Trial venue and process: the victim and the accused

• Author: Muireann O'Briain
• Position: Chief Executive Officer of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre
• Pages: 113-119

TRIAL VENUE AND PROCESS:

THE VICTIM AND THE ACCUSED

MUIREANN O’BRIAIN*

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) provides a

counselling and therapeutic service to the victims of rape and

sexual assault. There are now 18 Rape Crisis Centres (RCCs)

in the whole of Ireland, of which Dublin has the largest

clientele. We treat 750 clients a year and we respond to

10,000 genuine counselling calls. These are calls to our 24

hour, 7 days a week telephone helpline. Calls are received

from victims of sexual assault, survivors of child sexual

abuse, and from family members and friends of victims. Of

the clients we see in the Centre, 50% have suffered adult rape

or sexual assault, 41% have suffered child sexual abuse, and

8% have suffered both child sexual abuse and adult assault.

12% of the people who access our counselling services are

male, while 17% of those accessing the telephone helpline

are male.

Rape and sexual assault have very serious

consequences for the victims, with life-long consequences for

those who do not access counselling and therapeutic services.

Depression and psychiatric illness are common in such

victims, and there is also a strong link between suicide and

sexual abuse, particularly for young men.

It is for these reasons that the DRCC campaigned to

have the jurisdiction for the trial of rape and sexual assault

brought into the High Court and to be given the same status

as the crime of murder. We have not moved from that

position, and are supported in it by the Network of Rape

Crisis Centres, which represents 17 of the RCCs in Ireland,

including the DRCC. We know that rape is used as a weapon

of war to humiliate and degrade women; it is the same urge to

demonstrate power and control over another person that

provokes a person to rape another. Our society has to place

that type of act on a comparable level with the act of murder,

because it removes the right of the victim to the application

2003] Trial Venue and Process 113

* Chief Executive Officer of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.