Claire Sugden: Newtownabbey horror ‘will happen again’ without action to tackle violence against women, warns former justice minister

Claire Sugden was speaking to the News Letter after her successor in the role of justice minister, Alliance leader Naomi Long, said she would bring a paper to the Northern Ireland Executive in the coming days that would introduce a strategy to protect women and girls from violence.

Mrs Long said it is “hugely important” to focus on issues surrounding domestic violence following the horrific incident in Newtownabbey on Friday.

Independent MLA Ms Sugden said: “If we don’t do these things this will happen again. There’s going to be another one, undoubtedly. There will be more unless we take these actions. It’s an inevitability that this will happen again.”

Police in north Belfast launched an investigation after the deaths of two women and a man in an apparent murder-suicide in Newtownabbey.

It is understood that a man stabbed his mother and girlfriend during the incident on Friday night.

The three bodies were found at separate properties.

The victims have been named locally as Karen McClean and Stacey Knell. The man was Ms McClean’s son, Ken Flanagan.

Mrs Long said while she could not comment on the specific incident in Newtownabbey, it is a tragedy when violence is perpetrated against women.

She said it is “hugely important” to focus on issues surrounding domestic violence.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that does not have a specific strategy to tackle violence against women and girls, something the minister said she intends to change through her paper to the Executive.

“I’m also bringing forward a Miscellaneous Provisions Bill which will be at the Assembly in May and that will deal with a wide range of issues which Sir John Gillen identified in his review of serious sexual offences,” Ms Long told BBC ‘Sunday Politics’ programme.

“We need to see progress made, for example in education in terms of relationship and sex education, in terms of dispelling rape myths, in terms of dealing with attitudes around victim blaming.

“We need to deal with things like street harassment, which is hard to prosecute as crimes but nevertheless has a huge impact on women’s lives.”

Mrs Long also defended the decision to make the proposed legislation gender-neutral.

“We want to recognise that there are men, there are people who are transgender, there are those who are in same sex-relationships who are also subject to domestic violence and abuse,” she added.

Ms Sugden, meanwhile, said: “We had a matter of the day motion in the Assembly last week in response to what happened to Sarah Everard, and all of the Assembly, from all political parties, called for a strategy to deal with violence against girls and women.

“There is some controversy around this in that people sometimes ask why we are focusing on women and girls, but I would always make the point that it’s disproportionately women and girls who are victims of this type of behaviour.

“It’s not all men who perpetrate this kind of behaviour, but it is all women who feel unsafe. We need to get to the root cause of that.”

She continued: “I’m all for justice after the event but I would much prefer it if we could prevent that from happening, and I would want to understand why it is happening.

“It is an Executive-wide approach that is needed. It’s n ot just for the justice minister although she may lead it. It’s for education, it’s for communities, if it’s a gender-based strategy then it must be an Executive wide thing.”

The East Londonderry MLA warned: “If we don’t do these things this will happen again. There’s going to be another one, undoubtedly. There will be more unless we take these actions. It’s an inevitability that this will happen again. It happens too regularly for this to be the last, and that means there needs to be intervention or change.”

She added: “What happened in Newtownabbey is an example of how tragic the consequences of violence against women can be. Three people, two of them are women, have lost their lives and we need to understand why. They are going to be added to these statistics if we don’t tackle this and understand why a man has committed this behaviour.”

She said a long-term, societal change is required: “It’s about attitudes, general societal attitudes. It’s about some of the language around women, the stereotypes. There is a lot that can be done through education. I don’t think it’s going to be an overnight fix. Any of these things will take a long time to permeate into society, but there are practical things the government can do.

“I would like to see education looked at. What are we teaching in schools that could be conducive to preventing this type of thing? Mental health care has a big part to play in this as well. We can’t just say ‘these people are bad’ and leave it at that. We have to understand what has led them there, and that tends to be trauma within the home, poor education, not having someone in their life so that they can be taught and guided in the right way. That’s why men have a role in this, so that young people can be helped and guided in the right way.”

Marie Brown, from Foyle Women’s Aid, said: “Our Domestic Violence Bill is much weaker than the bill in England and it is certainly much weaker than the bill in Scotland. It doesn’t include housing, and it doesn’t include legal aid. Domestic violence happens more to women and we have high levels of domestic violence in Northern Ireland, without the resources being put into stopping it.”