Posted by | John McGuirk |
Tolerance for home-grown crime is putting Irish people in danger
When Christine Ward and Derek Bewley assaulted and robbed a 79 year old pensioner in his home on November 2nd, 2018, they hit him on the side of the head with a hammer, shattering his hearing aid. They stabbed him repeatedly in the hands, spilling so much of his blood that he incurred a €3,000 bill for redecorating, in order to get the blood stains off his stairs and walls. Their victim now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and his life has been entirely changed.
At the time of the assault, Ms Ward and Mr Bewley had accumulated, between them, 104 previous convictions in the Irish courts. Ms Ward is just 36 years old. She, along with Mr. Bewley, attacked and stabbed two pensioners that day, the second of whom was visually impaired.
For their 105th and 106th collective convictions, Ms Ward received a sentence of 10 years in prison, with the final 18 months suspended. She will be back on the streets in her mid forties, still a young woman. Mr. Bewley had not been sentenced, at the time of writing.
Charlie Lawlor (21) assaulted two people who tried to intervene in a row he was having with his girlfriend. One of his victims – a woman – was left with a permanent facial scar. His punishment? A fully suspended sentence. He remains on the streets, and one can only hope that no other good Samaritans try to intervene in his next argument.
Last week, Stephen Russell, a 47-year-old businessman, was before the court of Judge Martin Nolan, where he pleaded guilty to summoning a 10 year old girl over to the window of his car, where he exposed himself and masturbated at her. Judge Nolan decided that in this case, a fully suspended sentence was in order on the grounds that Mr. Russell was – in the Judge’s words, “a family man with responsibilities” who “was under stress at the time”. One might observe that many of us endure stress without inflicting that sort of thing on children. Nevertheless, Mr. Russell is a free man, and we must all hope that he does not come under undue stress in the future.
On January 24th, Nathan Kirby, who attacked a 76 year old man in the streets (Kirby is 22) and knocked out his victims teeth was also the beneficiary of leniency – he too escaped with a suspended sentence, and is a free man.
The day before that, January 23rd, the courts had to adjudicate the case of 52 year old grandfather Jason Kennedy, which is a good reminder that the phrase “Grandfather” doesn’t always mean the kindly old codger that pops up in your imagination. Before stealing the car of a woman he had invited on a date, Kennedy kicked and punched her. He then managed to get only a few hundred meters before crashing the car. When Gardai arrived to arrest him, he assaulted two of them leaving one officer with a broken hand.
Grandad Kennedy was jailed for just over five years – fair enough you might say. Until you learn that this was his one-hundred-and-first criminal conviction. Sentencing him, Judge Nolan asked the defendant “when are you going to learn?”. One might have thought, Judge, that the answer was now clear.
All of these criminals have two things in common: First, they are Irish. Home-grown criminals, produced by and products of the society that we have created. Second, they all received – either in their most recent cases or in previous cases – astoundingly lenient sentences.
In the case of Ms Ward and Mr Bewley, with 104 previous convictions between them, it is very arguable that the leniency of the Irish justice system was directly responsible for the damage done to their victims. They should have been in prison.
In the case of Mr. Russell, we can only hope that the courts are right and that his predilection for masturbating at children is an entirely one-off event – though the careers and instincts of similar such people suggests that Irish society will be very fortunate if this is the case.
The justice system exists, ultimately, for the purpose of keeping the rest of us safe. The whole point of putting people in prison is to protect the rest of us from the danger we pose.
Yet in Ireland, dangerous people are routinely avoiding being put in prison for offences against others. This is a result both of our legal culture, and a political tolerance for leniency when it comes to crime that fathoms the mind of most ordinary people.
All of the cases in this article were before the courts in January. A similar laundry list could be compiled for just about any two-week period of the year.
Irish people have been, in recent times, rightly annoyed about immigration, and some of the crimes committed by people who have come to our shores. We should be every bit as annoyed about the ongoing tolerance for home-grown crime.
Who Watches the Watchers? 