Sarah Harte: Violent crimes against women are systemically minimised in our society
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In Dublin at the weekend, catching up with friends, the three-year suspended sentence soldier Cathal Crotty received last week for his vicious attack on Natasha O’Brien was on every single male friend’s lips.
What jumped out to me was each man was outraged and had daughters ranging collectively from two to 18.
Phrases were used like: “I’m sorry but I just can’t get my head around it” or “sorry, just to go back to that case”.
I was reluctant to discuss it because I wanted a time out from contemplating the tsunami of violence against Irish women and the lenient sentencing that so often accompanies convictions.
Strikingly, none of my female friends cornered me to discuss the case. It’s not that they don’t care; they are unsurprised.
As women, we understand we are unsafe in Irish society — both on the streets and often in our homes.
We also know it’s an inherent truth that if we are attacked and are brave enough to try and have that attack prosecuted then justice is not something we can necessarily count on.
As Ms Kerwick, said about the Crotty case: “It’s history repeating itself.”
She was walking home from a New Year Eve’s party in Kilkenny when she was attacked.
Her attacker also walked free from court with a suspended sentence, and she, like O’Brien, was forced to speak out to demand justice.
Kerwick said: “After all these years I can’t believe things like this still happen.”
The most obvious solution is mandatory training for judges.
The judiciary is not immune to the powerful conditioning to which we are all subject in a society that routinely and systemically minimises violence against women.
I made this point two weeks ago, at an impact symposium in Limerick hosted by the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) and Haven Horizons, an organisation that runs accredited training in conjunction with TUS for frontline professionals in domestic, sexual, and gender-based abuse (I work for them).
We discussed how continuous professional development training for professionals who deal with the victims of domestic, sexual, and gender-based crimes has the potential to radically change outcomes.
In the context of violence against women Patrick O’Donovan TD, the further and higher education, research, innovation and science minister, spoke about the importance of training and education in “changing attitudes towards all forms of violence and harassment”.
In the Crotty case, the attitudes of another part of the apparatus of the state to violent crimes against women were also spotlighted.
Diane Byrne, a spokeswoman for the Women of Honour group which campaigned against abuses of female members of the Defence Forces remarked that the Defence Forces’ handling of the Crotty case “beggars belief”.
She made the point that Crotty’s admission of guilt should have been the moment for them to act, to send a message of zero tolerance and to stress the urgency of the matter.
She has little faith that there has been any cultural change in the Defence Forces saying they “still just don’t get it”.
In a statement, the Defence Forces have said they unequivocally condemn the attack and any conviction in a civilian court may have implications for the retention and service of members of the Forces.
Disciplinary proceedings against Crotty have begun which could lead to his removal from the army.
But you would wonder if the outcry over the weekend with thousands protesting the Crotty sentence in Cork, Dublin, and Limerick might affect the outcome.
The suggestion that the Defence Forces might be tipped into acting by the public reaction rather than being solely motivated by a fundamental and clear understanding of why somebody who has been found guilty of a vicious assault on a woman is not fit to serve is a reasonable one.
Especially when you consider that naval petty officer and heavyweight boxer David O’Gorman continues to serve in the Defence Forces almost a year after he pleaded guilty to a violent attack on an ex-girlfriend which left her with a permanent eye injury.
O’Gorman punched her in the head somewhere between five and 10 times receiving a suspended sentence from the same judge as in the Crotty case.
In court, O’Gorman was described as an accomplished boxer on the Naval Service boxing team. Could the fact he is a good boxer have anything to do with the fact he continues to serve?
It’s not a far-fetched question to pose as character references in legal cases continue to be a complicated and vexing matter.
Frequently letters which are a last-ditch plea for more lenient sentencing and aim to build context about a person’s life are handed into court saying although Mr X is a convicted rapist, he’s a brilliant GAA player.
People are entitled to mount a defence, and human beings can be multi-sided. Plus, a justice system must at all times aim for balance.
Sentences are to some extent personalised, but we need data on what a judge considers when sentencing somebody and why.
During the Crotty case, Commandant Paul Togher gave evidence that Crotty was an “exemplary”, “courteous”, “professional”, and “disciplined” soldier.
It’s hard to reconcile this description with the man who used Natasha O’Brien like a punch-bag, then afterwards boasted about the attack on Snapchat: “Two to put her down, two to put her out.”
The salient point is even if Crotty did conduct himself professionally as a soldier his conviction for a vicious assault on a woman trumps that service.
On the topic of character references more generally, High Court judge David Keane has said character referees for convicted criminals should come to court to be cross-examined.
It’s common sense that you can’t say what you want in court without fully standing over it and what you say should be relevant to the sentencing.
Everything a victim says is rigorously tested and anything submitted in defence should similarly be tested.
Tánaiste and Minister for Defence Micheál Martin has requested a report from the Chief of Staff on the O’Gorman case.
Will this report be made public because some of us would like to know the reasoning behind O’Gorman staying in his job after conviction for a serious assault of a woman who no longer smiles because it throws her damaged eye out of sync?
A functioning judicial system — and a functioning state — should ask how we appropriately penalise a person who has committed a crime, protect society from them, and send out an unequivocal message that such behaviour won’t be tolerated.
As Natasha O’Brien said: “What happened to me in that courtroom, left me with the same feeling as I had when I was attacked two years ago.”
Lavinia Kerwick summed it up cogently: “When a woman is forced to walk into court, give evidence in front of a judge, and hear them say what happened was absolutely wrong before they are expected to deliver justice, when that doesn’t happen it actually destroys you.”
- If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please click here for a list of support services.