A 50 per cent increase has been recorded this year in the amount of rape and child sex abuse cases received by the Central Criminal Court compared to the same period last year.
This increase is made all the more striking by the fact that the 1997 total broke all records with 100 cases, 73 rape and child abuse cases plus 27 murder cases, being received by the court. The increase also comes at a time when Garda statistics show a fall in the overall levels of reported crime.
The volume of cases in the Central Criminal Court has been increased dramatically since the enactment of the Criminal Law (Rape) (Amendment) Act 1990 which transferred rape cases from the jurisdiction of local Circuit Courts around the State. Yesterday, Mr Justice O'Higgins fixed trial dates for eight murder and 14 rape cases, bringing to 90 the total number of trials scheduled so far from May 25th up to March 1999.
The court adjourned nine other cases which were not ready to proceed to the next listing session on June 25th. Further cases will have been returned by the District Court by then.
Eight of the adjourned cases involved sexual allegations and one of these involved the man at the centre of the C case. He is charged with having unlawful sexual intercourse with a young girl from the travelling community who later had a pregnancy terminated.