Soldier beats a woman unconscious, gets a great reference from his commanding officer, avoids jail.

Greyfox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122298677#Comment_122298677

We should all think about what we are doing before we do it but when you are a human being its not that simple. Why do you feel the need to jump to assumptions? I never get into fights and I've walked down Dublins O'Connel Street about 600 times in my life.

bucketybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122298677#Comment_122298677

"How do you know somebody does martial arts?"

"Don't worry, they'll tell you."

AnnieinDundrum

She engaged with him physically? I thought she just asked him to stop.

gmisk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122299003#Comment_122299003

I don't see anywhere that she engaged with him physically in the reports.

"It appeared he had lashed out at Ms O’Brien, of North Circular Road, Limerick, after she and a friend of hers had “politely” asked him to stop shouting “f#ggot” at other people on the street, the court heard."

Anyone somehow trying to lay any of the blame for this at her door is 100 percent victim blaming. It was a hideous unprovoked attack and he is a thug.

AnnieinDundrum

ah frumy mentioned engaging physically

I thought s/he was taking about the case

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122297216#Comment_122297216

It wasn't a reference

walshb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122299003#Comment_122299003

You’re correct: She politely asked him to stop abusing people. Nothing more.

buried

Now its the woman's fault for nearly getting murdered on the street. This psychopath must have friends in high places. Make no mistake about it, This f**king gadge is a total psychopath, and he will do it again. And when he does it again, and mark these words, he will, he might even do it to a politicians child. He might even have the tenacity to do it to a politicians house, god f**king forbid. But until that hypothetical happens, nothing of any sort of civilised justice will ever happen to this brainwarped sheltered animal scumbag. You can take that to the bank.

Mike Murdock

Unless an Irish Government builds at least one if not two 1500-capacity prisons, this will keep happening.

Prison capacity is at least part of the problem.

Another is the fact that minimal sentencing is too low for serious assault cases like this. Increase that, get rid of the mitigating factors bolloxology (I was drunk, on drugs, poor upbringing, GAA player, donate money to the poor box) and we may see a change.

Otherwise, it's Plus Ca Change.

Ten of Swords

@Frumy threadbanned

mountain

the judge didn’t phone up limerick prison to check if there was space,

He weighed up the case, and decided than the victim was way less important than Crotty,

Judges, even though they see crime, criminals every day, are completely out of touch as to how those crimes affect people.

judges live in a rarified world, unaffected by crimes like this

JP Liz V1

Did both his friends and her friends just stay around watching the hammering?

walshb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122299367#Comment_122299367

The incident was likely over in seconds. 4-6 punches and then he was finished after someone (thank god) intervened. She had one friend with her, who Natasha says saved her. I’m wondering about the male passer-by. How accurate is that detail? The report mentions a passerby intervened

JP Liz V1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122299387#Comment_122299387

You'd think someone would have pulled him away, was the person who intervened an acquaintance of either?

walshb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122299396#Comment_122299396

Reading it it appears passer by was not a part of Crotty’s group. But I haven’t read any quotes from Natasha relating to this passer-by; only read a quote where she says her friend saved her.

animalinside

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122299343#Comment_122299343

I think dementia or mild cognitive impairment that is not so mild could have a fair bit to do with it.

A lot of people stay really sharp and perfect into old age. But then a lot of them slowly lose their minds and don't really live in the same world anymore.

The way the legal system or any public system is made up is that it assumes people only progress in authority with age, they never get worse. Just look at the farce presidential election in the US for the most important person in the world.

Miharo

I think it's the perpetual hypocrisy of the government with their ridiculous soundbites that annoys me the most. "Fine Gael the party of Law and Order" and "Zero tolerance for gender-based violence". It'a always about optics and saying things to create a perception that things are being done without ever actually doing anything.

I remember when they bought the Thornton Hall site 20 years ago to build a new prison and nothing has been built. Now it will be used for asylum seekers. Prisoners are constantly out on temporary release and not given appropriate sentences because there is simply nowhere to put them.

