RCNI Press Release 07 July 2005
Judges helpless to protect victims of sexual crimes from assailants, in their own courts
The Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI) were outraged that a defendant was permitted under our law to personally question his victim in court. Under current Irish law the judge was powerless to prevent this. This does not have to be the case. The RCNI calls for immediate legislative reforms which will prevent a victim of crimes involving humiliation and degradation, suffering a repeated process of humiliation and degradation by her attacker inside our court rooms. Given the example in a neighbouring common law jurisdiction, our attention has been drawn to this loophole as far back as 1999. However, lack of legislative reforms meant Judge Abbott in the case of Pawel Ludecke, was helpless to stop a man found guilty of kidnap and assault from cross examining his victim at length in court.
Kate Mulkerrins, Legal Coordinator of the RCNI said, ‘this same situation could happen again tomorrow, next week, next month if we do not empower our judges to end this abuse of our courtrooms. To continue to allow this to happen makes a mockery of our courts, our legal system and seriously undermines efforts to increase the numbers of crimes of sexual violence being reported.
‘This is one area where we can see a clear legislative change which does not compromise the defendant’s right to due process but which stops the court room being turned into a twisted farce by the defendant. We know that rape and sexual violence are seriously under-reported. This loop-hole must be addressed immediately, in order that not one more victim of sexual violence is deterred from reporting.’
The RCNI call upon the Irish government to close this loophole immediately.
Notes
• The RCNI is the national forum of Rape Crisis Centres, which provides a strong voice for survivors and is a catalyst for social change to end rape and all forms of sexual violence.
• Pawel Ludecke was found guilty of unlawful detention and assault on the 6th of July. The jury failed to agree on the multiple charges of rape. Mariusz Malecki is facing further charges today at 2pm in the central criminal court.
• The Cross examination in the court room was through an interpreter thus the defendant cross examined the victim in Polish and she answered him in Polish while the interpreter interpreted for the court – this situation can only have increased the victim’s isolation in the court and can only have hampered the judges’ ability to monitor the line of questioning of the criminal to his victim. The victim’s earlier statement to the gardai was translated by a non qualified local polish woman.
• The law in England and Wales was reformed with the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 to prevent an unrepresented defendant from personally cross-examining the complainant in relation to a sexual offence.
• There were two high profile cases which spurred this reform:
- In the case of R v Milton [1998] EWCA Crim 1486 (6 May 1998) the defendant was found guilty on five counts but during the trial was free to cross examine the witness, his victim. The trial judge said afterwards, ‘although I took what steps I could to minimise that ordeal by repeated efforts to prevent repetitious and irrelevant questioning, nevertheless the whole experience must for those women have been horrifying and is it highly regrettable in my view, and a matter of understandable public concern, that the law as it stands permits a situation where an unrepresented defendant in a sexual assault case has a virtually unfettered right personally to question his victim in such needlessly extended and agonising detail for the obvious purpose of intimidation and humiliation.’
- In the case of R v Ralston Edwards [1997] EWCA Crim 1679 (3 July 1997), the defendant, later convicted on two counts of rape, took the opportunity in court to cross examine his victim for six days while wearing the same jeans and jumper he had worn at the time of the attack. The complainant described the situation as being ‘raped once by Edwards and again by the British justice system’ and made a subsequent complaint to the European Commission on Human Rights.
For further information please contact Cliona Saidlear on 087 2196447
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