Barry sentencing - We have to close bail loophole

MR JUSTICE Paul Carney was emphatic yesterday when, in Galway, he sentenced murderer and double rapist Gerald Barry, aged 29, to two life terms for raping a French student.

Imposing the maximum sentence for two counts of rape, Mr Justice Paul Carney said Barry had a “proclivity and propensity to kill and rape again given an opportunity”.

His victim, now a 23-year-old student, earlier described Barry as a “human predator”. “He is not a human or a man. He is a liar, a rapist and a murderer,” she said. Barry’s appallingly violent and extensive criminal record confirms this view.