Province creates new role to prosecute sex crimes

The P.E.I. government is creating a new position in the Crown Attorney's Office focused solely on prosecuting sex crimes and offences involving children.

"It is our hope that this additional Crown prosecutor will provide comprehensive assistance to all victims of sexual assault in their dealings with police and the courts," Jordan Brown said in a statement in the House Tuesday.

The new position is in response to a review done by the province on supports for victims of sexual assault.

That included training 42 representatives from Victim Services, the Crown's office, and all P.E.I. police forces on techniques for interviewing victims, gathering evidence for forensic analysis and "the neurobiology of traumatic experience," said Brown. 

Adding a new prosecutor will bring the number of prosecutors with the province to eight, in addition to the director.

P.E.I.'s director of prosecutions Cindy Wedge is giving up days spent mainly behind a desk to take on the new role.

"It's been created because sexual offences require an inordinate amount of human resource investment in order for victims to feel like Crowns are properly preparing for cases and for the public to have confidence in the work that we're doing," Wedge said. 

Sex offences more time-consuming

P.E.I. Crown prosecutors handle between 4,200 and 5,000 criminal code charges a year and Wedge said there was a need for an additional prosecutor.

The province decided to dedicate that position to handle sexual offences, which are often more complex, more sensitive, and tend to require more preparation than many other offences, she said.

My preference is to be in a courtroom rather than behind a desk.— Cindy Wedge

Her office handles 45 to 50 sexual offence cases a year — most involving more than one charge — in addition to sexual exploitation and child pornography charges.

"The goal that we always try to accomplish, is to have victims believe that the criminal justice system, or at least the prosecution service, has done everything in its power to prove the offence," said Wedge.

Concentrating on sex crimes will allow her to spend more time preparing complainants to testify in court and working more closely with police in deciding when charges are laid.

Wedge will also handle cases involving mentally ill offenders — her office gets about 15 of those a year.

Those found not criminally responsible for their crimes due to mental illness are often detained in hospital. Their cases are overseen by the Criminal Code Review Board, and reviewed annually.

"A fair amount of work needs to be done for those hearings, to make sure that the public is protected and that the individual is properly dealt with in criminal justice system."

Familiar territory

As Director of Prosecutions for the past 14 years, Wedge has continued to prosecute some cases in court, but most of her days have been spent overseeing the office.

"Personally the work I find most satisfying is in a courtroom and I'm looking forward to it," she said.

Overseeing sex crimes is actually familiar territory for Wedge — when she first joined the Crown attorney's office in 1990 her role was to prosecute sexual offences and offences against children, a position she held for five years.

Took pay cut 

After that time, sex offences ended up being dispersed among all the prosecutors in the office.

"It's an area in which I'm particularly interested. I very much enjoy being in the courtroom. And I'm looking forward to the opportunity," she said.

Wedge asked to be assigned the new role, and took a pay cut in the process.

"I'm probably heading toward the latter stages of my career. My preference is to be in a courtroom rather than behind a desk."

She'll take on the new assignment once a replacement is found for the director position.

The justice minister said his department is considering other improvements to support victims of sexual violence, including more oversight, and alternate ways to interview victims.

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