Sexual Offences: Final Report
The Sexual Offences: Final Report was tabled in parliament on 25 August 2004.
The report recommends:
• better education and training for police, lawyers and judges
• improved police responses to all complainants, but particularly Indigenous and NESB people, children, and people with a cognitive impairment
• reducing the time taken to get to trial for children and people with a cognitive impairment
• introducing a specialist approach to the listing of sexual offence cases in the Magistrates’ Court
• reducing the number of times children and people with a cognitive impairment must give the same evidence
• tightening cross-examination regulations and barring the accused from questioning the complainant or other vulnerable witnesses in person
• making testimony by closed-circuit television routine and allowing videotaped testimony for children and people with a cognitive impairment
• restricting access to the complainant’s counselling records
• widening the definition of allowable evidence and who can give it
• the establishment of a working party to examine potential responses to young sexual offenders.
The report, an individual chapters, can be downloaded below. For a hard copy contact the commission on (03) 8619 8619 or by emailing law.reform@lawreform.vic.gov.au The report can be posted for free within Victoria.
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- Sexual Offences - Final Report (PDF 1.8MB)
- Sexual Offences - Final Report Summary (PDF 199KB)
Preface, Summary and Recommendations (PDF 265KB)- Chapter 1: Introduction (PDF 111KB)
- Chapter 2: Improving Police Responses (PDF 156KB)
- Chapter 3: Increasing the Responsiveness of the Criminal Justice System (PDF 186KB)
- Chapter 4: Making it Easier for Complainants to Give Evidence (PDF 260KB)
- Chapter 5: Improving the System for Child Complainants (234KB)
- Chapter 6: Improving the System for Complainants Who Have a Cognitive Impairment (PDF 100KB)
- Chapter 7: Judges' Directions to Juries (PDF 269KB)
- Chapter 8: The Mental Element of Rape (PDF 155KB)
- Chapter 9: Other Legislative Changes (PDF 98KB)
- Chapter 10: Dealing with Juvenile Sexual Offenders (PDF 103KB)
- Appendices, Bibliography
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| Place of Publication: | Melbourne |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Victorian Law Reform Commission |
| Date of Publication: | 2004 |
| Number of Pages: | 528 |
| Copyright: | Victorian Law Reform Commission, Victoria, 2004 |