Victims' families 'must not be sidelined in court'
Saturday June 12 2010
THE father of a murder victim said yesterday families should not be sidelined during trials as they are there to represent the one person who has no voice.
Peter Keaney, whose 19-year-old daughter Sheola was murdered by her former boyfriend, said he was "surprised" by the earlier comments of a senior judge, who said he didn't want to be able to recognise a victim's family and friends in court.
Mr Justice Paul Carney, who presided over the trial of Thomas Kennedy for Sheola's murder in Cork in 2006, said a practice had evolved during trials of families "donning a uniform of white top and black clothes and walking, arms linked, the full length of the Four Courts for the television cameras".
In the past few years, a number of families involved in high-profile murder trials have been photographed arm-in-arm outside the courts in a show of family unity.
The parents and siblings of murder victim Siobhan Kearney linked arms outside the Four Courts as they awaited the jury's verdict on her husband Brian, while there were emotional scenes as the family of Rachel O'Reilly clutched each others hands in joy and relief after the jury delivered a guilty verdict in relation to her husband Joe.
The outspoken Central Criminal Court judge, who has presided over more than 100 rape and murder trials, was speaking at a conference on accommodating victims in the criminal justice system in Cork yesterday.
He argued that families and friends of a victim should be kept out of the direct line of sight of a trial judge and jury during a murder trial and only be "brought to the fore" after conviction and sentencing.
The judge was speaking about his personal perspective on the large number of victims attending trials.
He said he had no objection to displays of solidarity amongst victims after conviction, but suggested it should not occur "during the currency" of a trial.
Guts
Responding to the judge's comments, Mr Keaney, said: "No matter what you're wearing, it takes an awful lot of guts to walk into court.
"It's a very daunting place, particularly to sit inside the courthouse and look at the perpetrator just inches away."
The judge also criticised the seating of families directly behind junior counsel adding, "There are, in general, seven pairs of piercing eyes over several weeks looking into mine."
He said he didn't want to be disrespectful to victims but he found it difficult to operate the presumption of innocence in what came across to him.
Mr Keaney said that while he respected the judge, families of victims deserved to have a central place in proceedings and he didn't have a problem with them being photographed arm-in-arm going into court.
"The people who are doing that, they're in mourning. They're standing together as a family saying 'We're not going to let you get away with it; we're a united family and we're here to get justice'," he added.
He said the images are also seen by defendants, letting them see the impact of their actions.
"Let them look and feel the grief they've caused. Let them see the harm they've done. This is something that should be highlighted rather than hide it," he argued.
Mr Keaney said that, in "donning a uniform of white top and black clothes", families simply wanted to show that they were respectable people and that their son or daughter came from a respectable family.
"It shows 'That's my daughter. I'm holding my head up high and representing her.'"
Referring to victims in court, the judge told the conference: "I could be grievously wrong, but their body language suggests to me that they want the person in the dock, whoever that happens to be, convicted of the maximum offence possible with all issues on the way to that point being determined against him.
"Even if this is not what they feel, this is the impression their clenched and immovable expressions rightly or wrongly convey to me."
- Breda Heffernan and Dearbhail McDonald
Irish Independent
