suspended sentence for a cash payment?! Im sorry but if i was the victim id rather see the animal behind bars.

Use the same guidelines as Germany or France. Even the UK. I am sure our judges would impose harsher sentances if it happened to their child.

so the judge is pretty much treating this girl like a type if prostitute. pay her for sex…. despicable

Very reasonable request

Surely there’s some sanction on judges who hand down sentences like these. That poor girl must be devastated that she wnt through the ordeal a trial entails for this result. It’s a slap in the face for justice. I’m writing to my TD and the courts to conolaim. If enougb of us got together and enailex

You can’t treat every case the same, there are various degrees of viciousness to assaults like that. But I definitely think you shouldn’t be able to buy your way out of them

That’s disgusting. Hopefully the DDP can appeal the lenience of the sentence?

BTW I believe this is the same judge who jailed the garlic man for 6 years?

Here are the thoughts I’ve had.
1. The introduction of € compensation at ANY level turns this into a transaction – sex for money, and provides support for the rape enabling view that every woman has a “price.” A sexual assault victim is not a sex worker!
2. It must make the victim who bravely took this to court, feel shamed and demeaned and dehumanised – also a huge disincentive to anyone else contemplating a court case.
3. It must make the attacker feel like what he did wasn’t really so bad – little disincentive against re-offending – especially now he’s learned what “works” as a cover story – get a load of drink & drugs in ya and go out and do what you like.
4. Other rapists, abusers will find comfort in this for their future prospects, while future targets will have cause to fear, not only the attacker, but the collusion of the justice system.
5. It has this Old Testament flavour to it – from the same school of thought that saw nothing wrong with urging rapists to marry their victims “to make it right.”

I personally feel endangered and diminished by this judgment and hope it will be appealed by the DPP.

Justice must be SEEN to be done. Let’s see it.

Well there’s only one thing for it.

I’m going to take ketamine, lsd and booze, then kick the shit out of a judge, seeing as it’s a valid excuse.

Sorry my comment went through before I was finished.
Was going to say that if we all emailed our TD’s and the Judiciary maybe they would take notice – hopefully.
And aplogies for all the typos!

Agreed, the idea that somebody would NOT do jail time for any form of sexual assault is incredible to me. Introducing a financial compensation in lieu of imprisonment is a very slippery slope and hardly serves as a punishment.

Cheque book justice is symptomatic of a corrupt society. The message sent by this (second!) instance of cheque book justice in relation to sexual assault cases in Ireland is that Irish women no longer have the right to decide who may touch them and in what manner, provided the perpetrator has a fistful of cash and a good enough sob story. BTW, did anyone tie this guy down and force the drink and drugs down him? Does everyone who drinks or takes drugs go out and sexually assault young girls? No, they didn’t and they don’t. Predators belong behind bars, whether it was the drugs or the leprechauns who made them do it.

Eh….its ”add a comment” not ”publish a thesis”

Our Crim Law Lecturer actually mentioned this last year, the Law Reform Commission has recommended changes on the foot of appeals from the Rape Crisis Centre, but proposals never come to fruition in this country…

Judges have no accountability! Disgrace

Judges are appointed here too, not elected

Training and education? What do you call years of deciphering case law from the Irish and Commonwealth jurisdictions? People need to get over this ‘us v them’ mentality. Its the same story with the bailout. If you’re not happy with it, make an informed decision, get out there and DO something about it! Like the lady above who said she would write a letter to her local TD. Its the same story for everything, we just sit back and complain and hope that the big guys with the ‘wigs at the bar’ will sort everything out eventually. I mean tomorrow you’ll forget about this report and move on to the next big scandal. The DPP will definitely hear an appeal of this case, and it will be the solicitors, campaigners, barristers, support groups that will stay with this girl in the end. You can’t just zoom in on one appalling judgement and start deriding every judge in the country. It has to be said however, there needs to be serious legislative changes with regard to sexual offences.

