Dearbhail McDonald: The least victims deserve is to feel safe on our streets
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NEVER let a crisis go to waste. Mostly we hear this phrase deployed in a financial context, but it could equally be applied to the flaws in our treatment -- pre- and post-release -- of convicted sex offenders.
Larry Murphy's rape and attempted murder of a Carlow businesswoman may have entered much more quietly into the annals of horrific rapes in Ireland had it not been for his emergence as a suspect in the disappearance and suspected murders of at least three other women.
Murphy has never been charged or prosecuted in relation to those alleged crimes and can not be interned in relation to them.
Sadly, there are many men serving lengthy sentences -- including life sentences -- for rapes and gang rapes involving gratuitous and unspeakable levels of degradation, humiliation and violence, including threats or attempts to kill.
According to a review of rape sentences in Ireland carried out by High Court judge Peter Charleton, a sentence of 10 or 11 years in prison for an individual instance of rape is unusual unless there are circumstances of unusual violence or pre-meditation; the degree to which the rapist chooses to violate and humiliate the victim can bring the sentence into the "upper end" of nine to 14 years.
Mr Justice Charleton's review included the case of Joseph Cummins, who was jailed for 15 years for the rape and anal rape of a woman whose home he broke into and whom he threatened as well as robbed. He was 20 and his victim was 75.
It also included the case of Stephen Barry, a 25-year-old Limerick man jailed for 20 years for his part in the notorious Cratloe Woods gang rape, a sentence that was upheld by the Court of Criminal Appeal.
Like Murphy, these young men and others will -- with or without their automatic 25pc remission -- be released back into the community over the next number of years and will pose enormous challenges for their victims, the communities into which they are released and to the authorities charged with ensuring our safety.
The solutions to dealing with such offenders are not easy. Preventative incarceration (internment) is unlikely to pass constitutional muster, although it is used as a method of risk management of offenders in England for a broad range of serious offences.
Making release conditional upon meaningful risk assessment would be a good start, reviewing remission policy potentially another.
Strengthening our sex offenders' register (itself a misleading term) and allocating proper resources to gardai to monitor offenders would also be welcome steps.
Murphy is the first of many violent sex offenders who will walk among us soon. The least we can offer their victims is the safest possible environment to ensure they never strike again.
- Dearbhail McDonald
Irish Independent
