Sir, - I read the report in today's Irish Times (October 8th) of the serial rapist who has just received ten concurrent 18 year sentences for his crimes. In fact, I read the piece twice because I reckoned I had misunderstood the sequence of events.
It goes like this man, with previous convictions for rape and indecent exposure, rapes and assaults woman in her apartment. She tells police. They arrest man. He says it was consensual, so the police let him go (pending a decision by the DPP whether there's a case for rape or not). In the meantime, probably not believing his luck, he goes on a spree and rapes, assaults and for stabs five more women in as many days. Conclusion: the word of a rape victim doesn't count for much against the word of an already convicted rapist.
Does this mean then that if I shoot a man, and he goes whingeing to the police that I've shot him, I can respond with "But he asked me to, guy" and they won't arrest me on the perfectly logical supposition that he may well have asked me to shoot him?
The law in this country is weighted in favour of the perpetrator; so it's no surprise that communities with "problem" residents have decided to invent their own solutions. - Yours. etc.,
Lower Beechwood Avenue,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.