In February Helen McEntee launched a shiny new NGO called "Cuan". For any non-Irish speakers that mean quiet. Lets not mention the agency called "Cosc" that was set up in 2008 with the exact same remit and pretend it's a completely new initiative. It's so rehased they even used another 4 letter Irish word beginning with "C". Launching it with ribbon-cutting and smiling photo opportunties Minister McEntee announced with fanfare to the specially selected media "The establishment of a dedicated statutory DSGBV agency has been a priority of mine and I am confident that Cuan will be the driving force we need to ensure we deliver the initiatives and changes which will get us to a place of zero tolerance across society for all forms of domestic, sexual and gender based violence."

Maybe she meant to say zero sentence instead of zero tolerance? Has Cuan and it's new CEO Stephanie O'Keeffe made any statement on the lack of sentence given to the perpetrator of this horrendous attack. Not a word.

Sheep breeder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122298546#Comment_122298546

Agree what your saying about the martial arts lads avoiding conflict is BS, have a friend who in his youth was a serious at martial arts and when anyone looked for trouble wasn’t shy about sorting them out with his expertise and he always reckoned a lad that got away with giving a few slaps became bold more often looking for trouble and was going to do damage to some person, he usually could handle trouble without seriously hurting them.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122298322#Comment_122298322

Helping the marginalised and an improvement in law and order, takes care of both left and right wing voters. A politicians dream

Sandor Clegane

Weak sentence, from a weak Judge, in a weak system, in a weak country…everything about our justice system is limp from the top down.

But unless attitudes change this stuff will go on and on, I do wonder if people realize just how often **** like this happens and how bad it is, this is by no means a shock its just this case became high profile and has drawn attention, but I no of people who have high double digit offences that haven't seen the inside of a jail yet, some violent offences too, but without fail the standard poor me story does the job…be it no father around, mother didn't love me enough, bad background, addiction problems the list goes on and on and it works 99% of the time.

On top of that capacity of prisons is a problem, more prisons need to be built, but for whatever reason its just never seen as a priority.

Babyreignbow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122299725#Comment_122299725

While I don't disagree about the failure of Government policy, there's a couple of things to note. Cuan actually means harbour, Ciuin means quiet btw. Prior to the setting up of a new domestic abuse agency all former dv provisions fell under the remit of Tusla, who are the child and family agency. The new statutory agency transfers power over to the Dept of Justice which in my opinion can only be a good thing. (I don't really recall cosc but having a quick google it appears to be more of a central hub for various organisations and research groups)

I've had personal experience of trying to access support via the DV agency locally, via womens aid and which is run by Tusla. They provide shelter for women and children experiencing domestic violence and some services to help women seek legal advice or accompaniment to courts to request protection orders and the like. They do provide some theraputic supports but for the most part, all their services are run for the primary needs of children caught in domestic abuse situations. These are very real issues and they do provide essential services.

As I didn't fall into that category, it was very difficult to get help. If for example, a former partner or a random male has decided to make you a target, is harrassing you or stalking you, it's now a criminal offence as situated by the Dept of Justice. There are many many women and men who don't have kids and who suffer abuse at the hands of partners or ex partners or random stalkers and there was no particular agency to deal with those issues. The establishment of Cuan I imagine was to fill that gap and at the same time, allows Tusla to focus entirely on the area of children and family.

The laws implemented recently go hand in hand with the new agency, the updated harrassment legelisaltion and stalking laws all to create a more robust criminal justice system.

irishproduce

My thoughts

First of all sympathy for Natasha recovering from the fallout of that attack. It will take time. Seeing the perp get a custodial sentence would have helped her with that

Thew issue here is a judges issue. The suspension of sentences is a symptom of our poor justice system

The lack of prison space means judges will look for any reason not to put someone to jail. Even when they do handout a custodial sentence, other inmates can often then be moved to temporary release in order to make room. In case you're in any doubt, we have zero prison space all the time. It's the normal situation. We do not have any capacity

The dpp unlikely to appeal I think because to appeal, the dpp needs to show that suspending the sentence is excessive and out of line with normal practice. But it's not out of line. It's perfectly in line with what happens all the time so I think the dpp hasn't really got much room to appeal

Geuze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122299725#Comment_122299725

I agree with you.

