DUP leader warns UUP MLAs about prioritising 'internal grievances' over 'profound public safety' issue

The DUP leader has weighed in on divisions within Jon Burrows’s Assembly team ahead of a key vote on the issue at Stormont next week.

Alliance has tagged the issue on to wider justice reforms and says it will press ahead with the plans, despite rumours it may be stalled in light of the violence across Northern Ireland this week.

The Ulster Unionist Party’s Stormont group is split on whether to back a DUP petition of concern which could block the changes regardless of how the Assembly votes. Mr Burrows and Diana Armstrong are understood to support the DUP’s bid, but a majority of their team are refusing, arguing that it is an abuse of cross-community protections.

There are also a number of UUP Assembly members who don’t support Mr Burrows policy of keeping the threshold at 10. He says the Alliance plan is “dangerously misguided and completely out of touch with the reality unfolding on our streets, schools and online”.

In his weekly email to DUP members, Mr Robinson said the Alliance approach “is beyond stupid”.

“Its dangerous. We have a mechanism to stop it in its tracks but so far some unionists who agree with our position, are failing to take the action required to stop it.

“I am grateful for the cooperation of Jon Burrows and Timothy Gaston but now the holdouts should question their conscience. We have already seen how petty party politics allowed bad law on climate change and education to pass. Surely, they can’t contemplate repeating the same mistake on an issue of such profound public safety importance.

“The UUP MLAs need to consider if their internal grievances are more important than working together with the rest of us on these most fundamental issues about the age of criminal responsibility.

“Whilst we know the Open Border Brigade appear to have no reluctance of removing criminal justice protections at a time when strong law and order is required, those unionists who fail to sign will have to answer for themselves”.

Jon Burrows told the News Letter: “This week alone, we have witnessed masked youths, many under 16 if not younger, rioting, burning buses and setting homes alight. Yet under this amendment, if a 13-year-old torched a Glider bus, inflicted GBH, or threw a petrol bomb at a journalist or PSNI officer causing life-changing injuries, police would be powerless to arrest or properly investigate them. The PSNI could not even utilise bail conditions to prevent youths reoffending during periods of extended disorder. This is a vital public protection tool that would be stripped away.

“That is not justice. It is an abdication of it.

“The vast majority of youth offending is already addressed through diversionary measures. But stripping away the ability to investigate serious crimes denies justice to victims and leaves communities dangerously exposed. The sexualised harassment of female teachers and pupils that is occurring all too frequently in our schools would, for those under 14, no longer constitute a criminal offence at all. This sends entirely the wrong signal at entirely the wrong time.

“I must also note that the Justice Minister has accepted to me that this amendment has not been assessed for its impact on violence against women and girls, despite the Executive’s own strategy to tackle this. That is a serious and glaring omission.

“What is needed is a properly developed Youth Justice strategy, not rushed, ill-considered amendments that tie the hands of the PSNI and embolden those who would do harm.

“Given the current climate in Northern Ireland, the disorder, the violence, the fear in our communities, I frankly cannot understand how the Alliance Party believes this approach is appropriate. This amendment demands far greater consultation, scrutiny, and sober reflection. I would urge all parties to think very carefully before fundamentally changing our justice system on the strength of a single backbench amendment.”

Fresh concerns have also been raised by former top police officer Jim Gamble, a leading child safeguarding expert.

Mr Gamble told the News Letter: “If people cannot see the need to pause and reflect on the age of criminal responsibility after the week Northern Ireland has just endured they never will.

“It’s not about abandoning a change in the age, it’s about delivering appropriate and workable change that focuses on the individual child’s development rather than a blanket cliff edge.

“There is very little logic in the current approach which seems much more about politics than child and community protection. How do you justify an issue as complex and important as this, one that as yet has no consensus, being driven through on an amendment rather than via a considered and evidence based Youth Justice Bill”.

Changing the age to 14 is supported by the Justice Minister Naomi Long and her Alliance party. They cite the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s recommendation that the minimum age for criminal responsibility should be at least 14 years of age and preferably higher.

In October 2022, the Department of Justice held a public consultation to hear views on the proposal that the age should be raised to comply with this recommendation.

It was backed by a plethora of publicly funded rights organisations, some of whom would prefer a raise to 16 – with no exemptions.

Northern Ireland’s children’s commissioner Chris Quinn recently stood by his position that no child under 16 should be prosecuted for serious crimes like rape – and avoided questions about the right of young girls to have justice for serious sexual crimes posed to him by the News Letter.

He said he wants a “robust response” when children cause “serious harm” – but does not support prosecutions.