VICTIMS OF rape and sexual assault should have individual legal representation in court, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre has said.
Launching its annual report yesterday, the centre said figures showing there had been a 25 per cent decline in sexual offences in five years were misleading because of the under-reporting of sexual crime.
Last year the centre counselled 336 people who claimed to have been sexually assaulted, but only one-third had reported the assault to the Garda and there had only been seven convictions to date.
Chief executive Ellen O'Malley-Dunlop said Ireland remained bottom of 20 European countries when it came to reporting sexual crime. The reasons for under-reporting here were complex, but the court system was perceived to "re-victimise" those who had been sexually assaulted.
"One of the obvious reasons is that a victim of this heinous crime is only a witness to the case with no separate legal representation. This must change. The prosecution represents the State and the accused has a legal team. The victim has nobody. The balance is raised definitely in favour of the accused," she said.
"We have the highest fallout rate of reporting and actually getting to court in Europe. We have people who attend therapy here, but, by the time people are ready to go into court, the delay can be so long that they do not want to be revictimised."
According to the Central Statistics Office, gardaí investigated 1,477 sex crimes in 2007, down from 1,989 in 2003.
The centre maintains that the figures do not reflect reality. Its hotline receives about 13,500 calls each year, including more than 10,000 counselling calls.
Last year 320 victims of rape and sexual assault were accompanied by volunteers from the centre to the sexual assault treatment unit at the Rotunda Hospital - double the 2001 figure.
The centre also called for a referendum to amend the Constitution and reinstate strict liability for sex with minors.
The legal crisis that arose when the Supreme Court struck down the law relating to statutory rape on the basis that it did not allow for the defence of honest mistake, has still not been resolved.
Fianna Fáil TD Mary O'Rourke, who is chairwoman of the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution which is examining the issue of a referendum on childrens rights, said it might be possible to protect children without recourse to a constitutional referendum. "The legal advice coming to us is saying that in relation to the issue of the protection of children, we should be able to do that by legislation. That's some of the advice we have received, but not all of it," she told RTÉ.
She said the parties represented on the committee would each put forward proposals later this month. These will be examined by legal experts with a view to forming a consensus on how a referendum would take place, if one were needed.
It is hoped to bring forward a report to Government in November which would form the basis for a possible referendum.
