To ask the Minister of Justice for an update on the implementation of the recommendations in the Gillen Review Report into the law and procedures in serious sexual offences in Northern Ireland.

Mrs Long

Numerical reporting on the number or percentage of completed Gillen recommendations does not convey the true scale of positive change in outcomes for victims. However, I am pleased to report that 181, which is 72%, of the 253 Gillen review recommendations are now assessed as complete, with a further 24 — that is 9% — partially complete, meaning that some provision is in place but that further work will be required to establish longer-term mainstream service provision. I have prioritised the recommendations that deliver meaningful improvements for victims of sexual crime, including access to free legal advice for all victims of serious sexual offences through the sexual offences legal advisers (SOLA) and children’s SOLA schemes; and establishing new remote evidence centres, where victims can give their best evidence from a secure and comfortable facility away from the court building. I am encouraged that the conviction rate in remote evidence cases among domestic abuse contest cases stands at over 90%. I have also prioritised the recommendations on measures to reduce delay, including committal reform, which means that victims are no longer required to give oral evidence at the committal hearing. Supporting the ongoing delivery of the under-13 and under-16 protocol is also significantly reducing the time taken to deal with cases involving young victims. There has been significant improvement to disclosure and achieving best evidence (ABE) procedures; better training to enable front-line staff to adopt a trauma-informed approach with victims; and new legislation to exclude the public from court in serious sexual offence trials. Today, in line with another Gillen recommendation, I have launched a social media campaign aimed at challenging rape myths and other damaging misconceptions about sexual crime. Rape myths create shame and self-blame and, in many cases, prevent people from reporting those horrific crimes, allowing perpetrators to escape justice. We all have a role to play in challenging those myths through education, accountability and cultural change, and I hope that the campaign will play an important part in changing the public narrative. I remain fully committed to delivering the remaining accepted recommendations in the coming months. I plan to introduce new legislation to clarify the right of complainants in serious sexual offence cases to independent legal representation —.

Mr Speaker

Minister, thank you.

Mrs Long

I can indeed, and I could talk about a number of the other issues, too. I plan to deliver independent legal representation for specific pre-trial applications; to publish media guidance to encourage a trauma-informed, victim-centric approach to reporting sexual crime; and to consider options for a Barnahus-informed facility. Unfortunately, rape and sexual assault myths are still widespread, and they can be a deterrent to people coming forward and disclosing. In the report on how we handle sexual offences, Sir John Gillen highlighted the fact that rape myths represent some of the greatest impediments to justice for all victims and survivors of domestic and sexual abuse but especially women and girls. We have been working alongside partners such as the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), Victim Support, Nexus, Women's Aid and academics who have expertise in the field. We have developed a series of graphics to challenge those misconceptions. The graphics will be issued through my Department's social media channels and will then be shared by our partners through their social media channels. Importantly, CCEA and the Department of Education have also agreed to support the campaign and make those resources available to teachers through the relationships and sexuality education (RSE) hub. Challenging rape myths is essential if we want to build a society where survivors are heard and supported free from shame and stigma. The social media campaign will shine a light on the facts, counter long-standing misconceptions and help to change our public narrative.

Ms Finnegan

Minister, ending sexual offences forms a major part of the Executive's ending violence against women and girls strategy. Can you give me an update on your Department's work on the strategy?

Mrs Long

I have already outlined a considerable amount of the work that we have done around the Gillen review. In addition, we recognise that, whilst not all offences against women and girls are domestic offences and that not all domestic offence victims are women and girls, there is a reinforcing overlap. Therefore, we have done work in that space jointly with the Health Minister to produce the domestic and sexual abuse strategy. We are doing work around reinforcing protections for victims and witnesses, particularly those who are vulnerable, and the victims and witnesses Bill will reflect that. We have also undertaken a lot of research into correlation between domestic abuse and other violence in society, which has been helpful in shining a light on some of the areas where improvement can be made. We have been able to deliver in a number of areas. Not everything that we will deliver, however, will have the kind of upstream impact that, for example, the busting of rape myths will have. On many occasions, we are dealing with people who have already been victimised. The purpose of the Executive Office strategy was to ensure that people would move upstream and to look at how we could prevent those things from happening. Many of those actions will not necessarily fall to the Department of Justice, but where we can feed in to those and provide background and evidence to move them forward, we will, of course, play our full part.