Sympathies… yet again
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Around fifteen years ago in Duagh, Co Kerry, a man named Liam Sheehy raped a local woman in her car. She was giving him a lift home from the town when he pulled the handbrake and raped her.
During the trial a retired principal of the local community college gave character evidence on his behalf, as did the local parish priest, a supervisor in Munster Electronics and a well-respected veterinary surgeon. Despite this he was sentenced to seven years in prison by a jury of his peers.
Although Sheehy had no personal involvement in what Mr Justice Morris called “disgraceful conduct by misguided persons” around Duagh in a campaign against the rape victim and her family, one did emerge.
Locals tell me the case caused a terrible split in the community, with the victim being shunned by many people who thought well of the offender. There is still tension between people in the area to this day.
Sheehy appealed the sentence to Central Criminal Court where three judges upheld the trial court’s ruling. Here’s an extract from The Irish Times’ report on the appeal…
Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, for the DPP, said the sentence for a vicious and violent rape was justified. He submitted the judge was entitled to have regard to the way the defence was run.
Dismissing the appeal, Mr Justice Keane, sitting with Miss Justice Carroll and Mr Justice Kelly, said this was a rape in the particularly serious category. Sheehy had perpetrated the crime in a remote area and when his victim escaped from the car, he pursued her and brought her back and raped her. For this type of offence, seven years would seem unexceptional and not wrong in principle.
Mr Justice Keane said Sheehy, having exercised his right to plead not guilty, then told a story which sought to blame his victim. The trial judge was entitled and obliged to take into account how the defence was conducted on the instructions of Sheehy.
The appeal court judges echoed the trial judge’s criticism of a campaign against the rape victim and her family. While accepting that neither the defendant nor his family were involved in that campaign.
Today, Anne Lucey reports in The Irish Times on a strikingly, and sadly, similar case in Listowel, less than 5 miles from Duagh. Dozens queued to shake the hands of the convicted man as he was brought from the court.
In her victim impact statement, the woman spoke of being “judged” in north Kerry, but said she was not sorry for telling the truth. Everyone in Listowel knew who she was, despite the press respecting her anonymity, she said.
“Even though my name has never been mentioned in the press, Listowel is not a big town and everyone knows it’s me,” the woman said. “I feel as if people are judging me the whole time. I’ve been asked by people I know if I am sorry for bringing Dan Foley to court. I am not sorry for it. All I did was tell the truth.”
I’m quite sure the Kerry Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre appreciates donations, no matter how small.
Mark,
Thanks for posting this, although reading it breaks my heart. I’m quite sure that the attitudes displayed towards victim and perpetrator in these cases are no means unique to North Kerry. And people wonder why so many crimes of rape and sexual violence go unreported by victims!
Why on earth do we allow character references in cases like this. The man is a conficted rapist and sexual predator. That is all the character reference that is needed.
The only positive thing is the national coverage this has gotten means that this animal might as well be branded across his forehead for the rest of his life. Everyone now knows what he is. I’d like to see a paper name and shame those who stood by this beast.
30 miles !! Duagh is only 3-4 miles from Listowel. Sheehy was giving her a lift from Listowel that night. Part of that campaign involved a written petition and at one stage there was talk of a march.
Sad days.
Being modern times, there was a Facebook group supporting him, but this has since been taken down.
P.
I can only presume that this Liam Sheehy and the Fr. Séan Sheehy who was a character witness in the more recent case are not related.
I contacted radio Kerry a few hours back and suggested much the same as Mark. People should give their traditional Christmas offerings to the KRCC or other real local charities instead of to a church that appears to have lost touch with the Christmas message.
I was totally sickened by this report today, I cannot believe that people would be so cruel, so heartles. I have been dumbfounded by the bits and pieces I’ve heard of what that woman has had to endure since that bastard’s attack.
Shame on the lot of them and I sincerely hope their daughters, wifes, mothers never ever have to deal with what she has to deal with.
I have also been reminded all day about Lavina Kerwick whose attacker walked free. I once talked to someone from Kilkenny and she grew up believing that Lavina didn’t win her case, she did. There are lots of echoes of her story in this case.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-60334783.html
Any pics or videos of the idiots outside the court in Tralee today? Would love to see a nice name and shame.
