Is it time to scrap character references in court?

The kind of premeditated manipulation practised with great skill by sex offenders also works on the friends, priests and TDs who are so often called on to write references, writes Clodagh Finn

INTERESTING words from barrister Michael O’Higgins who said there was no error of judgement in giving a convicted criminal a reference in court. It does not condone the crime, he said, but simply gives a wider view of a person.

You have to wonder if victim-impact statements succeed, in any shape or form, in giving a wider view of a person, but more on that anon.