Light sentencing in Ireland re crime

[LadyEloise1]

Anyone else sick of the light sentences given in Ireland for crime.
I've just seen that a man who raped and sexually abused his youngest sister starting when she was 6 and he was 12 was given 7 and a half year sentence for the rapes. He was given consecutive sentences totalling 5 years for the sexual assaults but the judge decided that sentence would run concurrently with the 7 year term. FFS !!!
Apparently his remorse (yeah right ), the fact he pleaded guilty and he had no previous convictions were mitigating factors. The judge suspended the final 18 months of the sentence, despite the judge saying that the victim was a vulnerable and defenceless child, the offences were humiliating and degrading, that the victim had a right to bodily integrity and that she lived in fear.
Will this child rapist be out in 3 years ?
I am utterly disgusted with this sentence.

I see that the fragrant Mackers was at the launch of the Rape Crisis Centre annual report at which Paula Doyle spoke.

Maybe, just maybe something will be done, although given Macker's record I'm not sure the timeline of the end of this year will be achieved. there is much "scoping and discussion" to take place yet. But we shall see.

From Indo....
Addressing the audience at the launch, Ms McEntee said the issue of counselling notes being disclosed in trials has “come up time and time again”.
“It is a very clear action under the zero-tolerance strategy,” she said.
“There has been work done and we are now finally at the stage where scoping action has commenced, preliminary discussions have taken place with the DPP and the first of those meetings with all of the stakeholders will be taking place in a couple of weeks and we expect to have that work done by the end of the year.”
The minister also said there will be a stakeholder group that will include organisations like the DRCC to make sure a “victim-centred voice is at the heart”.

Helen McEntee moved to tears by rape survivor’s statement and says barriers preventing victims coming forward must be removed | Irish Independent

She's all talk @hastalav, sadly.
FG and FF have been long enough in the job that things could have changed.

Everything they do seems to be Reactive and not Proactive doesn't it?

Well at least the Wokey Wokey wing appears to have been put to bed early for now, and the National Women's Council have taken a punch in the gut, not merely for having a biological man (transwoman) on their Board either. You could not make this stuff up really. But hey ho.

Shes absolutely useless, admitting that this issue has come up time and time again and they're only now getting round to thinking about doing something. How many times did this issue have to come up for something to be done? Surely once should have been more than enough for it to be realised that legislation was needed, my heart aches for the women who had to be retraumatised by this.

I mean we all know how long things like consultations and drafting legislation take in Ireland and we're at the end of this Government, I am fully expecting this to fall between the cracks because its an issue that effects mostly women.

Like @hastalav said its always reactive, always on the back foot as if no one could forsee anything like this happening.

@miri1985 writes
".........the issue has come up time and time again and they're only now getting round to thinking about doing something........"

Remember the outrage when Ashling Murphy was murdered ?
The promises made that things would change.
That was January 2022.

And yet we still vote them back in. 🥲

The very brave Natasha O'Brien gave a speech at Pride in Dublin today, calling for implementation of the proposed hate crime legislation.

The only problem is... violence against women would not be a hate crime because being a woman is not one of the 'protected characteristics'.
The Garda website's definition is
Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person to, in whole or in part, be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on actual or perceived age, disability, race, colour, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender.
Transgender people have a protected characteristic i.e. 'gender', whatever that is.
Women are a sex, and have been written out of legislation.

It's really important that we keep calling male violence against women just that: male violence against women. Calling it 'Gender-based violence' instead just isn't factually precise enough.

Natasha seems to think the proposed hate crime legislation would solve what she sees as the problem in what happened to her and no-one has taken her aside to point out that the new legislation would do nothing for her.

It suits McEntee and Co to have Natasha out there lobbying for the new laws...or am I being too cynical about Irish politicians?

I agree with you about the use of 'gender-based', I object to the use of US-inspired euphemisms that obfuscate the reality of what happens to too many women and serves to let men off the hook during public discussion.

I never understand the concept of a hate crime, does it really matter? If I batter a random person on the street because they had a protected characteristic or because they were in the wrong place, the outcome is the same that someone has been injured, why on earth does my motivation matter? Like the people who were chased with knives a few weeks ago in Phoenix park, if it was done because of their sexuality or not, the outcome is the same.

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/06/30/delays-to-new-sentencing-guidelines-criticised-in-wake-of-cathal-crotty-case/

https://archive.ph/3rW5n

Talk about a go slow or whatever they're up to taking so long. I hate that the Government hide behind this seperation of powers nonsense when its a Council that was established by the Government and surely could have put some accountability or timelines into the legisation establishing it.

"Speaking on RTÉ's The Week in Politics, Social Democrat TD Róisín Shortall said new sentencing guidelines expected to be delivered by the Judicial Council had still not been published almost five years after the council was established and the Government did not seem to know when they might arrive.
Minister of State at the Department of Higher and Further Education, Niall Collins, said the Government has no role in the process because of the separation of powers but that he expects the guidelines to be published “quite shortly”."

