Crime and Punishment
ALMOST a year after he and his family narrowly escaped being killed, Chris O’Leary is in a “constant state of readiness”.
In the early hours of July 15, 2006, a petrol bomb was lobbed into his home.
“I awoke to the smell of smoke at about 3.30am,” recalled Mr O’Leary.
“I ran down the stairs and saw huge flames. I ran straight back up the stairs to wake my wife and child and we escaped.”
He added: “I believe that if I had not awoken when I did I would not have lived to tell the tale.”
Ten months on, he is still living with the trauma.
“If I hear a joyrider, which I often do, I’m up to see if anything is thrown in. I have cameras all over the place, linked to a monitoring station. I have shatter-proof glass and fire extinguishers and alarms. It is a bit of a sentence, but I want to protect my wife and my family, I have a daughter aged 13.”
Mr O’Leary is one of a growing, and largely silent, swell of ordinary people whose lives are being damaged, and in many cases ruined, by antisocial behaviour.
As a Green Party councillor on Cork City Council, Mr O’Leary has bravely put his neck on the line in openly confronting antisocial behaviour in the city. The arson attack was the fourth attack on his home within two years.
In July’s attack, Mr O’Leary caught the attacker, who turned out to be 17 years old, on camera.
His experience with the court process will not be a surprise to many victims of crime. “I was intimidated. I was told that if I was to go into court and give evidence that there would be more than a firebomb put into my house.”
And when he got to court: “All of a sudden all the talk was about his rights, as a child. I was barred from the court. I had to fight just to attend.”
He had to wait eight months before he could give a victim impact report.
At least, in his case, the youth got seven years in jail, with two suspended.
He firmly believes victims should have the same right to legal representation in court as defendants.
Mr O’Leary said he was “snowed under” with the number of antisocial behaviour cases he was receiving from constituents.
“I actually am loathe to call it antisocial behaviour, for me it’s criminality of the worst kind, when people blow in your windows with rocks or firebomb your car. That’s happening on a weekly basis in Cork.”
The fatal arson attack in Clonmel last month brought home to him what could have happened in his case. The tragedy showed antisocial behaviour was not only a problem in the cities, but also one in towns.
Ann-Marie O’Neill, aged just 55, died in horrific circumstances at the hands of local youths who had tormented them, and other neighbours in Elm Park estate, for years.
They had set her wheelie bin alight. It spread to their car and then engulfed the house. Her husband, Pat, managed to jump from the upstairs window, but Ann-Marie was apparently unable to do so and died.
Local Labour councillor, Darren Ryan said: “We’ve long lobbied for increasing policing and for the gardaí and council to introduce measures to put a stop to antisocial behaviour.”
A survey of 2,000 people by Labour in nine constituencies last year found that 60% of people expressed “medium to high” levels of concern about antisocial behaviour.
The top problems were joyriding, groups loitering, damage to trees, street drinking, damage to property and joyriding.
A survey of more than 1,000 people at 54 nationwide meetings by Fine Gael in 2005 found that 88% said antisocial behaviour had increased in the previous three years and 80% said it was a serious or very serious issue. The Central Statistics Office Crime and Victimisation Survey, published last month, found that 25% of people felt unsafe or very unsafe walking alone in their neighbourhood after dark. Among females this rose to 42% and to 45% among over 65s.
Commenting on the FG survey, the party’s justice spokesman Jim O’Keeffe said a “very common complaint” was the lack of gardaí on the ground.
Mr O’Leary echoed this: “I think guards are overstretched, they can’t respond. I hear frequently when someone rings the local station, the guard says ‘there’s a car out, we’ll get to you as soon as possible’. But they never see the car or see it four hours later after things have quietened. People just give up.”
The Garda Public Attitudes Survey 2006 found that 42% of people were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with garda visibility in their locality.
The CSO survey found that almost half of people rated the work of gardaí in their local area as poor or very poor.
Garda members say there are simply not enough of them on duty to deal with all the calls and that they have too few patrols cars to do so.
They also are reluctant to go to potentially dangerous scenes in small numbers and without proper backup and defensive equipment.
