Sarah Harte: ‘Good guys’ hide behind their status to commit domestic abuse
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Speaking outside the court following the verdict last Friday, Meav McLoughlin-Doyle, a brave and articulate woman, thanked gardaí for their support. However, she also stated that it had taken her time to disclose the violence “because of his job”.
During the case, it emerged that Mark Doyle had turned up in a squad car and full uniform to a school meeting to discuss a disclosure made by his stepson.
Ms McLoughlin-Doyle said: “An authority figure doing that holds weight. It hasn’t been easy.”
It can be particularly difficult to pull back the mask on an abuser who holds status in the community. Domestic abuse perpetrators are often adept at manipulation, constructing good-guy facades while, behind closed doors, it’s an entirely different story.
Doyle is not the first garda to be convicted of domestic abuse crimes. In 2022, former garda Paul Moody was jailed for three years and three months for coercive control of his terminally ill ex, Nicola.
It would be interesting to know whether the statistics on the percentage of gardaí who perpetrate domestic violence are consonant with the broader population or higher but this information does not appear to be available.
There is some international research which suggests that a relationship exists between traditional police culture and domestic violence with families of police officers experiencing higher rates of domestic violence.
What we do know is that gardaí, like the judges who hear domestic abuse cases and the lawyers who try them, are prey to bias, harmful assumptions, and victim-blaming when it comes to domestic abuse. We are all subject to powerful societal conditioning which encourages us to trivialise domestic violence compared to violence by a random stranger on the street.
Yet, these attitudes have the potential to impact crucial decision-making by gardaí when carrying out risk assessments and understanding the specific vulnerabilities of domestic abuse victims. This is why specialised training is so crucial because it is only through training that harmful attitudes can be reversed.
As it happens, I’m currently on a continuous professional development course on domestic abuse and coercive control run by Haven Horizons, an organisation dedicated to preventing domestic abuse (full disclosure: I work with them) in conjunction with the Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest with several female members of An Garda Síochána.
The good news is that these whip-smart, dynamic women inspire confidence. The fact they are on the course demonstrates that An Garda Síochána is seeking specialised training to better understand the complex dynamics surrounding the issue and respond to it.
A gender balance in the force is important for all sorts of reasons but if the guards are to play a pivotal role in combating domestic abuse, they must have the right attitudes and skill set to deal with this highly gendered crime.
A growing body of research suggests that recruiting, training, and promoting female gardaí has the potential to profoundly impact the traditionally male-dominated culture of policing and to improve the response to domestic, sexual, and gender-based abuse.
One study conducted by the University of Zurich found that “as female representation increases among officers in an area, violent crimes against women in that area, and especially domestic violence, are reported to the police at significantly higher rates”.
Another finding was that rates of murder of women by their intimate partners decline the more female police officers there are.
So how are we doing on that front? Justice Minister Helen McEntee said in February that the total percentage of female gardaí stands at over 28%, which is above the European average. A new Eurostat statistic this month suggests that the EU average for female police officers is 18.5%. A comparative figure in England and the UK would appear to be 35%. Still, in the latest Garda recruitment competition which ended in February, 32% of all applications were said to come from women which is encouraging.
Whatever the internal culture of An Garda Síochána, their public-facing position on domestic violence has changed over the last three years.
They’ve come a long way in the 10 years since the 2014 Garda Inspectorate report which criticised the force’s culture towards domestic violence, including a perception among many gardaí that domestic violence was not their problem, rather that it was a private matter.
It can’t be coincidental that this organisational transformation has happened at a time when a sizeable part of An Garda Síochána’s leadership hierarchy are now women.
This shift was first noticeable outside the Courts of Criminal Justice following the sentencing of Daniel Kane in 2021 for coercive control. Chief Superintendent Finbarr Murphy sent out a crystal-clear message to domestic abuse victims saying: “We will back you 100% if you come to us in relation to this.”
This message was reinforced last week when Inspector Adrian Kinsella of the Garda National Protective Services Bureau said outside the Central Criminal Court:
“The effect of domestic abuse on children cannot be underestimated.
Thanking Ms McLoughlin-Doyle and urging other victims to come forward, Insp Kinsella added: “You have shown to any other person out there in an abusive and controlling relationship that you will be listened to, and you will be heard.”
But an uncomfortable truth is that we all play a part in this prolific social problem that has far-reaching social consequences.
We must call out violence against women for what it is, a form of intimate terrorism. Silence reinforces the implication that a victim is to some extent to blame for her own abuse.
An Garda Síochána has slowly recognised that this complicated crime requires its unique response. We need others in the criminal justice system to recognise the same truth because our legal system is ill-equipped for the complexities of domestic abuse.