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

Not in the least bit odd. They’d have a procedure to follow. They can’t just hand him his sandwiches wrapped in a map.You don’t know they aren’t initiating such a procedure.

It's clear he was providing reference based on a performance appraisal, it's not so clear in what context. This was a sentence hearing not a trial I think is the gist of Clonans remarks so it would be interesting to know how it came to have a state witness in such circumstances. I'm not privvy to how the judicial system works but it seems to be a case of "just for the record".

He couldn’t really. He’d have to report in what was in the record. Terms like ‘exemplary’ were used, so that’s what had to be read into evidence.

The ‘character reference’ argument in here is a red herring.

This whole sentence is a joke but I had to pick up on two things that the judge took into consideration.

He said that the defendant pleaded guilty early. From what’s been reported had the CCTV not been there he’d have kept his innocence up and peddled his lies about the young woman starting it. He didn’t plead guilty out of some feeling of remorse for what he did, he did because he was banged to rights.

Also he ran home as he knew he had “fucked up” yet bragged about it on social media hours later. How does that work exactly ?

Edit: changed thing to sentence so it’s clear what I mean.

I'm not mixing anything up, you are not seeing my point.

Togher is making statements as to character and I still do not accept that he was legally required to. People saying he is there to report the facts, just to repeat what is in the service record, but then at the same time we hear quotes like this:

Comdt Togher said he was "exceptionally disappointed and surprised" by the evidence he had heard as it was "very out of character" for the defendant

That isn't from a service record, that is literally opinion on the part of Comdt Togher and there is no legal reason he has to give it. If asked what he thinks about the evidence he could simply just say "I have no opinion". But instead he speaks as to character, literally a character reference.

Did he read the entire service record, word for word, in that court? Because if he didn't then he selected which adjectives to report. And he selected some very glowing ones indeed.

It's can't be mentioned until they've been found guilty, he had already entered his guilty plea.

To be fair, the reports suggest that he was asked to give his opinion, on top of citing official performance records, and I think the two are being conflated here.

But there is another issue here. The Defence Forces just cannot stand up in court and say "well, he had a terrible record, was disobedient, had a temper, liable to fly off the handle, a danger to society, but we did nothing about it", even if it was true.

They have no option in serious cases such as this, but to say that such violence was totally unforeseen by them, because if it was forseen by them - why didn't they act sooner?

As for the judge - perhaps he felt that the Defence Forces was once of the few places that could deal with him, and perhaps make a change for the better, and that it's better for society as a whole for him to be employed somewhere, rather than unemployed.

And as someone who was randomly attacked myself on the street, and still have physical scars from it, none of the above is good enough for the victim, I totally understand that.

Yeah, didn’t think so, but I was concerned there might be a way of weaseling out with record of honour intact.

This kind of thing happens all the time, it's just that it usually doesn't get the same attention. This incident has got a lot of attention just like the Kyle Hayes incident. They are not the norm though.

I think their options here are very much open for clarification.

The DF might want an officer present when a soldier is in trouble, but what is the legal requirement for them to be there? Would the trial have halted if the officer wasn't there? Is it in Irish statute that an officer has to present the service record when a soldier is being prosecuted?

Because if the officer is only there at the request of the defense, then they had plenty of options. They don't have to lie, they don't have say any defamatory, they could just say the bare minimum of fact and leave anything opinion based or subjective out of it.

And the judge feeling that the army is the best place for the defendant is the most farcical part if the DF immediately move to dismiss the soldier after the trial concludes.