Mr O’Leary gives this advice to people: “Don’t bother ringing your local station, dial 999, they have to respond straight away.”
Even here, people are not guaranteed a good response. The garda survey found 30% of respondents were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the emergency response.
Asked for suggested improvements, people called for greater manpower, more foot patrols and more contact with the community.
Garda numbers and community policing are key issues in this election. The Government pledged in 2002 to increase garda numbers by 2,000, bringing it to 14,000.
As of March 2007 there are 13,178 gardaí, an 11% rise on 2002. (1,000-plus are in training and there should be 14,000 gardaí next year.) But the population has risen by 8%.
All the parties are pushing community policing, with promises of between 1,000 and 2,000 more recruits. But there are demands on garda resources.
Tackling organised crime, drug trafficking and gangland shootings are other hot topics in the election.
An example of the scale of the problem were the perverse street parties last month in notorious estates in Limerick city following the gangland murder of Noel Campion.
Children as young as six years of age ran around wearing T-shirts saying ‘Noely p***ed himself when he was shot in the back’.
The feud between two groupings shows no sign of abating, despite the noted success of local gardaí in securing court convictions.
Organised crime in the capital reached another peak last November and December. The shooting of innocent mother Baiba Saulite and innocent tradesman, Anthony Campbell, particularly outraged the country and the Oireachtas.
The seizure of assault rifles, submachine guns, hand guns and rocket-propelled grenades in Cork last month — thought to be destined for the Limerick feud — highlighted the increasing threat posed by armed gangs.
To combat gangland crime, gardaí need witnesses, from within gangs or from the public.
Intimidation is a major problem. The case earlier this month of security man Afek Alquasar was both sobering and encouraging in this regard. Darren Larkin was sentenced to life for the attempted murder of the Jordanian national in Blanchardstown, west Dublin in February 2006.
The guard lost almost everything when he and his family were forced to enter the State Witness Protection Programme because of intimidation.
He said his wife suffered from her nerves and that their marriage was virtually over. He said his son had moved to several mental institutions and his younger son had to leave school.
Detective Inspector Brian Sherry, who led the investigation, commended Mr Alquasar but said he had paid a terrible price.
Mr O’Leary believes that, as well as more gardaí on the streets, community mediation schemes and community courts — recommended in a recent report by the National Crime Council and backed by Mr McDowell — are part of a solution.
He had this warning if the issue was not addressed: “I sense huge anger there. Unless we begin to tackle it properly, we are going to have vigilantes on the streets."
THE number of recorded headline (serious) crimes fell by 2.5% between 2002 and 2006. But within that period the figures started to increase again since 2004.
Since 2002 there has been a drop in serious assaults (21%), sexual offences (39%) and robberies (19%).
But on the up are murders (15%), shootings (35%) and drug trafficking (22%). Burglaries and thefts remained largely unchanged.
Garda detection rates for headline crime fell from 41% in 2002 to 35% in 2005. The Department of Justice says it rose back up to 40% in 2006.
Detection rates were down for murder (from 81% to 48%); serious assault (from 75% to 63%); sexual offences (from 69% to 45%) and burglaries (from 20% to 17%).
Detection rates improved for robberies (from 36% to 38%) and shootings (from 27% to 29%).
Prosecutions for non-headline (less serious) offences fell by 7% between 2002 and 2005, but have increased since 2003.
4.6% of the population were victims of crime in 2006, compared to 5.2% in 2003 and 2.4% in 1998.
75% of people said they felt safe or very safe walking alone in their neighbourhood after dark — similar to 2003 and 1998.
30% of people in 2006 did not report a burglary to gardaí — similar to 2003, but higher than 1998.
Almost half did not report vandalism — slightly lower than 2003 and 1998.
Almost 40% did not report a violent theft — similar to 2003 and 1998.
Nearly half did not report an assault — slightly better than 2003, but worse than 1998.
Nearly half of people rated the work of gardaí in their local area as poor or very poor, compared to 44% in 2003 and 37% in 1998.
The number of gardaí rose by 11% between 2002 (11,895) and March 2007 (13,178).
The population rose by 8% between 2002 and 2006.
That means there are now 322 people for every garda in the country — compared to 329 in 2002.
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