In The Courts

[EmilioButragueno]

Scary stuff.

[BruidheanChaorthainn]

Imagine trying to get a girl convicted because she was going at your cock when you woke up. You’d be laughed at and completely ridiculed.

[EmilioButragueno]

And waiting a year to do it. Very strange all round.

[LionelRitchie]

At the risk of being flippant, and I really do feel for the poor girl, every husband on the island could find themselves facing similar charges.

[Thomas_Brady]

That’s fucked. Jailed for a bit of tit… There has to be serious want in the lady in question.

[ScorpioLyons]

Scary scary stuff.

[EmilioButragueno]

Got to be more to it. You’d hope.

[fenwaypark]

I think lads have difficulty commenting on this case. It seems an outrageous decision based upon what is reported above.

[myboyblue]

@EmilioButragueno

Got to be more to it. You’d hope.

Surely if there was more to it, this would be the forum for which that would come out?

[myboyblue]

@fenwaypark

I think lads have difficulty commenting on this case. It seems an outrageous decision based upon what is reported above.

You’d wonder if her relationships became strained with family, and her social circle was lost to her, because they too felt as stunned as we do by the decisions she’s made here in relation to him.

[TheUlteriorMotive]

I don’t think there’s more to it other than lads need to be more careful as to what they do and who they do it with than was the case previously.

If an allegation is made against you as was the case here then you really have to say no more to the person involved and not get involved in explanations and wait to give a statement under caution with the benefit of legal advice.

[Juhniallio]

Now is very much the wrong time to be in front of the courts on any sex based cases / assault stuff. Sentences for lads like this seem to be outrageous while the lad on the other thread with repeated physical and mental abuse of his partner on the other thread only get 3 years. Having said that, the pendulum has long been on the side of men. If it swings a little the other way for a few years it might not be a bad thing overall for society.

[LionelRitchie]

@EmilioButragueno

Got to be more to it. You’d hope.

Serious disparity between what seems the consensus reaction here to reading it and the judge’s read of it.

[count_of_monte_crist]

what are they saying on Tatle life?

[myboyblue]

Not such a good thing for Ó Leidhin however.

[Gman]

There is a fella near me who was convicted of a rape offence around 15 years ago. His case was a week after a case in Clare was heard and a man followed a woman home and raped her in here house and got a lenient sentence (which was subsequently increased). So this chaps case was the week after, the judge made some damning comments and he was found guilty and sentenced to 7 years. A year later the conviction was quashed a retrial ordered and he was set free. He had always claimed it was consensual, she claimed he took advantage. A messy, messy situation absolutely, but the timing fucked him right up. As far as I recall, the retrial never happened after the allegations were withdrawn. But he served his year in jail over it anyway.

[count_of_monte_crist]

Judge was out of order.

[Gman]

my memory is hazy enough of it and just knowing his cousin who kept me informed at the time. I’m assuming you would have kept a keener eye on a local big case and obviously have more interest in the proceedings.

[Cheasty]

That’s nearly as bad as the verdict against Amber Heard.

I almost had to double take that the statement quoted here hadn’t been mixed up with the separate case further below in this post.

“This convicted man used sexual violence as a method of violence towards me,” she told the court.

She said he had violated her body, her mind, her sense of self and her sense of security in the world. It had impacted, she said, on every facet of her life.

The woman said the night of the assault was the last night she would ever go to sleep believing she was safe and the thought someone would sexually violate her while sleeping was beyond comprehension. She said the stress and fear did not end when the attack ended and it had replayed again and again.

In the aftermath, she said she felt grief and distress beyond explanation and felt totally disconnected from reality. The woman said relationships with her family had become strained. She said she had lost her social circle and many friends and had not been able to progress in her career. She described to the court becoming depressed and suicidal and making an attempt on her life.

The woman said she believed that if society supported victims better, she would not have had to deal with such devastating losses.

The only person responsible for the relationships and friendships she had lost was Ó Leidhin, she said, and yet she had been shamed and blamed because of what he did to her.

She said she had to pay for counselling sessions and doctor’s appointments.

The woman said it had taken three years from the time she reported the assault before the trial took place. This was completely unacceptable she said, and forced victims of sexual violence to be stuck in a state of trauma. Giving evidence and being cross examined was unbelievably distressing and she felt she was going to have a heart attack.

She said that giving her victim impact statement did not put an end to the trauma for her, and she would have to deal with it for the rest of her life. She said she would not forget it but she would not let it define her. She said she would leave everything said to her in court that was unfounded and untruthful as well as all her pain, guilt, silence and shame with the sexual offender who was sitting in court and was responsible for it all.

Just as an aside to a particular line of the above, my aunt went in for what should have been a routine operation on her gall bladder almost nine years ago. She had both her ureters severed by the very well known person who performed the operation and nearly died. She suffered significant negative health effects and serious trauma as a result. She has been trapped in a legal vortex ever since, pushed from Billy to Jack and back again, which seems no nearer to ending now than at any stage.

This is the below the case I’m talking about, sentencing for which took place today. 3 and quarter years for this versus 18 months for O’Leidhin given the wildly differing severity of the offences does seem a bit out of kilter.

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2022/0726/1312309-garda-sentence/

A serving garda who tortured and terrorised a woman ill with cancer has been sentenced to three-and-a-quarter-years in prison.

Paul Moody, who was stationed at Irishtown Garda Station in Dublin and is currently on suspension, pleaded guilty to a charge of coercive control of the woman.

Nineteen other charges, including assault, theft, criminal damage and a threat to kill the woman, were taken into account.

The 42-year-old garda beat, kicked, punched and choked the woman over a two-and-a-half-year period.

He also sent her over 31,000 threatening, abusive, degrading and demeaning texts and phone communications, told her he hoped she would “die of cancer” and “die in pain” and threatened to kill her.

Unbeknownst to her he also took pictures of her naked and threatened to circulate them online.

He stole her cancer medication and the woman told the court she could not afford to replace it.

He turned up at a hospital she was in and told her he only came to watch her “bleed to death”.

The hospital had the garda removed and barred him from returning.

Judge Martin Nolan said today Moody was a “bully” who made the victim’s life “hell”.

He harassed her hugely and abused his position in An Garda Síochána to get information. He said Moody engaged in a catalogue of vile and humiliating criminal behaviour.

The judge said it was hard to imagine why he did it, but he did. He said he had disgraced himself and, to some degree, his colleagues in An Garda Síochána.

Gardaí praise victim for ‘immense courage and resilience’

Gardaí have praised the victim’s “immense courage and resilience”.

Detective Inspector Cormac Brennan said the victim could be proud of her personal courage and she has shown other victims that when an abusive partner says no one will believe you, they are wrong.

He said that coercive control is about power, about isolating a partner and breaking that person down. It is, he said, a heinous degrading reign of control and overwhelming.

He also said that the power is even more overwhelming if the abuser holds a position or profession of respect in the community as in this case a garda.

Gardaí also appealed to anyone else in an abusive relationship to “please take that first step” and speak to someone.

“You have done nothing wrong,” he said, “you do not need to accept it, you are not alone, please take that first step, you will be believed”.

He also said that gardaí are committed to tackling abuse and it does not matter who the abuser is.

[Mac]

Delighted to read things like this. The need for fitness people to post everything on social media isn’t a good thing

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