This woman thankfully got some justice for the crime committed against her. The people who stood in line should be ashamed of their actions. However the people the convicted rapist. They were not representing listowel or it’s people. I a killer gets away with murder in a court in Dublin and his friends and family congratulate him afterwards does that mean the people who live in the city of Dublin condone murder.
Seriously, there has to be a angle we’re missing. This just seems bizzare. What exactly was the convicted man’s version of the story? What parts does he deny given the CCTV footage?
One has to presume that those people shaking the man’s hand believe him to be innocent of the charges put to him. I’m not familiar with the facts of the case, but given the reaction in the media, and the fact it’s quite difficult to get a guilty verdict in rape trials, one would be led to believe the evidence was pretty compellling, so why don’t they agree with the verdict of the court?
Shame on people who shook this rapists lets hope he suffers every day for the next five years as I’m sure the poor victim will have to live with this for the rest of her life god help her and her family thank god she brought this rapist to court god knows he may have even done this before and got away with it.
Shame on people who shook this rapists hand lets hope he suffers every day for the next five years as I’m sure the poor victim will have to live with this for the rest of her life god help her and her family thank god she brought this rapist to court god knows he may have even done this before and got away with it.
“Despite this he was sentenced to seven years in prison by a jury of his peers.”
No, he wasn’t. He may have been convicted by a jury of his peers, but the seven year sentence was imposed by a judge. That separation of roles is a basic feature of our criminal justice system.
Ah yeah, but you’re a smart guy right Tombuktu? You understood what was meant by the sentence and that it was clearly an accidental misuse. Grand. So, back to the stuff that’s actually relevant…
Brave girl. She did the right thing to tell the truth. The fifty handshakers show the attitude of men towards women today. I myself, have noticed a huge lack of respect. They ‘expect’ sex as their entitlement. Are they human at all, or dogs?
Someone might give this ‘nice guy’ a taste of his own medicine in prison.
That’s rich, a priest giving a character reference. I’m sure paedophiles can be ‘nice’ people also. But an evil act is evil. Hitler would also get a good character reference as he also had a following of thick eijits.
Joan, I was as dissapointed by this story as anyone, but that’s extremely lose and lazy language. To hope that a rape is avenged with another rape is downright weird. Do we employ another rapist to avenge that rape, or do we stop there because Foley’s rape would be justifiable? And I can’t help but feel the vague references to paedophiles and Hilter make light of the victims of child abuse and the Holocaust. It commodifies their suffering.
This poor girl has suffered so much. How can she continue to live in this backward town? and did her family take Foley’s side? I understand she only had support from the Rape Crisis Centre?
“The fifty handshakers show the attitude of men towards women today”
Joan, as a man, I find that comment to be HIGHLY offensive. If you bothered to do any kind of basic research, you will find that the overwhelming majority of men in this country when commenting on what happened in Listowel have shown complete support for the woman who was raped, and one of complete disgust towards that vile savage and the gormless yokels who offered him their support.
This is not the place to take the horror of what a woman has had to endure at the hands of an evil obnoxious man, and the secondary horror of men openly supporting him (not to mention the women who ALSO offered him their support whilst viciously demonising the woman in question) and turn it into a hackneyed misandrist generalisation of men.
Joan, your response has a hell of a a lot of hyperbole in it, but even then, I think what you and many otheres fail to take into consideration is the fact that these 50 people aren’t shaking the man’s hand because he attacked the girl, or even in spite of it. They shook his hand because they believed that he was innocent. As such, these people aren’t exactly useful examples if you want to judge the attitude of Irish people to rape.
Who wouldn’t shake the hand of somebody you believed to be a victim of a miscarriage of justice?
Character references?? What the hell? There was a time in Ireland when people would have given character references about certain priests who low and behold turned out to be rapists and sexual predators…nice to see how times HAVE NOT changed. When will people realise that sometimes the so-called nicest people you could meet are portraying themselves to be just that to mask the dark side within. My thoughts are with that unfortunate woman who has to suffer the indignity of predudice for telling the truth, is it any wonder that so many rapes and sexual assaults go unreported in Ireland?!
