time we deal with this through the justice lens, someone has already been subjected to a horrific attack. People are already living in fear. If we want to end violence against women and girls, it is important that we move upstream and start to tackle the attitudes, the entitlement and the violent culture in parts of our community that allow that behaviour and enable it to persist. We are not doing women and girls a service by simply talking about attacks after they have happened. We need to focus on how we prevent those attacks.

That is an interesting question. Of course, during the previous mandate, I tried hard to bring forward a review of the minimum content order for relationships and sexuality education (RSE), as recommended by Sir John Gillen in his report on dealing with serious sexual offences. Unfortunately, the DUP Minister at the time refused to participate in that. I initially had a good response from Peter Weir, but the subsequent Minister resiled from that. In this mandate, there has been a lot of hot air and disinformation around the need for RSE. The truth is that it is about age-appropriate information for young people so that they can protect themselves and others and understand consent and respect for personal boundaries. A lot of the debate that we have had on RSE has, unfortunately, been profoundly unhelpful, which has left many of our young people without the kind of role modelling that they could have had through RSE and the information that they need to protect themselves and others.

Absolutely. The domestic abuse strategy has five pillars. The first is "Partnership", which is about working across Departments and with statutory, voluntary, community and faith-based organisations. The second is "Prevention", which involves challenging attitudes and behaviours that foster domestic abuse and sexual abuse. It also involves early intervention, which is where RSE and the curriculum become so important. Many young people see violence in the home — domestic abuse and sexual violence — modelled by their parents and guardians. We therefore have to have opportunities to talk to young people about those issues. Pillar 3 is "Children and Young People", which is about focusing on preventing children and young people from becoming victims and on working with them to change attitudes, because we know that adverse childhood experiences can lead to offending. Pillar 4 is "Support and Provision" to ensure that victims of domestic and/or sexual abuse get a tailored response, with specialist support and provision to recover and build their lives. The final pillar is "Justice", which focuses on ensuring that justice responses are effective, supporting victims and holding abusive individuals to account at the earliest opportunity. Whilst that is important, it is rightly the fifth step, because everything that goes before it is what will prevent the harm being done.

As I set out, I am, jointly with your party colleague the Health Minister, taking forward action on domestic and sexual abuse. We have not only a seven-year strategy but a three-year action plan. Further to that, the Executive's violence against women and girls strategic framework was launched by the First Minister and deputy First Minister on 16 September. That, again, works through a series of options within its main themes. I am taking the lead by speaking out on the issues, as I have done consistently, not just throughout my political career but before it started. With respect to how we change cultural attitudes, many young people are becoming radicalised online into having very poor views and attitudes towards women and girls. I have led a conversation with the Home Office and others on what we can do about online harms within the provisions of the Online Safety Act 2023. That legislation did not go far enough; it needs to go further. If we are to protect our women and girls, we need to educate our men and boys about what it means to be a decent, caring and responsive adult and male. Too often in our society, women's lives are treated as expendable, and men and boys are treated as though they will not be held to account for that attitude.

I cannot answer for the funding of the ending violence against women and girls strategy because that lies within the functions and budget of the Executive Office. It would be appropriate for you to raise that with the Executive Office. I have been clear that the PSNI budget is not adequate to cover all the issues that the PSNI needs to cover. I have argued that the Department of Justice and the PSNI need additional resources so that, when people become victims, they will get the right support and right care at the right time, and will be able to progress through the court system swiftly and see their attackers and abusers held to account. Gillian Kearney and Lindsay Fisher are two women in the PSNI whom I admire greatly. I know their commitment, and I have no doubt whatsoever that, if they have announced that they are going to make extra high-visibility patrols, those will happen. However, in order for us to make a sustained difference, we cannot look only at the response after someone has become a victim. As I said, there are things we could do upstream, at very little cost, that would change attitudes and cultures and protect women and girls from that type of violence. We need to focus more on what we do in that space if we are to see our budgets become more sustainable and our lives become a lot safer than they are at the moment.

