Sexual Offences

A former police officer who was convicted of a number of sexual offences involving children has been sentenced to one year of imprisonment and two years on licence, after the Court of Appeal in Belfast found his suspended sentence to be unduly lenient. The 85-year-old man committed his most recent o

Sexual offences cases in Northern Ireland took an average of nearly two years to be dealt with last year, according to new figures. The Department of Justice said the median processing time for cases where the main offence was in the sexual offences category was 667 days in 2018/19.

Convictions for sexual offences are the most likely to be appealed but among the least likely to be successfully overturned, according to new analysis by The Irish Times. The newspaper has published its own analysis of around 300 criminal cases considered by the Court of Appeal since February 2017.

A woman who was sexually harassed at work for over six months after she returned from maternity leave has been awarded €40,000 in the Workplace Relations Commission. The woman stated that she was sexually harassed on a regular basis in front of managers of the retail store she worked in, and th

Lawyers for a man acquitted of rape last year have told a court that his legal entitlement to anonymity is being breached by Google search results of his name. Mícheál O'Higgins SC told Mr Justice Michael White that when his client's name is placed into the Google search engine the res

Independent News & Media (INM) has been ordered to pay a fine of €111,000 for contempt of court in relation to an Irish Independent article which led to the collapse of a rape trial. The Director of Public Prosecutions launched proceedings for contempt against the publisher and two journali

Suspected sex offenders should remain anonymous until charged so long as they have a reputation to protect, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland QC has said. The new Lord Chancellor, who backed a campaign by Sir Cliff Richard and Paul Gambaccini to impose a ban on revealing the names of people arrested

The Court of Appeal has reserved its judgment on whether to alter the sentence of a man who was jailed for three years after raping his wife, who asked a judge not to send him to prison. The 38-year-old man was found guilty following a trial at the Central Criminal Court of raping and sexually assau

Complaints of sexual harassment by solicitors in England and Wales rose sharply in 2017/18 off the back of the #MeToo movement, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has said. The regulator's Upholding Professional Standards 2017/18 report reveals that it received 70 complaints about sexual hara

The representative body for barristers has voiced concern about proposals to offer independent legal representation to complainants in rape and sexual assault cases. The Bar Council of Ireland has said it is concerned that the "addition of another legal team to the trial process is unlikely to impro

A man who was convicted of raping his 14-year-old niece when they were living in the same house in 2012 and 2013 has lost an appeal against his conviction. Finding that the man’s complaints regarding the trial judge’s charge and directions to the jury were not based in reality, Mr Justic

A judge in the Court of Appeal has said it was "almost inconceivable" that one of Ireland's most experienced criminal trial judges would simply forget to instruct the jury on the presumption of innocence in a rape trial. Mr Justice John Edwards yesterday quashed the conviction of Mohamed Okda, 33, w

A judge in the Court of Appeal has warned against “populist pressure” to pass a law that would limit the discretion of judges handing down sentences, The Times reports. A reform due to be passed in the Dáil this week would see judges forced to have regard to new sentencing guideli

On BBC Radio 4's Law in Action this week, Joshua Rozenberg looks at the topic of rape myths and juries. Do jurors believe in rape myths? A coalition campaigning to end violence against women said a third of people questioned in an opinion poll thought that sex without consent was

A Supreme Court judge has criticised the conduct of Irish rape trials for allowing denials from the accused to be read to the jury without cross-examination. Writing in the Irish Judicial Studies Journal, Mr Justice Peter Charleton and researcher Ciara Herlihy said the practice was not allowed in th