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

Caquas

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

Certainly Crotty is a coward because only cowards beat up women but Fintan would never say something so sexist so he pretends that courts discriminate against female victims

If Cmdt, Togher had called Crotty a coward and that cowards have no place in our defence forces, this case would have been the perfect prelude to the Tribunal of Inquiry into bullying and sexual harassment in the Defence Forces. Instead, he has created a nightmare for the top brass, right up to the Chief of Staff.

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300313#Comment_122300313

It's called the law

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300654#Comment_122300654

Yeah thats all fair - and you know what, all the more credit to her for taking him on, contrary to what some punters here have been making out.

The same qualities that had her take the guy on in the first place are the ones that she has shown in taking on the courts.

The other thing -

Whether it was or wasnt a gender based attack, and arguably thats a matter of opinion, and different people will interpret it in different ways in accordance with their own values and viewpoint -

I do think that everyone is a winner if it means the courts can no longer turn a blind eye to these types of attacks.

There are heaps of men out there who have suffered brutal traumatic beatings on the street in a similar way to this lady. Its not fair to belittle their suffering by saying "well its worse for her because its a woman", aka its not as bad for them because they are men. And equivalently, I dont think the courts can belittle their experience because they are men and not women. Therefore, if the court sentence changes in this case, than it has to change for other similar cases also - and the whole of society is a winner then in my view.

A prison sentence is a really big deal. Even 4 weeks in prison is a much bigger punishment than a €3000 or €10000 fine. A suspended sentence is basically 'you got off'. A prison sentence most definitely isnt.

I told ya

Just wondering about the people he was with who did not intervene. Apparently they did not try to stop him. Did they render any assistance or did they just run off with Crotty? IMO they need to be named and shamed.

Natasha was on The Indo Daily podcast and said that she and her friend spent weeks scouring SM until they found Crotty and gave the info to the Guards.

Beggars belief.

walshb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300916#Comment_122300916

No way. I thought that he was apprehended pretty quickly. I wonder what AGS were doing during this time that the victim was catching her attacker..

Hope to jaysus this wasn’t a case of “get back to us, love when ya catch him.”

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300787#Comment_122300787

Nobody is belittling when men get beaten up, or I'm not anyway. My brother, who was never in a fight in school in his life, got beaten up two entirely different times in entirely unprovoked attacks - and I've already described how I've occasionally put myself out there to rescue young lads who were obviously heading for a similarly unprovoked beating when I was a teen.

So I don't think that's a very fair response to make to my post TBH. The day that gangs of women start going around beating up random men, then you'll have a good point. Until then it comes across as the usual male dismissal of a specific issue of male violence against women.

Because to be frank, male on male attacks are a problem of male violence, and women can't do much about that. I'd suggest that men should, though. But saying "Oh but it happens to men too" is missing the point - at best. It's almost normalising it - like earthquakes or traffic accidents, just stuff that happens.

eggy81

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122297639#Comment_122297639

Christ that’s some shite talk.

erlichbachman

Are there any additional details, like was there a few quid handed over too? The lady gets a box but in some cases its more beneficial to the victim to receive some compensation rather than a custodial sentence.

Leg End Reject

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

Here's Simon Harris now with his "serious questions for the Defence Forces".

Why doesn't he have serious questions about the lack of prison spaces, ridiculously lenient sentences, the employers of others who got suspended sentences, or those in life-long receipt of social welfare?

The culture of the DF is being investigated, and it certainly seems there are issues, but the DF shouldn't be a scapegoat. Government failings are the issue here, and successive governments at that. How long have FG been in government now? A game of Simon Says won't change anything.

Edit - forgot to add article.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0625/1456546-cathal-crotty/

MrMusician18

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

Crotty is a trained professional soldier, quite frankly he'd flatten most men as well.

Interesting that the DF are now looking into who has convictions, but seemingly only gender crime. Beat the shite out of any innocent man and you're fine to serve.

It's a great country.

chooseusername

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300999#Comment_122300999

The Top Brass have a busy time ahead what with Crotty and the Women of Honour Tribunal just started.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/06/24/women-of-honour-tribunal-opens-with-urgent-appeal-for-witnesses/#:~:text=The%20tribunal's%20establishment%20follows%20allegations,and%20that%20victims%20were%20penalised.

extra-ordinary_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300654#Comment_122300654

Ah yeh I appreciate what you posted but it';s not gender-based in that Crotty would have attacked anyone he thought he'd get the better of, male or female. There's no actual evidence that the sole reason Natasha was targeted was because she was a woman, although it certainly helped.

yoke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122297341#Comment_122297341

You’re going off-topic, ie. “what percentage of the government budget should we spend on prisons” would probably fill a whole thread.

off-topic again, but wasn’t there some study done saying immigrants overall are net contributors to the governments coffers, rather than detractors?

Maybe we should split this off into another thread.

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122301029#Comment_122301029

They do, but Simon has accused them of only acting on Crotty because of all the publicity.

That's undoubtedly true, but why is Simon only speaking up about this case? Why not all the others? Why not all the elderly people attacked in their home during aggravated burglaries? Why not all the people assaulted every week?

