Fergus O'Dowd
Question:1250. Deputy Fergus O'Dowd asked the Minister for Justice the number of persons convicted of coercive control in 2019, 2020 and 2021; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [1203/22]
View answerWednesday, 19 January 2022
Questions (1250)
Written answers
As the Deputy may be aware, under the provisions of the Courts Service Act 1998, management of the courts is the responsibility of the Courts Service, which is independent in exercising its functions. This includes the provision of information on the courts system.
To be of assistance, I have made enquiries with the Courts Service on the number of persons convicted of coercive control in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
The Court Services advises that many of those offences have been sent forward for trial to the Circuit Court. At this time, the system in use by the Courts Service in the Circuit Courts cannot produce reports for specific offences. The reports which are available are by offence category rather than for individual offences and categories of offences can contain multiple offences. Therefore it is not possible to provide the number of persons convicted in the Circuit Court.
The Court Service has provided statistics on the number of persons convicted in the District Court and the number of persons sent forward for trial to a Higher Court that were recorded in the District Court for the period Jan – Dec 2019, Jan – Dec 2020 & Jan – Dec 2021. That information is included in tabular form below.
I am further advised that Courts can only provide data where offence codes provided on the system were used by prosecutors. Prosecutors may have used uncoded free text offences and any such offences would not be included in the data provided.
|
Year |
No. of Persons Convicted in District Court |
No. of Persons sent forward for trial from District Court to a Higher Court |
|
Jan - Dec 2019 |
0 |
1 |
|
Jan - Dec 2020 |
1 |
4 |
|
Jan - Dec 2021 |
0 |
13 |
|
Total |
1 |
18 |
As the Deputy will be aware, the landmark Domestic Violence Act 2018 recognises in law the devastating impact that coercive control has for those it is inflicted on.
A number of media reports recorded convictions for coercive control last year at Circuit Court level and I welcome those. The sentences handed down for the hideous crime of coercive crime will help convey the message that perpetrators cannot act with impunity and will change how as a society we view and tackle such heinous behaviour. The bravery of the victims in these cases is to be commended. It is hoped that as more convictions follow, other victims of coercive control will feel confident to come forward.
Question No. 1251 answered with Question No. 1179.