Policy and Research

JusticeIsNow Policy and Research Note

Youth Courts, Sexual Violence, Consent, Diversion and Intervention

Core position: JusticeIsNow supports the principle of not unnecessarily criminalising children and young people. However, this must not mean that serious sexual harm is minimised, left unexamined, or diverted without a robust therapeutic, safeguarding and accountability plan. Where the system tolerates a non-criminal outcome, it must also tolerate responsibility for the safety, learning and intervention pathway that follows.

1. Context and emerging concern

JusticeIsNow has observed a marked difference between adult court practice and feedback emerging from Youth Court spaces. In adult court observations, we have not commonly heard barristers pursue outdated lines of questioning around complainants’ clothing. Barristers have also told us that such approaches are now widely viewed as ineffective and are unlikely to be well received by juries.

By contrast, we remain concerned about recurring feedback from Youth Court contexts. At the end of 2025, JusticeIsNow received a referral from a young person’s ISVA involving a young complainant who had been questioned about the length of her shorts. This raises concerns about whether some lines of questioning continue to place inappropriate focus on the complainant’s behaviour, routine, resilience or credibility rather than the alleged harmful conduct.

Youth Courts are closed courts. Their restricted nature creates a challenge for visibility, learning and accountability. Cases may be heard by a District Judge, a regional judge, or a bench of three magistrates, but external understanding of practice, culture and questioning in these cases remains limited.

2. What is being missed when Youth Court proceedings are closed?

JusticeIsNow recognises the importance of protecting children’s privacy. However, the lack of visibility means that concerning practice, patterns and barriers may only emerge through referrals, ISVAs, practitioners, families, advocates or sentencing remarks. Further disclosures from those working in the system suggest that important information about harmful behaviour, group dynamics, alcohol, family context and barriers to justice can become visible only late in the process or through limited public records.

3. Consent, understanding and accountability

A common argument in cases involving young people is that they do not understand consent. JusticeIsNow’s experience, and feedback from practitioners, suggests this requires more careful analysis. Police officers often undertake detailed work to test understanding, and in many cases young people do demonstrate an understanding of consent, boundaries, force, coercion, intoxication and refusal.

The question, therefore, may not always be simply whether a young person understands consent in the abstract. It may be whether they chose to override another young person’s boundaries, used pressure or group power, acted in entitlement, or failed to inhibit behaviour in a context involving alcohol, peers, family stress or masculinity norms.

4. The need for credible intervention, not silence

JusticeIsNow supports proportionate diversion and child-centred justice. We also understand the move away from unnecessarily criminalising young people. However, where a 14-year-old is involved in a serious or group sexual assault and receives no criminal sentence, a vital question remains: what is the diversionary plan?

A non-criminal outcome should not be confused with a no-intervention outcome. If the justice system decides that formal punishment is not appropriate, there must still be a serious plan for safeguarding, accountability, therapeutic work, education, monitoring and prevention of further harm.

5. Acknowledging uncomfortable realities

Any effective response to young people who cause sexual harm must be developmentally appropriate and trauma-informed. It must also be honest. Sexual violence is not only caused by ignorance. In some cases, offenders gain enjoyment, control, status or a sense of power from the harm caused. It is dangerous to ignore this dynamic simply because the person who caused harm is young.

The purpose of acknowledging power, gratification and entitlement is not to demonise children. It is to design interventions that address the actual drivers of behaviour rather than offering superficial consent education alone.

6. What could an effective intervention look like?

JusticeIsNow calls for urgent thinking, research and practitioner debate on the design of interventions for young people who have caused sexual harm, especially where behaviour involves alcohol, group offending, family stress, school exclusion, coercion, humiliation, image-based abuse or peer status.

Intervention component

Purpose

Indicative content

Specialist assessment

Understand risk, needs and context

Developmental history; safeguarding; trauma; family context; school history; substance use; peer dynamics; offence pattern; victim impact.

Accountability work

Move beyond denial or minimisation

Responsibility-taking; identifying choices; recognising coercion, fear, humiliation and impact; challenging entitlement.

7. Learning from TeenBoundariesUK

JusticeIsNow’s founder previously ran TeenBoundariesUK, (15 years ago) which secured Comic Relief funding to work with young males who had been excluded from school for sexual misconduct. That work drew on principles of radical Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and early Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skills. This experience suggests that intervention must be more than information-giving. It must work with shame, defensiveness, impulses, entitlement, avoidance, peer pressure and the capacity to make different choices.

8. Proposed call for submissions

JusticeIsNow is calling for submissions from ISVAs, youth justice practitioners, barristers, solicitors, magistrates, judges, academics, social workers, safeguarding leads, educators, parents, and people with lived experience. We are particularly interested in evidence, reflections and anonymised examples relating to:

·       Youth Court questioning in sexual violence cases and whether adult court progress is being replicated in Youth Court practice.

·       How consent is currently assessed by police, prosecutors, courts and diversionary services.

·       Examples of diversionary plans where young people have caused sexual harm.

·       Practitioner concerns about alcohol, group attacks, family context, school exclusion and peer influence.

·       What young complainants and families experience when Youth Court processes are opaque.

·       Whether sentencing remarks and available public information provide enough learning for the sector.

·       What effective, ethical and evidence-informed intervention for young men and boys should include.

Please email info@justiceisnow.org

9. Proposed future debate

JusticeIsNow proposes to convene a future roundtable or public debate on the following question:

If the justice system does not criminalise a young person who has caused serious sexual harm, what must it do instead?

The debate should bring together survivor advocates, youth justice specialists, criminal barristers, magistrates, judiciary representatives, ISVAs, police, academics, safeguarding professionals and therapeutic practitioners.

JusticeIsNow believes this is an urgent gap in the national conversation on sexual violence, justice and prevention. Adult courts have shown signs of moving away from some outdated and harmful defence narratives. We need to understand whether the same progress is being made in Youth Courts, where proceedings are closed and visibility is limited.

We call for urgent thought, research, submissions and debate. Children who cause sexual harm must not be written off. Survivors must not be minimised. Diversion must mean intervention. Prevention must mean confronting the behaviour honestly, safely and effectively.