I’m not going to attempt to state whether the accused is guilty or not as many of the previous posts have done. What I would like to do is to ask people to look more closely at the external facts of the case.

The internal facts; accused caught on CCTV carrying the victim down an alley, found with her unconscious semi-naked body; initial denial and later admission of having attempted sex with the woman. Those facts are pretty damming. Not hard to see why the man was convicted.

Why then, given the open&shut nature of the evidence, have the people of Listowel come out so strongly in favour of the accused? What is the local insight that Listowel people have access to that results in the parish priest and even the man’s fiancé to stand by him? From what I have read, and I could have interpreted it wrong, it seems the people supported him because they thought he was innocent, rather than commiserating with him on his conviction.

This can not be simply explained as ‘small town small mindedness’. I come from a similarly sized Kerry town and a few years back an acquaintance of mine in his early 20s was convicted of the sexual assault of a young girl. This was based on the accusations of that young girl. In a case that seemed a lot less concrete and more unusual the local people unanimously accepted the evidence and the findings of the court.

This is one example and there have been many cases of sexual assault in towns like Listowel that have not garnered anything like the response seen. People have become accustomed to cases like this and a lot worse. People have been shown what priests are capable of, so I don’t think they would find similar actions by the local bouncer such a surprise.
So, why?

Rape is such an emotive issue we are often tempted, in our own minds, to lessen the burden of evidence required. The accused is normally painted as a monster and is quickly convicted in the public eye long before the courts reach a verdict.

Fact – CCTV, man lied, found with unconscious woman

Fact – miscarriages of justice not as uncommon as we would like to think

Fact – women do lie and make false accusations of rape

Fact – it was shown that the woman felt in necessary to lie about the amount of alcohol she had consumed that night.

Then come back with your comments of understanding, and equality for all, it has been proved that he commited a crime, proved that he acted in a manner while both disgusting and vile totally illegal,

Perhaps hes a likleable man, perhaps hes a friendly fun chap, but he is still a foul, disgusting, vomit endusing pervert who deseves condemnation, and disgust. He made his bed when he assaulted that girl let him lie in it.

Oh and while im at it, we have a peadophile in our area, hes a friendly helpful chap too, do you have children Reilly?………….Perhaps he could babysit for you.

Jasmine – You said:

Can I point out when a person is inebriated that person (male or female) is not in a capacity of making a decision. I would have thought it is obvious that when a woman is not capable of saying no it does not mean she is consenting to the sexual activity.

Because she can’t remember it, what’s to say she hadn’t consented at the time? As Ciara said in an earlier comment, it’s easier to cry foul and call a man a rapist than to admit that women have loose morals.

Kelly – I wish you had read over the earlier comments where I’d made it painfully clear that I think the guy is sick and deserves to be locked up. I’m just saying that it’s a typically myopic reaction to label someone a rapist when rape didn’t happen here.

Thanks to everyone for their comments on this; while I clearly can’t say I’m on the popular side of the argument I think the responses this post has gotten have been very interesting indeed.

In the interests of letting the rest of the blog live, though, sadly I’m probably not going to be able to respond to any further comments on this post.

The girlfriend won’t be around in five years, but like Foley she must be clearly a biscuit short of a packet.

I shudder to think of what the offspring might be like!!

Happy Christmas one and all.