You can never be too cynical about Irish politicians, sadly @UtopiaPlanitia

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2024/0701/1457608-cathal-crotty-defence-forces/

DPP is appealing the Crotty sentence

The taxi driver rapist Raymond Shorten apparently has already been convicted of other serious sexual offenses, unless they were very recent how on earth was he a licenced taxi driver in 2022 when he raped those women

"The Central Criminal Court heard that Shorten has also been convicted of other serious sexual offences - the details of which cannot presently be reported to protect the identity of the victim."

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2024/0701/1457564-raymond-shorten-court/

Nolan as always
https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2024/0710/1459228-circuit-court/

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2024/0708/1458804-raymond-shorten-court/
He targeted a grieving 7 year old child...how many other women and girls has he attacked?

You don't even need to click into these stories anymore to know its Nolan.
I guarantee you if that hate speech law comes in he will probably give 10 year sentence🙄

How on earth can Nolan be so reliably soft on these vile men?!

Does he think that because these men have images that for some reason it doesn't really count as actual abuse? Does he think that because no child has been abused by these men to make the images that this makes their crime somehow less than the evil people who did make the images that these men have in their possession?

Where is Nolans moral compass?!

He doesn't have one.

I too wondered how Shorten was allowed a taxi license @miri1985.

Once again Martin Nolan gives a pathetic suspended sentence to a vile man, Piotr Grycuk who was found with 10,000 images of child sexual abuse material, 30 of which were described as being in the most seriously explicit category.

I just don't understand 🥲

Hi everyone. I'm a long time lurker but this is my first post. The sentencing in Ireland is a disgrace, and I agree with a previous poster that you can tell who the judge is based on the light sentence handed down, especially for crimes involving women and children.

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2024/0323/1439512-mark-dolan/

I've copied a link to another example. Unfortunately I'm the mother of one of the victims on this case. We did our best at the time to highlight our frustration, like many before us. While it was picked up by the media it quickly lost momentum and the cycle continues sadly. I fear the same will happen with Natasha, similar to Aisling Murphys case. Lots of noise but no tangible actions. We felt victimised all over again with the sentence handed down in our case. To add insult to injury we since discovered that the creep is living very close to our homes, 900m to be exact. And this is perfectly legal. I seen him one day when I was bringing my daughter home from dancing. Thankfully she didn't see him but this is our new reality, we've had to adjust our behaviours to make sure our kids don't see him.

I could go on but my point is what can we actually do?? Helen McEntee bangs on about increasing the maximum sentences but so what, they're never handed down. She should be increasing the minimum sentence. I feel so frustrated by it all and get so upset for our daughters.

@Northsidemammy sending love to the girls and all your families and disgusted for you all. Are we really expected to believe that these crimes are a once off "out of character" behaviour for these men. No previous convictions used to reduce sentencing when we as women know that women and girls rarely report, when we do we are dismissed/concerns minimised, and even if the man is charged it rarely results in conviction. Even with hard video evidence of what he did to your daughter's he got off...how many other girl's has he done this to who maybe didn't tell their parents or there was no video or no way to track him down. All that sentence has taught him is to avoid cameras. Condition of sentencing is that he stays away from area but he's allowed to live near you...what a joke. My heart breaks everytime I have to have a conversation with my daughter about the dangers of creepy men...just entering teen years and already has experienced many examples.

Thanks believerinbiology. I made reference to the first offence shite in my victim impact statement, I said whether or not it was the first offence (firsttime getting caught) made no difference to the victim, the impact on them was the same. Judge Nolan didn't like that, he gave out to the DPP for letting me include it. The mind boggles. And the guards basically confirmed if there'd been no video evidence he never would have been caught. There are so many more cases like this that are never reported. And who can blame them.

The other scary thing was some people's attitude to it, including other mothers! Some people were of the view that because he didn't touch them it wasn't actually that bad. I just don't understand that view. He traumatised them. This country has learned nothing from our past attitudes to women and children.

Jesus it just gets worse... women and children scolded yet again for their feelings/reactions least it makes the "poor perpetrator" look bad. If I remember rightly Nolan is fond of giving out to women and children for comments about their attackers. If men don't want to look bad they could, you know, not do bad stuff. It's well known that the more men get away with the more they escalate their behaviour.

I am so so sorry this has happened to your daughter and absolutely disgusted that no barring order was put in place to keep that pig away from his victims.
It feels like Helen McEntee has been the worst minister for justice we have had, all talk little action, and passes the buck a lot.

Oh @Northsidemammy that is just so awful for you and your child.

MN has daughters himself. And a wife. He was a Garda.

How can he not empathise with victims ?

I just don't understand.

Politicians tell me their hands are tied. They can't interfere with the judiciary.
But many of the judges presiding today owe their positions to political patronage.

And Helen Mc Entee and other politicians will continue to talk the talk and give us platitudes when the next awful case is publicised.

Luke Shaw has been given a suspended sentence for placing mobile phones facing the shower and toilet in a bathroom shared by him and his housemates, female and male.
His phone was cleared to factory settings by him so the evidence was unable to be retrieved.

Judge Baxter described the offence as "...a gross breach of privacy and trust" whose effect was "long lasting" and had occurred in "the most private of places"

Shaw had not followed through on plans to seek counselling despite his parent's willingness to help with the cost of it.

Judge Baxter sentenced him to two years in prison yet then suspended the sentence.

ffs