Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

Young girls who are victims of sexual predators will be challenged on their clothes, make-up and sobriety, on their presence at pubs, discos and other venues for adults, on what they said, how they appeared and acted, on what they pretended or boasted about their past and about their experience. On all these issues their truthfulness and credibility will be rigorously tested by skilled lawyers acting for perpetrators and alleged perpetrators with a view to creating a reasonable doubt about the private state of knowledge or belief of the accused. That is the consequence of the Supreme Court decision. The court has told us in the House that if we want to protect children by reference to their age, we must allow the issue of honest belief to be opened up and to become a live issue in every court case, and to have cross-examination on that issue.

Let us be under no illusion as to what the consequences are. The change will make cases, which are already difficult, far more difficult. The change will make victims of sexual predation, who are already fearful and reluctant, far more fearful and reluctant. This will tend to create a further chill factor in the criminal law on child protection and will add a new layer of difficulty for those whose job it is to protect children from sexual abuse and to bring abusers to justice.

The public has been repeatedly told that the recommendation of the Law Reform Commission in 1990 that there should be a defence of honest mistake was an obvious, worthwhile reform that was left lying for 16 years by an indifferent and incompetent Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and by successive indifferent and negligent Ministers, including myself. That is a black lie.

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