I cannot speak to those specific attacks for obvious reasons, and I urge people to be cautious when they talk about live cases. However, if a victim comes forward and makes a disclosure about an attack, an assault or any kind of abuse, whether that be current or historical, a number of things ought to happen. The Victim Charter and the Witness Charter set out the expectations that any victim and witness can have, but they also set out the expectations that those who are particularly vulnerable due to the nature of the crime can have. The victim and witness care unit, provided by the Public Prosecution Service (PPS), can intervene and support people to be able to give evidence in court, including through familiarisation visits. For sexual offences, we have implemented the recommendation on sexual offences legal advisers. From the new year, there will also be children's sexual offences legal advisers to support people through their cases. Undoubtedly, this is one of the most heinous kind of crime. A person already feels violated and fearful when they have been attacked in that way. It is important that they do not feel further violated by their experience of the justice system. That is why the sexual offences legal advisers are so important in providing people with general legal advice. It is important to say that, through the domestic and sexual abuse strategy, counselling is also available for those who need it. However, all those services are under a degree of strain. I have to be honest and say that many of the victims who come forward and who have spoken to the Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime say that the service they received was not what they would wish. I would, nevertheless, encourage people who are in those circumstances to come forward. They will be believed, they will be listened to, and they will be heard. If they find that they are not getting the service to which they are entitled under the Victim Charter and the Witness Charter, I would encourage them to speak directly to the commissioner designate, who can pursue the matter on their behalf and ensure that, in future, they do.

Anyone who is subject to reporting arrangements under what is commonly known as the "sex offenders register" has to let the police know what their accommodation address is. That goes without saying. The police will be notified of that.

Again, it is not for me to ensure that the Executive Office fund any organisation. The investment that it makes is a matter for Executive Office Ministers. I believe that its budget is around £3 million. The strategy for which I am responsible — the domestic and sexual abuse strategy — has a budget of around £1·62 million this year. My Department is not involved in the direct funding of core services for any community and voluntary sector organisations. We do, however, engage with the community and voluntary sector in the commissioning of services. The funding for those who have been working for my Department in that capacity has been ring-fenced and protected.

When it comes to how people should protect themselves in the public space, the best people to give that kind of community safety advice are PSNI officers. I do not claim, nor should I, to be an expert. However, I will say this: pepper spray is illegal, and no one should carry it. The risk of carrying pepper spray is that, like any weapon, it could be turned on you and used against you. People should not resort to carrying weapons, because they could end up being used against the individual who carries them. I need to put that on the record. There is a role for things like self-defence, of course. However, we need to bear it in mind that, unless you are routinely engaged in a space where you are likely to use those self-defence techniques, the challenge is whether, when attacked, it will be natural to you to use the mechanisms that you have trained in to defend yourself. It can also create a false sense of security and lead people to go to environments or places that may be higher-risk in the belief that they can defend themselves. That is a difficult issue for me to address. What I can say is this: we all know the things that we can do, such as taking precautions and considering where we go. Sadly, in this day and age, more and more women say that they are afraid to leave home on their own in the evenings or that they have to move in groups because they feel vulnerable when they are on their own. Whilst that may be a short-term protection for those women, it is not a solution to the problem. Women should not need to move in groups in order to feel safe in our community. Men need to let women live their lives in peace, whether they are on their own or together. Whether they are walking singly or in crowds, it is not acceptable for any woman to be attacked in this day and age.

I absolutely concur. The sooner that people do so, the better. Although it may be hard to believe, there will be people who have suspicions that someone whom they know was involved in that spate of attacks. I encourage them to come forward to give that information to the PSNI.

I encourage people in the area to look at their Ring doorbells or at CCTV to see whether there is anything on them that might give the police somewhere to start their investigations. People will be safest when the people who commit such crimes are in custody.

2,441 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:28 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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