Lads ( thats a generic term for all of us- just in case anyone gets sensitive), so everyone jumps on Joan- who I wouldnt know from Eve- but here’s something that guys dont get- its men who rape whether its women or men 99% of the time its men who do that. So Joan says what actually a lo of women think, if men wcould feel what women feel, they might get how angry and f**ked off we feel when this happens time and time again. Joan,is having a knee jerk reaction, and frankly I find it totally understandable- but here’s what I as a woman would really like from all the men who are so publicly disgusted by this case and so many other cases.. get on to the cases of other men, challenge their loose talk and their dismissive attitudes to women.. dont let it stop at posting on a right on blog, have a conversation with the guys you play sports with, you have a jar with, in your classes, workplace, who write in your blogs and on their own and use the word ” cunt” freely as a common way of putting anyone down they dismiss and start thinking about that word and why its such a common piece of parlance amongst men as a derogatory term. And lets face it even in the bloggong community its a word I see written on a regular basis and every time I see it, something inside me as a woman wants to crawl up and die. I’ll challenge Joan as a woman, but you guys need to start challengimg each other.
Marie, you are a star for bringing this up. I live overseas and every time I come home it shocks me at how casually we accept the misogynistic and derogatory attitudes of men in Ireland. The way men talk to each other about women and girls, including using the awful c word, without even noticing they are doing it. From an outsiders point of view I know it is shocking but it is so commonplace in Ireland that it’s barely noticed and rarely commented on.
So I mirror Marie’s request: challenge them. If you really think that this girl has been wronged by the people in her comunity then challenge the people in yours. Talk to young men and boys about their attitudes towards women, how they feel about the way their mothers/sisters /girlfriends should be treated on a day to day basis.
Niall is right-the people who supported Dan Foley did so because they thought he was innocent, despite all the evidence , but also because many would see the crime here is that a man would go to jail for sexual assault. Their thoughts are that a man will be put away for some of the best years of his life, that rape happens because of the actions of the victim, that dressing or dancing provocatively is ‘asking for it’ and that the punishment in no way fits the crime. Many rapists are repeat offenders and I’m wondering how many of these people would support him on his second or third conviction. Or if his next victim was known to them.
It doesn’t matter how nice a chap they think Dan Foley is, Rape is an act of violence. Always.
Marie and Anie, you might find this hard to believe, but men do have this conversation. I’ve had this conversation with other men, men from both ends of the social spectum. Sometimes this conversation is reasoned and rational, and sometimes it revolves around the idea of stringing up sex offenders, but either way I have never heard a man suggest: “well, sometimes they’re just asking for it.” Now I have met a few men whose views on women are less than healthy, I’m thinking of one in particular, but to suggest this is a general trait inherent in men, or lend any credence whatsoever to Joan’s claim, is honest-to-god sexism.
i feel really sorry for that girl BUT i live in listowel and know that before this case the same girl was “paid off” by TWO other men before taken it to court on the same kinda charges. [EDIT: THIS IS COMPLETE HEARSAY, THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF WHICH I AM AWARE TO BACK THIS UP - Mark]….so that is why in so many peoples mind danny is innocent and if i was in that court on wednesday i would have shaken his hand. and did anyone not notice that the same girl had no family in court for the whole trail….. i know that if something like this happened to me i would want my family there!!! in court there was no evidence that he raped her but that of bruising so in my mind if the girl was so drunk that she cant remember parts of that night that she could have fallen in the nightclub!! there is alot of ifs and buts in this but seven years is a bit much with no evidence that he did and the Wayne fella in cork got only 2 years for killing a child!!!!
OMG, I’m sure it’s difficult for people in Listowel to accept that Foley may have assaulted this woman, but he has been convicted. He is guilty, as far as the legal system goes – he was seen on CCTV leaving her, with her trousers off, behind a skip. If that’s not fairly damning evidence I don’t know what is.
Also I’d like to warn everyone, from a very general point of view, that Foley is not a rapist. He was convicted of sexual assault, not of rape, and I doubt a defamation charge would be beyond him or his family, judging by their talk in the media.
Regarding the whole Joan / men argument, the sad fact of the matter is, men and women find it really difficult to consider sexual assault without assuming that the woman is somehow culpable. We ALL in some way look at women as sex objects, whether we want to or not; it’s in our culture and it’s almost inescapable. I’m sick of berating my male friends for making sexist jokes because my female friends do it too. It’s not a men hating women thing, it’s a people hating women thing (although not all of the time, and rarely overtly).
