Anthony McIntyre comments on the unfairness in how the law is applied in Ireland.
During the week a teacher was jailed at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for a year. An additional two years of her three year sentence were suspended. Her crime - defilement of a student who was 16 at the time she had sex with him, while she was 23. She was said by the judge to be naïve despite her behaviour being “completely unethical and immoral.”
She was arrested at Dublin Airport a year ago after the boy’s mother had lodged a complaint with An Garda. The mother was not wrong. As a consequence of widespread clerical abuse, mandatory reporting of this type of inappropriate behaviour left her no choice. Had the case not come to court, few would ever have heard of it.
That's the law but it is not always just nor fair in its application. Not arrested during the week or any other week was a considerably older woman who has screwed more than a pupil. Instead of appearing in court she was attending a meeting in Dún Laoghaire. Maria Bailey, a crook, was seeking reselection as a parliamentary candidate to represent Fine Gael in the constituency in the next general election. While her bid is anything but plain sailing - her constituency association hugely displeased with her - that she has the brass neck to try to "swing" the vote her way is insulting to any sense of propriety and integrity in public life. If she were to prove successful, she would be in a position to make the type of legislation that sends people like the teacher to prison.
It seems unfair that the teacher should be jailed and Bailey is even being considered as a possible public representative, taking part in governing the country, or part of it anyway given that Dublin is not permitted by the British to govern the North.
The teacher was wrong although if I was 16 I would not think she was that wrong at all, instead thinking that anybody objecting was wrong in the head and should mind their own business. But in this case the laws are there for a good reason. Children and young people must be protected, often from their own desires that leave them vulnerable.
Unlike the teacher, the law is not wrong but selective in who it targets. A non-custodial sentence in the case would have done the job just as well. There is hardly any gain for society in sending someone to jail when the risk of reoffending seems so low. The opprobrium alone is enough, a career finished, a reputation in tatters. In the words of the judge, “undoubtedly by way of her misbehaviour, she has brought shame on herself, and ridicule."
She erred regarding the correct age of consent and it appears she exhibited an infatuation, not a predator's instinct for stalking the young. The teacher’s solicitor:
handed into court a report from a specialist in childhood sexual abuse. The reports stated that the teacher had no sexual interest in children or adolescents and did not qualify as being a paedophile. It described her as a naive young woman who only recently realised the seriousness of her actions and took responsibility for them. The report stated that she did not groom the boy for her own sexual gratification, that he initiated sexual contact and she was flattered by it.
The disparity in sentencing policy from the same judge is stark
ReplyDeleteThere are victims and there are victims. So a 23 year old male teacher having consenting sex with his 16 year old female student is a horse of a different color than this 23 year old female teacher having consenting sex with this 16 year old male student. The female student has more to lose given the risk of pregnancy than this male student. But it seems the sentencing Judge here did not give any weight to this male student's victim impact statement (assuming Irish courts provide for that). Because I can't imagine that this male student was really harmed by any of this and (ahem) now that he's a man he should be man enough to say so to save the poor lass. That all said, how far Ireland has come or fallen, my great-grandfather from Kerry at the age of 29 stole a cow in Tipperary and traded it for a 13 year old bride in 1860. And they lived happily ever after having and raising 10 kids my grandfather being their 9th kid. So but for pedophilia none of us would be here. And I don't say that to be flippant but having represented a number of defendants in criminal cases like this I grew weary of the national hysteria that pushes this moral agenda giving us nightmares like the McMartin preschool trial in California:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
So like I said, there are victims and there are victims.
Eoghan the kid has made some sort of a statement alleging he suffers trauma and feels his live has been ruined by all of this. How much of that is down to the media coverage or his own mother, who knows.
ReplyDeleteI think AM has covered it well though another consideration is that she was an authoritive figure with power over a vulnerable young person. While I am not equating her as a habitual peadophile but a common defence peadophiles make is that their victim was asking for it. And the law has been designed not to take such defences too seriously. I think, and even the Judge may have accepted that, she had made a genuine mistake but the law is written in almost absolute terms that there will only be exceptional cases where the court accepts the accused's defence. The question is is this one such case? Possibly, and the Court of Appeal will decide that. I think it is a sad case and not one of predator and victim.
As awful as the McMartin case, and others were, is not in any way comparable because in those cases it wasn't so much that children made false allegations but more psychologists and other experts created the allegations and coached the children. Then the media blew things out of proportion by relying on the experts opinions to taint the publics minds.