Abstract
Discusses three Northern Ireland Court of Appeal decisions concerning the role of victim impact reports (VIRs) on sentencing in sexual violence cases, and illustrating how courts may be unable to rely on victims' accounts of the harm they suffered because the experts' reports were unreliable. Details key features of the cases, the use of VIRs as evidence-based harm, and why improved guidance on their use is needed in Northern Ireland.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 478-484 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Criminal Law Review |
| Volume | 2016 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| Early online date | 11 May 2016 |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2016 |
Access to Document
- Victim impact reports in Northern Ireland: Victims’ voices influencing sentencing?
© 2016, Sweet and Maxwell This is an open access Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction for non-commercial purposes, provided the author and source are cited. This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in the Criminal Law Review following peer review. The definitive published version [Moffett, L 2016, 'Victim impact reports in Northern Ireland: Victims’ voices influencing sentencing? Crim. L.R. 2016, 7, 478-484] is available online on Westlaw UK or from Thomson Reuters DocDel service .