13,000 people accused of sexual offences not prosecuted by DPP in last 10 years

Eva Osborne

13,000 people accused of a sexual offence were not prosecuted by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in the past decade.

The new figures released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the DPP pursued around one third of sexual offence files submitted to it by gardaí.

The figures show just over 6,300 suspected sex offenders were prosecuted out of over 19,600 accused people.

Insufficient evidence was listed as the main reason behind the majority of the decisions not to prosecute.

However, there is a relatively strong conviction rate for people who were prosecuted, with about three quarters of cases in the past decade resulting in a conviction, in either the District, Circuit, or Central Criminal Court.

Rape survivor Ciara Mangan said the figures show the "gruelling" effort, and evidence needed to get a case to court in the first place.

"The first thing that I said when I got the call that they had decided to prosceute I said to my garda liason officer: 'Oh my god, they believe me'."

"But she said: 'They've always believed you'.

"So I think that's really important, the narrative to really instill is that this is not that they don't believe you, it's just that there was unfortunately not enough evidence to go forward."

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help.