A 14-year old boy attacks and violently rapes a teenage girl. His brother, then aged 17, also rapes her. The judge describes it as a “terrifying and violent” assault.
The rapist was 16 when he was sentenced to just five years. He’ll be 21 (perhaps younger) when he is released. What does that mean for women and girls?
The judge in the case, Mr Justice Paul McDermott, says that the teenage girl, who was 17 at the time, was preyed on. That indicates the boys knew what they had planned when they approached the girl and “invited her to go for a chat.”
They also knew their victim had been drinking, and was “not in a good way” because she had consumed alcohol.
There was some criticism of news reporting that the girl’s friend had described her as being in that condition, but, in my mind at least, far from placing blame on the victim, it spoke to the calculating and predatory actions of the rapists.
She later told Gardai she did not know what was going on when the boys led her away. So they brought her to a nearby field and attacked her repeatedly.
I have teenage girls. I can’t begin to imagine how terrified and violated this girl felt. It is sickening to think of anyone’s daughter being subjected to such vicious and depraved savagery.
At first, the boys – the rapists – denied the attack had happened. Then they told gardai the sexual acts were “consensual”. Liars as well as predators, then.
What brings two teenage boys to carry out such appalling crimes? What makes them so devoid of empathy or compassion or basic human decency? Justice McDermott said that the younger boy used threats of violence against the girl in order to rape her, and that both rapists “knew the girl was in a distressed and vulnerable state and was not consenting to sex”. They raped her anyway.
Is it the increasingly violent nature of pornography, including rape porn, now so freely available – and being streamed into devices that are never out of their hands? Is it something deviant in their nature, or how they were raised? What ever the cause, one thing is certain, the incidences of rape in this country are rising at an alarming rate.
In 2020, the Rape Crisis Centres recorded a shocking 98% rise in calls from survivors during the lockdown. In 2018, the number of sex crimes reported to Gardai in Ireland reached a record level – surpassing the records that had been set in 2017 and in 2016. Convictions are thankfully increasing, but so are the numbers of sexual assaults.
The boys attacked the girl close by a holiday caravan park in Wexford. Clearly, they had no concerns about being caught or of repercussions that would follow. Research indicates such behaviour can be a marker for psychopathy.
Research has also indicated that men who carry out more than one sexual assault have some commonalities: they begin this pattern of behaviour early; they may associate with others who also commit sexual violence; and they deny that they are rapists.
Recently, serial rapist David Hegarty was seen “prowling” Dublin parks after he was released from a 13 year sentence for attacking a nurse in 2009. He had previously attacked two female students in Cork in October 1998, and after being released early (he was sentenced in 2000 for ten years but let out in 2008) he went onto attack a Filipino nurse in the same city.
Judge Paul Carney considered Hegarty so dangerous to women that he wanted to impose a life sentence but he noted that a similar sentence he had imposed was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal relying on the constitutional rights of the rapist. “The female half of the population has a constitutional right not to be raped,” Judge Carney correctly pointed out, his frustration evident.
Why are serial rapists released when the evidence shows they are a danger to women and girls and make them unsafe? Hegarty was released from his first sentence early because of an automatic 25% remission given for “good behaviour”. The vile serial rapist Larry Murphy, who never expressed remorse for his crimes, was given the same. It’s almost unbelievable.
At least we have photos of Hegarty and Murphy – and I’ve shown them to my teenage girls, not to frighten them, but to warn them. But in the Wexford case neither of the two rapists can be identified. The 16-year old is considered a child under the law and identifying the now 19-year-old would identify his rapist brother.
We won’t know, in 5 or 6 years time, who is walking in our midst.
The teenage girl, now 19, said the assaults left her suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. She has dropped out of school and has also developed anorexia. As Justice McDermott said, the attacks continue to have a pervasive effect on her life.
The court heard that she is “petrified of 99% of men,” even including her father and brother. The trauma for her whole family must be almost unbearable.
But her rapists will be free when the younger of them is just 21. The safety of women and girls doesn’t seem to matter. This has to change.