RCNI Press Release 23 November 2004

From Judge to offender, victims of sexual violence damned by all

The Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI) today expressed dismay at Judge Carney’s condemnation of a sexual assault victim’s judgement in the incident which happened in 1999. In sentencing Edward McDonnell, who was convicted of sexual assault and assault causing harm, Judge Carney choose to focus on the behaviour of the victim.

Fiona Neary, Executive Director of the RCNI said, ‘to criticise a victim’s behaviour can only mean that the judge believes that the victim is in some way culpable for the crimes committed against her. If we are to take sexual violence seriously in Ireland then we at least need to start with the foundation that those who perpetrate that violence are wholly to blame for their own behaviour.

‘We very urgently need to understand that when a woman agrees to one thing, such as a lift home, it can never be taken for some sort of code that she has agreed to sex.

‘You didn’t just get on my bike for a lift home’, the convicted sexual offender, Edward McDonnell said to his victim as he sexually assaulted her on the side of the road in April of 1999. Judge Carney, in his summation after McDonnell’s conviction on Tuesday the 23rd 2004 said he could not understand how the victim ‘could be so unstreetwise as to jump on to the passenger seat of a complete stranger’s motorcycle and head for the Dublin Mountains’. It seems to us that there is little difference in these two men’s assessment of the victim’s actions.

The victim, on her own waiting some time for a taxi, decided to take the lift offered to her by a man she had fallen into conversation with. He then attacked her. Had she walked home and been attacked; had she taken a taxi and been attacked; had she stood on her own waiting for a taxi and been attacked, doubtless Judge Carney would equally have questioned her judgment. In the trial the victim found herself having to justify her decision and pleading her ‘naivety’. She told how subsequent to the attack she was putting matters in her life ‘on hold’. Would Judge Carney be pleased if those changes in her behaviour included, not venturing out without a male escort; not being free to decide when she leaves the pub and go home and in fact not going out at all – would that be a position that was sufficiently ‘streetwise’ for Judge Carney and all those who condemn the victims of sexual violence for the acts of their perpetrators?

Notes:
• The RCNI is the national forum of Rape Crisis Centres, which provides a strong voice for survivors and is a catalyst for social change to end rape and all forms of sexual violence.

For information contact:
Cliona Saidlear (RCNI Communications coordinator) 087 2196447

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