Debate contribution: Troubles-related Sexual Crimes and Child Sexual Abuse

Debate contribution by Mr Doug Beattie MC on 17 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Doug Beattie MC

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

17 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Troubles-related Sexual Crimes and Child Sexual Abuse

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5394993

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move:

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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?

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

1,377 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:52 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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