Verdict sends out wrong message
Public outrage at the perceived leniency of the penalty handed down by the court was evident yesterday as 93% of more than 800 listeners who voted in a poll on yesterday’s Marian Finucane show believed the celebrity TV chef should have been put behind bars.
Putting this highly contentious verdict into perspective, readers of the Irish Examiner were given an illuminating insight into the skewed nature of Ireland’s legal system by the report of a case from another District Court involving a 22-year-old man with a petty crime record who received a year in prison for stealing a motor bike which, in the event, was returned to the owner.
Even allowing for the mitigating circumstance that the Allen case was a first offence, the glaring disparity of these two penalties provides further proof that offences against property are punished more severely in this country than the far more heinous crime of possessing child pornography.
Doubtless, there can be no exaggerating the burden which Tim Allen has brought upon himself as a self-confessed sex offender. Nor is it possible to over-state the humiliation inflicted upon his own family, who have been at the forefront of creating a worldwide reputation for Irish cuisine.
In such harrowing cases, according to expert opinion, the devastation caused to families by breach of trust and feelings of guilt by association, are unimaginable.
On a broader plain, however, the nub of the legal issue is that the vast majority of people believe Judge Patwell sent out the wrong message when he imposed a penalty of 240-hours community work, replacing a conviction of nine months imprisonment which he had suspended.
Clearly, this verdict has failed the test of the need for the judiciary to reflect the public mood regarding the seriousness of such an offence.
The perception that one law exists for the poor and another for the rich has been reinforced by the decision to take into account Mr Allen’s donation of 40,000 to the Edith Wilkins Foundation in India, which caters for thousands of sexually abused children, including victims drugged and then shockingly abused in multiple rape scenes destined for the scurrilous internet trade to which Mr Allen subscribed.
The Director of Public Prosecutions has a bounden responsibility to recognise the gravity of the scenario by sending suspected crimes involving child pornography to the Circuit Court where a custodial sentence of up to five years could be imposed.
Unless a mandatory sentence is introduced it will be will be virtually impossible to achieve consistency of sentencing. Sending cases of such a serious nature to the District Court for adjudication is not the answer.
With nearly 100 more child pornography cases pending, including charges against a judge, a headmaster and a company executive, the key question is whether a precedent has been set in the Allen case.
The judiciary must recognise that people who use child pornography are complicit in the sexual abuse of children around the globe. They are the real victims of this horrendous practice.
Regrettably, the Allen verdict does not send out a strong deterrent message. Nor does it reflect society’s revulsion for this reprehensible crime.
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