Chloe Hanna, PhD researcher (Queen’s University, Belfast)
This paper will explore the post-acquittal vulnerability of persons accused of serious sexual offences in Northern Ireland. Drawing on qualitative interviews, it proposes an extension of defendant anonymity until the point of conviction as a means to address the stigma and shame experienced by accused individuals in the unique context of Northern Ireland. This paper is derived from the author’s ongoing PhD study and focuses on the issue through the theoretical lens of stigma (Goffman, 1963) and shame (Braithwaite, 1989).
In Northern Ireland, individuals accused of serious sexual offences are currently anonymised until they are charged, as a matter of police practice. In September 2023 section 12 of the Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 will come into effect and place this practice onto a more secure statutory footing. This amendment gives effect to the earlier recommendations made in the Gillen Review: Report into the Law and Procedures in Serious Sexual Offences in Northern Ireland (2019). The Gillen Review examined numerous arguments and debates around defendant anonymity, including giving consideration as to whether there should be an extension until the point of conviction (Gillen, 2019, pp. 396 – 399). Ultimately, the recommendation was for there to be no change to the current practice of pre-charge anonymity, albeit with the introduction of statutory regulation (Gillen, 2019, p. 405). This paper focuses on one argument in favour of extending anonymity which was rejected in the Gillen Review (Gillen, p. 404): that an allegation of sexual offending is uniquely stigmatising, leaving those accused in a vulnerable position when they return to society post-acquittal.
This paper will draw on qualitative interviews conducted as part of the author’s ongoing PhD research. Five interviews which have been conducted to date will be explored, to examine the stigmatisation, shaming, and vulnerability experienced by individuals who have been accused of sexual offences and subsequently acquitted. The interviewees include two legal professionals, two representatives of support organisations, and a parent of an individual who accused of rape in Northern Ireland. From these interviews, it is argued that there are core contextual factors unique to Northern Ireland which impact cultural attitudes and treatment toward those accused of sexual offending. This arises from Northern Ireland’s position as a post-conflict, transitional society with a distinctive legal and social culture (Dickson, 2018). Three factors are considered in this paper as intensifying responses of stigma and shame: the tight-knit nature of Northern Irish communities; the significance of religion and resulting moral conservatism; and the presence of paramilitary organisations.
The first factor, that Northern Ireland comprises of tight-knit communities, stems from the relatively small population of 1.9million people (NISRA, 2022a) and the high degree of segregation between its main communities, Catholic and Protestant, that characterises residential life (Hughes et al., 2007). As a result, there is a sentiment of strong in-group loyalty among those who live in Northern Ireland. This presents itself as extended family kinship patterns, a strong sense of neighbourliness, and a vivid sense of locality and community identity (Brewer et al., 1998; McAlinden, 2002). This ‘ghettoization’ within Northern Ireland has effectively contributed to the existence of more tight-knit communities (Brewer et al., 1998, p. 582), and a sentiment that ‘everyone knows everyone’ (Moore, 2019). This paper considers how strong social bonds mean that news of an alleged perpetration of sexual offences may spread very quickly and may have a greater effect on the exclusion and disintegrative shaming of the accused within their community.
Secondly, in a formal sense, Northern Ireland is regarded as a particularly religious jurisdiction with heightened levels of moral conservatism. The 2021 Census returns showed that 79.7 percent of the population identified as Christian (NISRA, 2022b), significantly higher than the 46.2 percent recorded in England and Wales (ONS, 2022). As Mitchell (2005) highlights, religious tradition in Northern Ireland informs the values, lifestyles, expected behaviour and decorum of communities. It is this sense of religiously informed concepts and ideas, rather than strict commitment to religious practices, which has created a ‘moral conservatism’ (Evans and Tonge, 2018). In the public sphere, expressions of that conservatism, as well as attitudes of shame and stigma, are reflected in respect of issues relating to sex, sexuality, and reproductive rights. For instance, it is exemplified by the criminalisation of the purchase of sex and efforts to prohibit commercial sex venues (Maginn and Ellison, 2017), alongside the lengthy struggle for decriminalisation of abortion and provision for same-sex marriage (Thomson, 2016; Evans and Tonge, 2018), where Northern Ireland was, until recently, out of step with the rest of the United Kingdom. Stigmatisation toward sex offenders is regarded as particularly salient among conservative communities (Rosselli and Jeglic, 2017), routinely conjuring up feelings of anger, disgust, and fear (Olver and Barlow, 2010). Existing literature suggests that this is evidenced in Northern Ireland, where negative public perceptions are heightened compared to the rest of the United Kingdom (McCartan, 2004; McAlinden, 2007). The moral conservatism is also one potential understanding of why Northern Irish communities have a more collective response to sexual offending than any other single social or political issue (McAlinden, 2015, p. 330). This paper will draw on individuals’ experience to explore how this moral conservatism influences both external stigmatisation, by shaping public perception and treatment of persons acquitted of sexual offences, and self-stigmatisation, including how this perception is internalised by the accused, leading to potential psychological harms.
The final factor for consideration is the existence of paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland. Criminal justice was a controversial aspect of the conflict in Northern Ireland (Mulcahy, 2006), resulting in paramilitaries becoming a ‘de facto’ police service and acting as an alternative avenue through which community members could report crime (Swaine, 2015). As the response to crime was controlled by the paramilitaries, an alternative form of ‘justice’ and ‘policing’ emerged outside of the formal state system, with punishments ranging from verbal warnings to violent physical assaults (Rickard and Bakke, 2021). They include curfews, fines, acts of public humiliation, property damage, intimidation, expulsion from the local area or the country, beatings, shootings, or even assassination (Silke, 2000; Knox, 2002; Monaghan, 2004; Feenan, 2018). Sexual crime is regarded as attracting particularly harsh ‘punishment’ (Monaghan, 2004; Silke 2000; McAlinden, 2015). Post-conflict, paramilitaries remain active in local communities, leading to heightened risk of extra-judicial violence in Northern Ireland. This paper will explore concerns around the risk of social suffering and victimisation that is experienced by those accused of sexual offences as a result.
In conclusion, the argument of this paper is that due to the unique context; comprising of moral conservatism, the existence of paramilitary organisations, and the tight-knit nature of communities; individuals accused of sexual offences in Northern Ireland should be regarded as being in a uniquely vulnerable position. In light of this, there is justification to review the law on defendant anonymity to assess its potential to mitigate the stigma and shame experienced post-acquittal, by withholding the identity of persons accused of serious sexual offences in Northern Ireland until the point of conviction.
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Defending Vulnerability 