Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I move amendment No. 9:

In page 6, line 31, after "person," to insert the following:

"or any offence under the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act 1997".

This is a straightforward amendment. By way of introduction to it, I should say that as I said on Second Stage, I very much welcome the provisions in Part 2 of this Bill and the necessary changes being made to the victim impact procedure introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 1993. We are all aware very obvious flaws were exposed in that Act, notably the fact there was no provision for families of victims of homicide to give statements to the court as to the impact of the crime on them.

Section 5(2) of the 1993 Act simply applies to a sexual offence, an offence involving violence or threat of violence and an offence of attempting or conspiring to do the same. Section 5(3) provided that where a court is determining the sentence, it shall, upon application by the person in respect of whom such an offence was committed, hear the evidence of the person in respect of whom the offence was committed as to the effect of the offence on such person upon being requested to do so. As AdVIC and others pointed out, this did not leave room for the families of victim of homicide. Judges in the Central Criminal Court, in particular, and in the Circuit Court in manslaughter trials were very conscious of this and gave provision to families to make victim impact statements. I am delighted the Minister has brought forward amendments to section 5 of the 1993 Act to clarify the law on victim impact statements.

All my amendments to section 4 — many of them are technical — are designed to improve the procedure for victim impact statements and to ensure it is as effective as possible for the victims of crime while being mindful of the rights of the accused. We are also aware this applies to an accused person who has been convicted of an offence where the court is determining sentence.

Amendment No. 9 extends the range of offences to which section 5 of the 1993 Act would apply. I have not made any changes to the sexual offences in section 5(2)(a). Following on from our debate earlier, I would say that it is somewhat ironic and symbolic of the state of our law on sexual offences that the definition of a sexual offence is contained in the Criminal Evidence Act 1992 rather than in a code on sexual offence. The UK Sexual Offences Act 2003 is a much better model and in which a much clearer hierarchy of sexual offence is set out. That is just a by the way comment.

Amendment No. 9 seeks to amend section 5(2)(b) of the 1993 Act and to extend the category of offences to which victim impact statements apply to offences not only involving violence or the threat of violence to a person but also to any offence under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997. That is relatively confined and I do not seek to go beyond that.

I am conscious there are offences of violence not contained in that Act. The difficulty is that there offences in the 1997 which may not be covered by that global definition of an offence involving violence or the threat of violence. I am thinking of offences such as harassment, which involves the creation of fear but which may occur without an actual threat of violence, or the offences of abduction of a child in sections 16 and 17 of the 1997 Act, for example.

The Minister might be willing to see the provision for victim impact statements extended to offences of that nature within the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 but they are not currently covered or at least the section is ambiguous. It may be that an offence of abduction of a child would involve the threat of violence but equally it might not if the person abducting is known to the child. It might not involve overt violence or the threat of violence.

I am simply trying to see if there is a way to broaden it out while keeping it within a relatively confined category of offences. The Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act seems to be a good codifying Act and the application of section 5 of the 1993 Act should apply to all the offences within that. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say.