Belfast rape trial highlights the toxic culture of our elite schools

‘On days like this I am thankful I don’t have a daughter” was one of the first comments to burst on to Twitter after Wednesday’s verdict on the Belfast rape trail.

It was bittersweet, that tweet, but it went to the heart of the business. Unspoken but understood was this: I’m glad not to have a daughter who could one day be in this horrible situation – her person used and abused, treated and talked about as if she were a piece of meat to be “spit roasted”, interrogated by lawyers, her knickers passed around in court, her claims dismissed, her name mud.

The woman who tweeted has a son and she went on to promise that he would be raised “as a son who respects women”. Thank you, Sinead McSweeney @smca.

There was rage and pain in that tweet, but in the heat of Wednesday’s acquittal, very many parents took to Twitter to despair for their children, just as victims of assault relived their own experiences and, in one particularly powerful thread, a one-time juror recalled the details of a rape trial with the same heartbreaking outcome.

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Overwhelmingly though, the tweets were from young women in a rage, asking over and over again how they could ever feel safe in a country where to report a rape is to embark on a particular kind of hell, where the onus is to convince juries beyond all reasonable doubt that consent was not given.

“We live in a society that teaches us – don’t get raped, instead of don’t rape.”

Over on Facebook it seemed the tide was turning against the young woman who was called a liar, a whore and someone who should be “locked up”.

The reverberations were horrible for the daughter of a friend who works in a mostly male workplace and heard a cheer go up in the canteen when the verdict was announced.

Demeaning language

In a dozen conversations I had with men and women on Wednesday, blame was landed on the porn culture, the drink culture, the celebrity culture and, you know, the way girls dress culture. There was no explanation though for the horrible, demeaning language used by the defendants on their WhatsApp group chats. No excuses there. The men, though acquitted, have revealed themselves as thugs, not legends.

Early on in the case, a young relative of mine was horrified to hear the case bantered about among some rugby lads. She promptly wrote an email to one of them and then circulated the same message to family and friends.

This is part of what she had to say: “Popular and powerful people get away with bad behaviour, because it is often too difficult to stand up to them. It’s easier to denounce this random girl as a liar because it is harder to accept that a talented sportsman did something wrong.

“Why are so many concerned with the impact this case may have on the Irish rugby team’s future performance, instead of questioning the culture within rugby circles, and amongst young men in Ireland, that has lead to repeated episodes of sexual misconduct and cases of sexual assault against young women?”

“I don’t think we can justify what happened as drunken immaturity that got out of hand, and later, hungover banter . . . [T]heir words indicate a disturbing lack of respect towards women and a warped sense of elitism.”

Where does this sense of elitism spring from if not from within Ireland’s elite rugby schools where players are treated like gods? Entitlement starts with being singled out at school, being channelled towards winning, being given special treatment, being coached, groomed and fed differently to other boys, being admired, even adored.

Where kids are ruthlessly streamed; where parents preen in pride on the sidelines; where the chosen lads are cosseted, fed gargantuan portions of protein to keep them in peak form; where games are televised (no pressure so); where club scouts are stalking and where American scholarships are dangled; where being put on junior or senior team earns you top-tier coaching, encouraging words from the headmaster, adoration from the boys; where gruelling training sessions are followed by epic drinking bouts.

For those who make it in schools’ rugby, well the future looks good. Success is a passport to popularity, to a college place, to a job and potentially to big sponsorship money. At the very least to never having to buy a pint again in life.

Girls schools need to step up here too, with better sex education

It’s time to look at rugby schools yet again for the aggression and thuggish behaviour that they engender. Rugby is the most aggressive of contact sports. Its hugely powerful players grab, ram and thump each other in a sickening way that may be thrilling if you understand and love the game but is terrifying if you don’t.

Success allows boys to grow into adults with no more responsibility in their lives than to chase a ball and batter the opposition.

Role models

It’s time for rugby schools to bring their stars back to earth, to instil them with a sense of responsibility and not just with a blind loyalty to their team and school; to educate them about women and consent; to teach them that there are many bigger challenges in life than handling an oval ball and that, as role models for a younger generation, they need to work at being decent human beings, rather than lascivious legends.

Girls schools need to step up here too, with better sex education, a greater emphasis on consent and how to communicate it as well as more emphasis on confidence building beyond seeking the affirmation and admiration of young men.

A few weeks ago, at my daughter’s south Co Dublin school, a group of girls were queuing up to get early sign-out chits so they could go to the Senior Cup Team rugby final at the RDS. The form teacher let them go reluctantly. “I’m sure those guys will all be coming to your next hockey match.” “Yeah, right Miss,” was the answer. Pity.