Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI) has observed with dismay and concern the increasingly commonplace but unacceptable use of the term ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to refer to cases of ‘defilement’ under the 2006 Sexual Offences Act.

ON behalf of Rape Crisis Network Ireland, which has commissioned the law faculty at NUI Galway to undertake the largest study conducted in Ireland into the causes of under-reporting and cases ‘falling out of’ the judicial process, I ask any readers who may have been the victim of unwanted sex, to consider (confidentially) telling those researchers of their experience.