More than 100 people attended a protest in the Royal Square on Saturday and Miss O’Connor said she would organise further demonstrations and a protest march until the Attorney General or someone from the government speaks to her.
The mother of two has helped bring 13 local men to justice by posing as children on dating websites.
‘No one has even bothered to speak with me on this. I have had politicians agree to meet me and then stand me up. There is just no interest in the issues I’m raising and I find it extremely worrying.
‘All it would take is for the Attorney General or someone from the States to at least take the time to sit down
and share their thoughts with me but nobody seems interested,’ said Miss O’Connor.
The 26-year-old is calling for a minimum of three years in jail for anyone convicted of a child sexual offence. She has also called for anyone convicted of such offences to be placed on the Sex Offenders Register for life.
Currently, anyone convicted of child sex crimes faces community-based or custodial sentences of varying lengths, from a few months upwards.
Miss O’Connor is also calling for what she has termed an ‘independent’ prosecutor from outside the Law Officers’ Department to handle all child sex crime cases.
Earlier in the year Attorney General Robert MacRae said, in response to an online petition calling for offenders to face more prison time, that Jersey is already tougher in sentencing paedophiles on some offences than the UK.
In that statement he said that Jersey, as an independent jurisdiction, is not bound by UK sentencing guidelines but does turn to them for ‘assistance’ when assessing the seriousness of sexual offences against both adults and children.
‘Sentencing policy can alter from time to time,’ Mr MacRae added, but since 2016, the court has accepted that ‘sexual offences involving children should be treated more severely’.
‘Royal Court decisions since 2016 have consistently shown this to be the case,’ he said. When contacted for a further comment a spokesman from the Attorney General’s office said: ‘The Attorney General made a statement when the question over sex-offender sentencing was first raised.
‘We won’t be making any additional statement at this time.’
