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

Crotty has not explained why he did what he did. Did he even know what he was doing as he was doing it? Was he drunk to a point where he had no control/understanding what he was at? If he came out and explained, and showed real sorrow and remorse, maybe folks could try understand. But to my knowledge he acted with intent and acted while knowing what he was doing..

Yes. 4-6 punches causing a few different injuries, including a serious concussion

He was sober enough to boast about after he ran away.

I understand exactly why Togher used those words. Why can’t you get it into your head that it only aggravates the problem for the Defence Forces.

It shows that a cowardly thug like Crotty is held in the highest regard by those who are responsible for instilling discipline in the military. Togher didn’t even try to adjust his comments in light of Crotty’s guilty plea and the horrific CCTV (until he was caught unexpectedly by cross-examination)

There should be fireworks at the Tribunal if anyone tries to defend Togher with your line of reasoning.

Yes exactly - there are only two ways to interpret Togher's judgment of Crotty's character in light of what Crotty did: either Togher is a very poor judge of character who is moreover too arrogant to ever question his judgment in light of new information, or else he doesn't think what Crotty did is fundamentally all that bad really.

"Disappointing" is what he said - which sounds like he may have meant as much the inconvenience caused for Togher having to give up his precious time to testify, as for the crime itself. It's such an understatement that you have to wonder.

You are calling for him to commit perjury, given that the defense and prosecution both had copies of Crottys army file he would have been found out straight away, he was also going to always answer questions put to him rsthet than refuse.

Early on in this thread someone listed out what they thought Togher should have said about crotty. Ironically it was near verbatim what he actually did say but for this tabloid thread that didn't matter, where only a few lines if what Togher said are shared.

Will we see anyone call for an extra 1000 prison spaces and doubling up in the cells in the mean time etc , course not.

If that was nonsense, do you think the women who get beaten or murdered by an ex were all just stupid? That women can all tell which men will end up stalking and trying to kill them?

Or does it show that women are constantly guessing (and hoping for the best) when they start up a relationship with someone?

What about when a random man pushes in front of them in the queue for the checkout or whatever? If they make any comment to him, are they just stupid for taking that risk? Or is there some way they can know which man will follow them out of the shop roaring at them and threatening them? (And yes that's happened to me.)

But the judge has done what every other judge does in these scenarios. He has applied the mitigating factors to give a non-custodial sentence.

This is how we run our justice system. We don't have the prison space to jail all offenders for these crime types. Hence we mitigate some sentences to non-custodial. The mitigating factors were applied appropriately.

It doesn't negate the fact that Crotty is a scumbag. He will likely lose his job based on DF internal procedures. It is also highlighted to his family, friends, acquaintances, community et al that he is this type of individual.

When you are summoned by the court as a witness for either side the letter clearly states that if you do not you will be brought there by the guards.

Standard operating military procedure says you .

Jesus fuck8ng Christ.

Outside of him refusing to acknowledge the Court or the law around basic court functions, how was it going to be different

Nonsense! And you’re only digging a deeper hole. What kind of Orwellian world do you think we live in where our courts should convict someone for telling the truth?

His duty was to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, not to read out some out-dated personnel file which had nothing to say regarding the central fact of the case. No one could stop him giving his honest opinion of Crotty and, shockingly, he did.

He was asked about the review, he answered that.

I sometimes wonder are people like you deliberately trying to help crotty .

Are you condemning Togher know for his condemnation of Crotty?

Then he shouldn't have speculated as to what was "in character" for him in a non work environment, should he?

But he did.

Whereas the only honest answer there would have been that he didn't know, because the army is a very unusual environment with its hierarchy which means that soldiers of Crotty's level never get a chance to display any anger or even disagreement to superior officers.

Perhaps the people who should have been testifying would have been soldiers below him in the ranks - if there were any?

If you toned down your abuse and read my post, you would see that I didn’t object to him attending court (which is his duty) nor even giving evidence even though he could easily have objected to a summons on the grounds that he had nothing to say (again, you imagine a ludicrous Orwellian system which can drag anyone into court on pain of imprisonment).

No, my objection is soley to the evidence he gave so your comment is irrelevant and abusive.

I gave an example: if he'd been taunted by someone about, say, a girlfriend or something else that really angered him, and finally snapped, then that could be said to "out of character", because if he'd been left in peace, there wouldn't have been any trouble.

In this case, he was the one who started the trouble, by shouting at the other lad, and then, when asked not to (a perfectly reasonable request) he attacked. That's unprovoked, and therefore comes entirely from within him. Not out of character.

Unlike the posters saying what else did she expect for getting involved? Those are completely the people you want on a jury I suppose. 🙄