He's only doing it because of the publicity, the hypocrisy is staggering. The population is increasing dramatically and the prison capacity remains unchanged. It would suit him better to get his finger out and build more prisons, rather than housing refugees on a site purchased for a prison.

extra-ordinary_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300752#Comment_122300752

If Cmdt, Togher had called Crotty a coward

Not sure how people still cannot get their head around this, Togher read out what Crotty's army record said - "exemplary" and "disciplined". Can you really not understand that on any level?

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300916#Comment_122300916

I didn't realise that - so she basically had to do the detective work herself, and then even after she gave all the information to the guards, the best that anyone could do for her was a suspended sentence for him?

Jesus. May as well just have told her "Nobody really cares, love" right from the start.

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122301060#Comment_122301060

He also said this attack was out of character. That is testifying to Crotty's character.

How well did Togher know Crotty to claim it was out of character?

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300967#Comment_122300967

The judge ordered Crotty to pay €3,000 in "compensation" to Ms O’Brien. But quite clearly, she does not think that this justifies the lack of a custodial sentence. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300999#Comment_122300999

Yes

https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0625/1456546-cathal-crotty/

My first thought was "wait, what?"

The problem here is that the sentence that was passed down by judge Tom O Donnell was meaningless. The defence forces had no power to do anything until after sentencing and they now have their own internal investigation ongoing. They defence forces have literally done everything they could in this case up to now and still have the power to dishonourably discharge the soldier in question

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Thomas E. O'Donnell was nominated by the government of Ireland in 2011 and the political party that was leading the government in 2011 or the fact that said party didn't see a need to dismiss the judge since then? That would be a stretch though…

Could he, in fact, be related to the O'Donnell Fine gael family of Limerick. Helen, Kieran, the late Tom?

KaneToad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122301082#Comment_122301082

It was a perfectly legitimate statement. Crotty had never displayed this **** behaviour in the DF (presumably). So it was out of his DF character. Togher isn't disputing that Crotty did what he did. He was answering questions put to him in court. He can only give his perspective based on his knowledge of Crotty. Should he have lied??

erlichbachman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122301090#Comment_122301090

Yea, 3k is a bit stingy, but some negotiating should be available to the victims in such cases, if she says 10k and no custodial sentence, or 3k and a few months then the options should be available to the victim.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300916#Comment_122300916

There's a few stories going around so before any outrage we should take some time as the full truth might take a while to wash out. The story I heard was that while he was beating her up an unnamed passer-by intervened, Crotty fled but his friends stayed around and gave his details to the cops…

How true that is I am unsure but it is one version of events going around and it is as likely to be as true as any other version of events going around

extra-ordinary_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122301082#Comment_122301082

Obviously he was referring to the character of Crotty that he was aware of, exemplary and disciplined soldier was his experience of Crotty's character, so he was perfectly justified in saying that what he heard about Crotty in the case presented in court was totally 'out of character' of what he knew of Crotty. Like ffs…it's not rocket science.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122301132#Comment_122301132

Not as likely to be true as what the girl herself said on the radio, surely? And it seems she said she and her friends identified him from social media. So no, it doesn't sound like his friends did anything positive.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122301124#Comment_122301124

Or, alternatively, the DF's/Togher's evaluation of his character isn't worth a toss.

That's what I'd take from it anyway.

If they weren't so arrogant, they'd be looking into what is wrong with their procedures that they are so bad at evaluating someone's character in the first place. What does that say about all their other reports on other members of the defence forces? Are they likely to be equally delusional?

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122301134#Comment_122301134

Is it in keeping with any soldier's character to viciously assault someone in work?

His statement about the attack being out of character was a character reference, that Togher was disappointed was a personal statement while the remainder was a record of Crotty as a soldier.

That's not rocket science.

yoke

I’d be inclined to agree with the poster who said that character references (and also victim impact statements) should have no place in a court of law.

character references - basically a popularity contest.

victim impact statements - so a victim’s eloquence can affect the perpetrator’s sentence, and if a victim is not eloquent, then the perpetrator doesn’t deserve the same sentence?

BS IMO.

GreeBo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122301148#Comment_122301148

Well they evaluated it up to the point of the crime, how would you expect them to evaluate it?

"we find his character to be exemplary, but strongly believe that his is capable of unprovoked, violent assault, however we have zero evidence to support this, since we are not in the file Minority Report"?

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122301172#Comment_122301172

If your evaluation of an employee's character is that he's a lovely man, kinid, polite and honest, and then it turns out that he beat his wife and stole old ladies' pensions, does that mean that your character evaluation is still grand because you never thought to ask if he did any of those things?

Or does it mean that you're a bad judge of character?

Cos if it's the former, as you seem to suggest, then what is the point in any sort of character references at all? Everyone looks a great person until they get caught doing something horrible.

But if at that point we're still going to say they were great except for this one thing they got caught for, then I think it's 50/50 (at least) that you were just a poor judge of character, not that they just lost the run of themselves that once. Certainly in this context, where it was an unprovoked attack.

GreeBo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300654#Comment_122300654

I would disagree that this makes it a gender based attack.

It was an attack based on knowing that he could beat up the victim without any risk to himself. It could have been a weaker male (which is probably most men) but it happened to be a woman.

I havent heard any evidence that gender played a part in his decision.