Mick Clifford: Concern for sexual violence victims is only rhetoric without true support
Grace and Siobhan Odumosu who, along with their sister and cousin, were sexually asaulted by their uncle Patrick Caffrey over a sustained period of time. Picture: Moya Nolan
Early on in the week, an article in a legal journal was published calling for the “rebalancing” of criminal trials in order to protect the rights of the victims of sexual violence. The piece was co-authored by Supreme Court judge Peter Charleton. On Tuesday, the annual conference of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors heard a call for face-to-face training for gardaí dealing with victims of sexual and domestic violence.
On Wednesday, the Minister for Justice announced that under new legislation gardaí can disclose information relating to a person on the sex offenders register in situations where there is a serious threat to public safety. In the round, it was another week in which the interests and concerns of the victims of sexual violence were given due consideration in the public square.
It wasn’t always thus. There was a time when the plight of victims was an afterthought in the legal system and sexual violence was, to a large extent, brushed under the carpet. Now, victims are centre stage, at least officially. But are they?
In contrast to the various nuggets in the media this week, the lived experience of one group of victims suggests that not all has changed since the bad old days. Last Monday, the Irish Examiner published an
interview with Grace, Siobhan and Fiona Odumosu. The sisters and their cousin were abused by an uncle, Patrick Caffrey of Grove Road, Harold’s Cross in Dublin, over a period of 12 years. On November 1, he was sentenced to three years in prison.
The sisters’ experience at the hands of the criminal justice system is at odds with the public concern for the plight of victims. The trial took place five and a half years after they first revealed the abuse, even to each other, and made statements to the gardaí.
In that period, they had three different Garda liaison officers. The first was a woman, which they appreciated because it was easier to confide in somebody of their own gender. She got moved. Despite requesting her replacement also be a woman, they were assigned a man. He was, they all say, highly professional. But he got long Covid and his replacement appears to have had no real empathy or interest in the plight of the women. He didn’t even turn up for the trial, sending a replacement on whom none of the women had previously even set eyes.
In its 2018 report, the Commission on the Future of Policing examined how victims of sexual assault should be catered for.
“It is important now that An Garda Síochána should ensure that services to victims and compliance with victims’ rights are embedded in the organisation’s processes and that all members understand what their obligations are towards victims of crime. This applies in particular to those victims who have been traumatised by the crime.”
The Odumosus’ lived experience appears to be that the matter is one of pot luck. Some are highly professional, others don’t appear to give a hoot.
Long delays in cases dealing with sexual violence have been recognised in various reports as an issue for victims. There have been recommendations for pre-trial hearings to expedite the process but so far nothing has been done. Five and a half years is a long time to be in suspension, avoiding the perpetrator, worrying about what awaits in the courtroom.
Another issue is familiarising victims with the court process. This is facilitated by a support agency, although the Odumosus were referred separately to the One In Four organisation, which was exemplary in its supporting role.
Part of this process is meeting the prosecuting legal team. The sisters were introduced to the team last April, four days before the trial was due to start. At the meeting, they were told for the first time that the trial was being put back a few months.
"They said get in touch anytime if we had questions,” Grace Odumosu remembers. “But we weren’t given any phone number or email to contact or anything. We had to go through the garda and he wasn’t around much.”
The trial was then scheduled to take place on a Monday in June. It got delayed until Tuesday. Then the family were told it was delayed for another day. That evening, they were informed that after five years pleading innocence, Caffrey was not admitting to the offences. He pleaded guilty the following day and received credit for the plea in his subsequent sentencing.
Fiona Odumosu lives now in Chicago. She flew home from the trial that didn’t happen. All four wanted to give victim impact statements. They were handed a template to show how the statements were to be compiled.
“It was a simple thing that could have been used even for somebody who had their bicycle stolen,” Grace says. For the greater part, they put together the statements themselves.
Fiona flew home again in October for the sentencing hearing. She arrived two days before it was due to take place in order to sign her statement. She went straight from the airport to the Garda station.
“Due to a queue I was left standing out in the cold for at least 25 or 30 minutes,” she says. “Then I was brought into the room where I gave my initial statement in 2017 and left there alone, which was traumatising. When the garda reappeared he couldn’t figure out how to print my statement. He tried for about 15 minutes and then I was told that somebody would drop it off that night.
On the day of the hearing, a barrister had a scheduling problem. The solution was for the sisters to read their statements into the record, and the remainder of the hearing would take place at a later date.
Normally, the process is sequential, with a garda reading out the facts and then the victims reading their statements on how they were impacted by the facts.
On this occasion, the facts of the case were postponed to a later hearing. Fiona didn’t get to see the full hearing as she had to return to Chicago before the second part could take place. The scheduling issue for the barrister took precedence over Fiona’s displacement.
That is the lived experience of one group of victims which suggests casual disregard for their plight.
Concern for those who have been traumatised by sexual violence certainly gets plenty of airing, in the media, in the Dáil, from the centres of power and the public at large. When the lived experience doesn’t tally with all this concern, when the lived experience does nothing to encourage others to come forward, the empathetic rhetoric counts for very little.
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