Search Results for 'Sex crimes'

A case in which a man called the Galway Rape Crisis Centre and threatened staff has been adjourned until November.

The Galway Rape Crisis Centre responded to 1,322 helpline calls, dealt with 256 new clients and delivered prevention and awareness training to more than a 1,000 people last year.

A 16-year-old Roscommon schoolgirl has told a Central Criminal Court jury that her father sexually assaulted and raped her over a three year period.

The delay in opening a sexual assault treatment unit in the city has been described as “unacceptable” by a city councillor.

Eight of the 10 people arrested last week following raids on brothels across the country have been released without charge, while two people have been charged in connection with the investigation.

A sexual assault treatment unit will open in the city within the next few weeks. The facility will initially be based in a temporary premises which is understood to be on the west side of the city close to University Hospital Galway. It will eventually be located in a permanent premises to be built on the Merlin Park Hospital campus.

If crimes are ever scaled on the amount of horror and anger they provoke, then the sexual assault of children is one that is often near the top. There are few offences that cause this sort of outrage in a community, that go to the heart of every family, that cause such division. It is the fear of such an allegation that has sadly led to a reluctance by many people to become involved in activities that bring them into contact with children in intimate situations, for fear that such an allegation may be made in these increasingly litigious times.

Is an apology enough? I don’t know. Only a person who was abused at the hands of the religious nuns, priests and brothers can answer that question. Would prosecutions help in the healing process? Yet another question I have no authority to answer.

Plans by the HSE to build a permanent sexual assault treatment unit (SATU) in Merlin Park have been put on the long finger due to budgetary constraints. A temporary facility opened last month at Parkmore.

Sinn Féin councillor Thérèse Ruane has said that the scenes in the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee last week, which have outraged people across the country, underline the need for reform of procedures in the courts service. A large group of people, mostly middle-aged and elderly men, queued up inside the court last Wednesday to shake hands with a man convicted of sexual assault against a 22-year-old woman. They had to pass by the victim as they showed solidarity with the perpetrator.