But

cuan = harbour / safe haven

ciúin = quiet

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122299725#Comment_122299725

Cuan isn’t an NGO. It’s a Statutory Agency under the auspices of the Department's of Justice. It’s actually a “GO”.

It’s not legally permissible for Government Organisations to comment on decisions of the independent judiciary, given the Constitutional separation of powers under Article 35.

Caquas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122299081#Comment_122299081

No? Then it was worse. It was a power play by the military in open court, pushing the Judge into suspending this gurrier’s entire sentence.

Caquas

When you need high-grade misdirection, bring on Fintan O’Toole.

He says the judicial system is failing women and gives a list of terrible cases where men were give fully suspended sentences for attacking their partners or for sexual assaul, even rape. None of these cases have the particular set of factors which made Natasha’s case into a national fire-storm (complete stranger, beaten unconscious, boasting after, commanding officer in support).

Fintan knows as well as everyone on this thread that Natasha O’Brien’s case was not about gender - Crotty would have done the same if she were a man and Crotty would have received no heavier sentence.

Fintan knows perfectly well that thugs who viciously assault other men walk free from our courts regularly. The problem is Fintan agrees with those sentences but won’t admit it. In fact, Fintan is against prison in principle except for his favourite white-collar targets but he has no answer for women who are sick of the judicial charade of non-punishments.

Not a word about Cmdt. Togher or the Tribunal of Inquiry. When Fintan still had fire in his belly, Tribunals were his stomping ground. What’s happened to old Fintan?

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/06/25/cathal-crottys-suspended-sentence-is-part-of-an-instruction-manual-for-male-attackers/

walshb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300566#Comment_122300566

Just on this: had that been a male with a physical presence about him and he had asked Crotty to stop, would Crotty have been as quick to attack? See, this is what makes Crotty’s assault all the more sickening. He knew he was about to pulverise a woman that could not offer up any real defence. Vicious and cowardly. It’s why there is such outrage here.

batman75

Crotty is a typical bully. Saw a soft target and proceeded to beat her up. What a shining light to have in our defence forces. I'm simply staggered his higher up gave him a character reference. Credit it to her for going through with a prosecution. Shame on the legal system for failing her. Handy timing for the judge to be retiring.

As for Crotty his name is muck which is probably as much as he is going to suffer. But then if you don't have your name what have you. Best wishes to the girl for the future. She more than deserves and good breaks she gets in life going forward.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300591#Comment_122300591

I nearly posted something similar to posters saying that this wasn't a gender-based attack a couple of days ago. Didn't do it then but I'll try again now.

The thing that a lot of men (and this is not a criticism) don't grasp is the level of threat that women live under all the time. This attack illustrates it rather well: imagine that a Matt O'Brien had been the person to come across Crotty roaring abuse at strangers - would he have said anything?

The reality is that he would probably have sized up Crotty before deciding whether or not it was wise to get involved. Which is fine, and that's the basis of the argument that some are making that "She should have walked on".

But for a woman, there are basically no men that we could potentially "take on" if things got nasty. So how should we live our lives - in fear?

If we walked through the world evaluating every interaction with males as potentially hostile, we'd never disagree with a man, ever. And you do get some women like that. And plenty of societies that teach little girls that this is how women should be.

And decent men "don't hit a woman" for that same reason, and that is why as a teen I felt able to go into the middle of a bunch of lads and say to another lad "Come on home, Dave" (or whatever) - because in my experience they probably wouldn't attack a girl. (Took a bit of nerve but growing up in NI back then you did learn to live on your nerves anyway, LOL.) But it was generally true.

So. For the TL,DR; IMO it was still a gender-based attack, albeit atypical.

AnnieinDundrum

well put volchitsa.

if we only spoke up when it felt safe we’d be silent. And I don’t just mean physically safe. The boys in school were larger and louder than me. My early male bosses didn’t listen to women. We speak up because we need to.