Historical Sex Abuse Cases

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:58 pm on 6 February 2018.

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Photo of Angela Burns Angela Burns Conservative 1:58, 6 February 2018

Thank you, First Minister. I do appreciate the devolved limitations surrounding this question, but in my role as an Assembly constituency Member, I am currently dealing with a number of cases of historical sex abuse, and I am having to talk to, on a regular basis, some very, very hurt and traumatised people.

On a number of occasions, there appears to be an absolute marked reluctance by the Crown Prosecution Service to take a prosecution forward, despite good and corroborated evidence, either because of changes in the law within the intervening years—if you're talking about something, say, 30 years ago, the age of being able to be tried, for example, for a crime has obviously changed, I think in 1985 or 1987—or because, in their view, it's not in the public interest. But, of course, it is in the interests of those who've been affected. I have one case where the claimants, in the end, took their case themselves to the High Court and won, and had an improvement in the prosecution or in the judgment. Is there anything the Welsh Government can do to act as a check and balance on the decisions of the CPS, and of the police, in order to ensure that we are doing justice as well as talking about justice and trying to be seen to be having justice?