Jail sentence for all violent crime urged

MANDATORY sentencing for all crimes of violence and an increased police presence on the streets is the only way to curb the vicious cycle of violence, a former detective has said.

Retired detective inspector, Gerry O’Carroll, who worked on many of the most violent and shocking murder cases of the last 20 years, said some judges appeared to be misguided in their approach to sentencing convicted killers. “What an insult to the victim and what an insult as far as I’m concerned to everyone in this country who believes in justice,” he said.

“A lot of our judges really have forgotten what justice is all about,” he continued.

Speaking with RTÉ’s Marian Finucane yesterday, Mr O’Carroll was also critical of Justice Minister Michael McDowell for not introducing a promised allocation of 2,000 extra gardaí. “The State has a duty to protect its citizens. Where are the 2,000 guards we were promised,” he asked.

“In the interests of justice the judiciary or the legislator may have to consider, to stop this cycle of violence, some form of mandatory sentencing for anybody involved in crimes of violence where weapons are used,” he said.

“We have no deterrent in this country for murder and manslaughter,” Mr O’Carroll said, adding that of more than 60 killers he helped put behind bars, just two are still in prison.

Mr O’Carroll’s son was knocked unconscious and had his jaw broken in two places outside a disco in Dun Laoghaire. “It brought it home to me when we drove across the country at four in the morning to see our comatose son in St Michael’s hospital. It brought it home to me that it can strike out of the blue, this gratuitous violence as if there’s something in the water,” he said.

Knife attacks accounted for a huge amount of death, injury and suffering. “A little three-inch blade inserted into a body part. You’re dead. It’s horrific and you hardly know sometimes you’re dying,” he said.

“There’s something cold and clinical. You can get shot at a distance but somebody has to come and stick an instrument into you. It’s vile. I despise the whole ethos of knives and the carrying of them,” he continued.

Mr O’Carroll was the brainchild behind a proposed scheme to introduce collection bins for knives in a bid to reduce the number of weapons in circulation.

Ultimately, though, his plan was not taken on board by the authorities. “If you take one knife away and it saves some poor child, but again, the politicians of the day, while they paid a bit of lip-service to it, they didn’t run with it.”