Youth Justice Agency boss Stephen Martin says Woodlands was not appropriate facility for ‘Vicky’
A young woman who experienced ‘systemic failings’ in her care from when she was ‘a little girl’ spent considerable time in custody as a child despite that never being an appropriate setting, the Stormont Justice Committee has been told.
Stephen Martin, Chief Executive of the Youth Justice Agency (YJA), raised the case of Vicky, not her real name, a young woman who whose inadequate care was the subject of a critical report published by the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children & Young People (NICCY) last year.
The former Children’s Commissioner Koulla Yiasouma, publishing the report in January 2023, said ‘Vicky’, who was then 21, had spent most of the previous six years deprived of her liberty.
She had since July 2018 been in England and before that had been in the YJA’s Woodlands Juvenile Justice Centre (JJC) on remand for the best part of a year.
Following the report’s publication last year the Western Trust, who has been ‘Vicky’s’ legal parent apologised for some of the failings identified in the report.
At a recent briefing of the Stormont Justice Committee Mr. Martin told MLAs the Woodlands JJC had not been an appropriate facility for ‘Vicky’.
"The Committee may be aware of this: the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People (NICCY) produced a report last year or the year before called 'A Failed Child', which was the story of Vicky in the Western Trust, who spent time with us.
"It tracks her from birth right through and all the missed opportunities to support Vicky. She spent a considerable time with us, and we were never an appropriate facility. It does not happen often, but, when it does, it can have a massive impact on the child, their family and us,” Mr. Martin told the committee.
Referring to the case last year the former Children’s Commissioner said: “When we were alerted to the fact that a child with a learning disability and mental health issues, who was in the care of the State, had been in the Juvenile Justice Centre (JJC) on remand for the best part of a year, I made the decision that we would formally investigate.”