Criminal Justice System

The Criminal Justice System and Lessons from the Belfast Rape Trial

Kellie Turtle on May 17, 2018, 11:13 am

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The issues around the recent Belfast rape case have been well rehearsed; the unavoidable media saturation kept it well on the agenda of too many workplace coffee breaks and social media rants. This article will not rehash those conversations. Its purpose is to explore the challenge made to the criminal justice system by the activists who organised the rallies in its aftermath. The rally outside the court on the day after the judgement saw around 800 people attend in a …

Less than 2% of Rape Cases in Northern Ireland end in Conviction. Why the System Needs Reformed.

Elaine Crory on April 7, 2018, 9:00 amComments Off | Readers 2588

When the verdict came in, nobody in the women’s movement was especially surprised. There was consternation at the length of time the jury deliberated, certainly. But the verdict itself was not surprising. Rape is a serious crime and it carries a high burden of proof, requiring certainty “beyond a reasonable doubt” in order to convict. In practice, this means that convictions are hard to come by absent something like CCTV evidence or a confession of guilt. We all knew this. …

O’Loan calls Stormont House Agreement ” an insult” as Labour promises a Pat Finucane inquiry

Brian Walker on February 25, 2015, 11:32 am

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Amnesty International are not alone in finding the resources allocated in the Stormont house Agreement inadequate for dealing with the past. At a meeting of RightsWatch in Westminster last night, the first Police Ombudsman Baroness Nuala O’Loan was scathing, describing the allocation of £150 million over 5 years to deal with all the issues of the past, as “a joke and an insult to the people of Northern Ireland.” The Historical Investigations Unit was “totally inadequate”. She also said Attorney …

After the Adams arrest what do we know and what has changed?

Mick Fealty on May 5, 2014, 6:52 am

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So after four days of being questioned in thirty three taped interviews, Gerry Adams emerged, if not exactly blinking into the light yesterday, then clearly very happy to be back amongst his own activists. As, it must be said, they were to have him back. For a party that twenty years ago was probably the most resilient of any political movement on these islands, Sinn Fein looked strangely lost without Adams’ steady hand at the tiller. In retrospect, the decision to arrest rather than interview under …