Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 2015

2.—(1) Where the Director of Public Prosecutions has the conduct of criminal proceedings, a member of staff of the Public Prosecution Service may disclose relevant information relating to a witness for the prosecution in those proceedings to a prescribed body for the purpose of enabling that body to advise the witness about support services provided by the body, or offer or provide support services to the witness.

(2) For the purposes of this paragraph—

(a) “relevant information relating to a witness” means—

(i) the name and address of the witness;

(ii) the age of the witness;

(iii) any telephone number or e-mail address at which the witness may be contacted; and

(iv) such other information relating to the witness or the proceedings concerned as it appears to the member of staff of the Public Prosecution Service to be appropriate to disclose for the purpose mentioned in sub-paragraph (1).

(3) In this paragraph—

“support services” means services involving the provision of information, advice, support or any other form of assistance to prosecution witnesses in criminal proceedings;

“prosecution witness”, in relation to any criminal proceedings, means a person who has been or may be called to give evidence for the prosecution in such proceedings.