OMG: I dont think you have any right at all posting that “gossip” about the girl . I couldnt care less if its true or false, it has no bearing on this case as the evidence has proven the guy guilty.
Your post is pure gossip and does not belong here.
Marie, some foreign women I’ve spoken actually like the way that in Ireland, cunt is not regarded as some sort of especially vile insult. Calling somebody a cunt is no worse an insult in many parts of Ireland than calling them a dick.
Now I don’t entirely buy the line that our choice of curses or swears accurately reflect our values, but if they did, surely the parity of esteem in which a dick and cunt are held reflects the fact that Ireland is equal parts misogynist and misandrist.
Serious where do people get the idea that men think a “girl is asking for it”. I know no one with that attitude. I remember watching a news feature from America where they asked a class about the Rianna Chris Brown thing. The guys attidue basically ranged from he should be locked up to I’d like to beat the crap out of him. The girls were saying stuff like he might be quiet stressed and needs a second chance.
The degagatory language against men on this thread is highly insulting yet it is totally acceptable in society to suggest that men as a unit think stuff like “girl is asking for it”
This thread is located at:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=267053&goto=newpost
Here is the message that has just been posted:
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I was born in Listowel in the mid seventies. I now live and work in Dublin. This past week was embarassing for any right thinking Kerryman, but even more so for Listowel men. The outrageous support of Listowel people, of a sex beast who was found guilty by a court of law has outraged modern Ireland. The display by 50 savages of this beast was insane. These 50 men are as guilty of Danny Foley. They openly condoned the rape of a young woman. They as a group of men said it was ok to try and throw her into a skip like a piece of rubbish.
Every female relative of these 50 men should be very scared. Now you know what kind of Kerry men run in your families. Men who are akin to savages. I thought Kerry had dragged its ass out of the bygone eras, but after this we are back in the Kerry babies times. The women who support these 50 men should be ashamed of yourselved too. You are obviously in abusive relationships if your men condone rape. I am surprised these men don’t have a weekly rape day when they wheel out the town’s women for a bit of manly fun.
Be under no illusions, Danny Foley is a convicted rapist and sex beast. He thought he would get away with being a beast, but CCTV caught him out. Danny Foley was trying to throw that girl into a skip after he finished with her, make no mistake about that. He should have got life. He is no quiet respectable man. He has clearly shown that a savage lurked below his face. I am so ashamed to be a Kerryman this week, but even nmore so that I am a Listowel man, cause every other county now thinks we are nothing more than cave men, and that is very sad. Shame on you Listowel, you have made a mock of us across the globe.:mad:
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i am very familiar with the rape case that took place in duagh about 17 years ago where fr james linnane spoke out against the carey family the same as fr sean sheehey has done in listowel how dare priest take one persons side above the other i was a student priest and due to differculties i recieved in the duagh community i was turned down for furthur studies to the priesthood even though i was fully innocent at the time and was accused of a crime i did not commit the local priest also went against me along with the local bishops it is not the duty of priests to side with one family above the next as they are there to represent the whole community and not one individual person what fr linnane done at the time was appauling and he should even to this present day he highly ashamed of himself along with fr sean sheehey i think it is very unfair that bishop murphy spoke out against fr sheeheys actions and over looked the actions taken by now cannon james linnane i think that even now fr linnane should resign from his duties the same as fr sean sheehey those priests have great chech and dont practicse what they preach and i can support this statement i am thinking of all families involved in this recent and indeed past rape case and am appealing to the community not to get involved or take sides as no one really knows what happened on any night and should not piont the finger as it said in the bible do onto others as you want them to do onto you it is not the place of priests to speak out in cases such as these as it is not their place and they should be trying to keep the peace in the community what fe sean sheehey has recently done and what fr linnane done many years ago is not the way to go it gives the wrong impression to communities and places a sence of a void and creates conterversary in a small community i would like to finish by saying i am deeply shocked at fr sheeheys and fr linnanes reactions and only think it is fair for fr linnane to step down from his ministery as he done wrong and created alot of conflict in our community i would like to say i am familiar and friendly with both families in duagh and hold all of both families in the highest of respect but clearly state priests should be more opened minded today than before times have changed and from my study of the bible i never once saw where a priest or a man of god should side with one individual above another as this type of inefficiency brings division to local communities.
Thank you and my prayers and thoughts are with all involved.