A word of advice for all you rapists out there. Do try and keep your rape within the family. That way the law can sometimes not merely protect your anonymity, but even punish those who would publicly identify you. It's a rum old show, really, because the man who rapes his daughter or grand-daughter should be vilified above all men, but instead, if that is his unfortunate victim's choice, the law protects his identity even after conviction.
This is what has happened to the 59-year-old Galway farmer who raped and sexually abused each of his four daughters from the age of six to the age of 11. Since the oldest of the girls is now 32, we may conclude that this fine bucko was 33 when he began his career of paederasty, which lasted up until about six years ago. Twenty years or so of rape: 20 years of offences so terrible that the details of just one offence are both unthinkable and unprintable; yet the doer's identity is now concealed with the magic wand of legal anonymity.
Now since this creature is to be allowed to enjoy such anonymity, the least we might expect is that as a matter of course he would do so for the rest of his life in jail. And indeed, "life imprisonment" is what he got when sentenced by the Central Criminal Court, not just once, but 10 times over, on 12 sample charges from a doubtless vast harvest of rape spread over a score of years.
Mr Justice Carney could have made the sentences consecutive. However, he chose to make them concurrent. He explained that this would be "an advantage" to the man as it would give him access to the parole board in due course, whereas consecutive sentences would have prevented this. And the point of this "advantage" being precisely what, please? This is a world turned upside down. We know that appeals to parole boards during life sentences normally occur after about eight years; and that usually no one serves more than 14 years of a life sentence. This narrow interpretation of "life" might be a reasonable punishment for a single case of paederastic rape. But here we have no such thing. This was at least 20 years of rape, of all kinds: vaginal, oral, and anal, of such a studied and methodical nature that each of the four victims thought she was alone in her torment.
These girls were six when this began. If you haven't got a six-year-old girl immediately within vision, then go and find one. Then consider such deeds as those referred to above being done to her, just the once. Just once, now: to that tiny body, and to that infantile, helpless mind. Then consider that little girl again, and reflect upon this: such a frail and helpless child was the repeatedly violated vessel of her father's diseased lust for five or six years.
What punishment fits that crime? If the single rape of a little child merits life imprisonment - and it does - what does the repeated rape of this innocent deserve? There is in fact no punishment which reflects either the evil involved or the way society feels about such an atrocity.
But stay. I haven't finished. This nameless animal did this to not just one of his daughters, but to all four, individually and over and over again, and often while the rest of the family were attending Mass. And he wasn't alone with a single girl on Sunday mornings by chance, for he was a devious, careful and methodical rapist of his daughters.
Of course, the court heard the usual effluvium of self-exculpatory piffle from the rapist - that he was sorry for what he had done, and that he didn't realise that his actions would have such a bad effect on his victims, and that he would rather take his punishment than putting them through the ordeal of having to give evidence in court.
This is vile, disingenuous stuff, on a par with all his vileness and violence for 20 or years or more, for he hadn't voluntarily owned up to his crimes. His children had made the charges, and conviction was a certainty: it was no sign of virtue to bow before the inevitable, merely further proof that he remains what he had always been - a cold and clinical calculator of odds.
This man committed a crime which society abhors almost above all others. Yet the court consciously decided to give him a sentence - of concurrent terms of life - which would enable him to have access to the parole board far sooner than he would have done from the other sentence - consecutive terms - at its disposal.
One question: why? For, since there really is no punishment suitable for him, life really should mean life. Moreover, the law should allow the castration of such men - firstly, to ensure that even their solitary sexual fantasies for children are removed for all time; secondly, to let them know of the savage, unremittingly condign punishment which society reserves for those who so abuse children.
Finally, the trial judge had no power over the anonymity of the accused: his name could not be disclosed without the behest of the victims, which - for purely understandable reasons - has not been given. But his entire neighbourhood knows who he is, and what he did, and therefore knows the names of his victims; yet the rest of us do not. Anonymity has not served to protect his victims within their community, as intended; it has merely served to protect nationally a thoroughly evil man. And that is certainly not justice being seen to be done.