8th international EFJCA Conference | 30 November & 1 December 2026 | Portlaoise (Ireland)
Bio Susan Leahy
Susan Leahy is a professor at the School of Law at the University of Limerick. She is the director of the Centre for Crime, Justice and Victim Studies (CCJVS) and co-founder and co-director of the All Ireland Network for Sexual Violence Research (AINSVR). Susan researches in the areas of sexual violence, domestic abuse and the rights of victims of crime.
She has published her research in this area widely in both national and international journals and books (including her most recent co-edited book: Researching Rape Trials: Methods, Ethics and Empirical Perspectives (2026) with Eithne Dowds and Siobhan Weare). She has also completed a number of funded research projects, including a study of rape trials (The Realities of Rape Trials in Ireland: Perspectives from Practice (2021)) and media reporting on sexual violence (Words Matter: Guidance for Reporting on Sexual Violence in Ireland (2024)).
She is currently working on a Research Ireland/COALESCE funded research project which assesses survivors’ lived experiences of sexual violence trials in Ireland (Lived Realities: Victim-Survivors’ Experiences of Irish Sexual Offence Trials; www.ul.ie/lived-realities).
Presentation ‘The Support Needs of Survivors of DSGBV: Developing Integrated, Best Practice Responses within the Criminal Justice System’
Victims of crime now in Ireland now have legally protected rights to information, support and protection. Survivors of DSGBV who are engaging with the criminal justice system have very specific needs and concerns which require effective, trauma-informed responses at all stages of the criminal justice process, including the period after a trial concludes.
This paper considers the support which survivors require at each stage of the process, how effectively these supports are currently being delivered in Ireland and what a best practice response to survivors’ needs might look like. In particular, the paper considers the importance of co-ordinated responses between State and non-State agencies and, importantly, where necessary, between criminal and civil law processes (e.g. between criminal trials and family court processes in the context of domestic abuse).
