Victims' charter to permit review

A new victims' charter, due to be published within weeks, will allow people who feel they have been unfairly treated by the justice…

A new victims' charter, due to be published within weeks, will allow people who feel they have been unfairly treated by the justice system to seek a review of their case.

The chief executive of Victim Support, Ms Lillian McGovern, said yesterday that the DPP, the Courts Service, the Garda and the Prison Service had "signed up" to the new charter.

She was commenting on the case of a Co Westmeath woman who was removed from school by her mother in 1971 and who said she was confined to her home and sexually abused for the next five years.

The woman said the Garda recently told her the DPP had decided not to prosecute her family because of the lapse of time involved.

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Ms McGovern said the charter would allow an individual, such as this woman, to ask the DPP to review his/her case.

Ms McGovern said the woman seemed to have been lost by the education and health systems. No inquiries seem to have been made about her when she missed immunisations conducted in the schools, she said.

The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform confirmed the publication of a new victim's charter near the end of the month.