Irish Examiner view: Time to reconsider court testimonials

Vera O'Leary of the Kerry Rape Crisis Centre has offered awareness training to the GAA.

It is a sign of how little progress has been made in the understanding of sexual violence that the director of the Kerry Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre, Vera O’Leary, has had to offer awareness training to the GAA after glowing testimonials were submitted at the sentencing hearing of a 26-year-old man convicted of rape last year.

In one, the vice-chair of Dingle GAA John Diony O’Connor spoke highly of Conor Quaid, of Monaree, Dingle, Co Kerry, who was sentenced to eight years with 18 months suspended last week for raping a woman while she slept. The judge noted that he had shown no remorse.

Later, John Diony O’Connor said he had spoken in a personal capacity but that misses the point entirely because showing a man’s ability to be punctual at work or to line out diligently on the GAA field has no bearing whatsoever on his attitude to women or his propensity to commit a sexual crime.

Indeed, we have to reconsider the value of allowing character references in cases of sexual violence, particularly ones involving children. Child abusers often inveigle themselves into positions of power and respect — the very positions praised in court — to facilitate their crimes.

Let us hope that the GAA will take up Vera O’Leary’s offer of awareness training, but this case underlines the need for a much more widespread understanding of victim consciousness not just within the court system, but outside it.