By Claire Bryne
The Herald
December 18, 2009
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/claire-bryne-my-interview-with-parish-priest-who-shook-hand-of-sex-beast-in-front-of-victim-left-me-speechless-1980914.html
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| NJUSTICE: Priest Sean Sheehy backed Danny Foley |
I helped to launch the newly refurbished Well Woman Centre on Pembroke Road in Dublin this week.
The service, which has been around since the Seventies, has a progressive approach to the sexual health of both women and men and has led the charge in providing contraceptive advice and care, while also promoting the health of women from the ages of 12 to 90.
Just hours before the launch was held, I interviewed the local priest Sean Sheehy on Newstalk who explained to me why he felt it appropriate to shake the hand of a man who had been convicted of a serious sexual assault on a young woman in Kerry.
The priest went on to detail how he had been proud to provide a character reference to the court before Danny Foley was sentenced.
While the Well Woman Centre is telling women that it is their right to look after themselves sexually, physically and emotionally, other sectors of our society send out the clear message that standing up and demanding justice for a sexual attack is contemptible.
Only those people who demonstrated their support for convicted sex attacker Danny Foley in the Tralee courtroom this week know why they did so.
But the entire sorry saga is likely to have far reaching implications for victims of sexual assault. Put yourself in the shoes of the victim.
The gardai and the legal profession know that it is extremely difficult to bring a charge of rape or sexual assault to court. If, as in this case, the assault happened outside a nightclub, where both parties had been drinking, then it is even harder to prove.
The evidence in this case, however, was conclusive. CCTV footage and testimony from the victim led a jury of ten men and two women to unanimously decide that Foley was guilty.
Having been vindicated by securing a guilty verdict, the victim arrives in court to hear the sentence being handed down and is denigrated by the local priest and the rest of them who saw fit to file up to Danny Foley and shake his hand.
She can have been in no doubt that, as far as her peers in that courtroom were concerned, it was she, not Foley who was guilty of a heinous crime.
Her aunt said on the radio that the victim had been refused service in shops in Listowel and shunned on the street.
The treatment of this woman sends out a dangerous signal to anyone who has been sexually attacked.
As a society we are saying that if you were drunk, you deserved it.
If the man has standing in the community, it was you who led him astray.
If he is sent to prison, you have ruined his life. Any woman who has been the victim of a sexual assault in recent times will have had cause to stop and think in the wake of the Kerry case.
What is the point of trying to seek justice if this is how I am going to be treated?
My interview with the parish priest left me speechless. He brushed off the medical evidence of dragging injuries on the woman's back and legs and bruising on her wrists.
He declared that the seven-year sentence, with two years suspended, was a 'miscarriage of justice'.
All that was wrong here, he said was that Foley and his victim had engaged in sexual act outside of marriage and that was immoral.
The launch of the new Well Woman Centre in Dublin was a heartening event and serves to remind us of how far we have come.
It is incredulous that on this same small island, a woman will probably have to leave her home town because she was brave enough to take action against a man who destroyed her life in the pursuit of sexual gratification.
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