I wonder how much it costs for murder…
Both, the Judge and the Law is an Ass.

they need a good kick up the arse

Elected judges. Accountability to the people

sexual attacks and abuse aren’t new to this country, but you would think by now when you are found guilty you get punished. But then again we live in a country where having a record of more than 350 abuse offences gets you 6 yrs with the last 2 suspended, Fr Ivan Payne . wonder what hes doin now . sicko

“Judges need Guidelines” Now where have I heard that one before.
The thing is ; Judges need training and education, something they don’t get in this country because it’s cronyism at it’s best.
Wigs all around for my learned friends at the bar.

The judge is essentially saying that it’s not that big a deal to sexually assault someone. Sick

Paddy.
what did you really mean to say ?? because I am sure any person who cared could not say what you just said.
I don’t care if he was a blind one legged drunken sailor who had had a lobotomy , he still committed sexual assault.

please tell us what you were trying to say ?

some facts of the case are, The girl in question was totally innocent and suffered a terrifying attack.
Griffiths was on LSD, Ketamine, Alcohol,
He attacked her in a chip shop first in full view of others, when she left with the male that was with her, Griffiths followed her and continued his attack outside on the street in full view of many, pulling buttons off her clothes and groping her through her clothes, until he was pulled off her.
The gardai that gave evidence at the case said that he was completly coperative and remorseful when he sobered up.
Griffiths has not used any alcohol or drugs since he attacked this girl.
He has past convictions for assault over 10yrs ago (not sexual)
I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with the sentence but Griffiths is not on the same scale as a sexual predator who selects a victim and plans an attack,
however I’m not minimising what the young girl was put through and thankfully it was in a place where there was help available for the girl

Well : …. this does look like a Q.E.D. proof that hard times affect everyone (there).

After all, everyone has children, they have (hypothetical) mortgages,

and children of their own too. And they have mortgages. Have you seen the size

of the mansions on your islet? And, then there’s the overseas private sch-

-ooling in the boarding houses. It all adds up and pretty quick too. The

tallest, some cultures say, fall the hardest.

Especially in a land where there exists no written legal-code?

Couldn’t be easier really. Or could it?

— ON THE SUBJECT —
Drugging, abduction & rape, just like that described in An Toraíocht

(Diarmuid agus Gráinne), well:

it all seems almost as though the Gaelic revival of the 80s & 90s ‘promoted’

and even makes all of this misbehaviour and a-social tradition and practice

toward “the female”, as are singled-out in your bundes recht na hEireannach (1938AD),

to be of some kind of non-consequence? Like, “whoops, I knocked you around and

then I ‘slipped’ya one’. Wasn’t me, ’twas d’evil drink; y’know? BTW here’s 2 grand for the

ticket to upta Belfast”.

THE 80s AND THE 90s {was it any different from then, or now?}

That was a time in the republic when much of this mystical BS (as translated from the

surviving German texts, promoted in the 19th Century) was being physically beaten-into

the corporeal bodies of shire boy-folk like me growing-up. Most visitors to the shire will

not realise that its school-system operate –for the most part– apartheid regulations

for the young men (and equally for those others) to be educated in a manner fit to

their purpose in their lives that lie ahead of them. Even the Protestants don’t have a

predestination and pre-ordination ethic that comes anywhere near the Shire’s.

Does any of the man-folk there recall that time? The revivalist nationalistic-republic of the late

20th century — on your islet over there — located at the edge-of-European Time Zones?

Looking at the republic now, and realising that most of the actors in the various state-operated

news-media information services are grey-haired, I wonder if they too were physically beaten

all around their bodies as they were being force-taught the revivalist Gaelic traditional storyline?

just like An Toraíocht : if there ever was one, a story that encompasses rape, forced abduction,

violence costing hundreds-of-lives, more rape, more abduction, sorcery, betrayal, lying like you’ve

never ever heard it before, and large doses of beatings in the classroom while the lessons were

being given to the young boys present? Their ‘pupils’?

And then, at age 18 or 19, these young men are told: ‘Welcome to University, where you can now meet

and converse with your island’s woman-folk’. http://www.scoilnet.ie/womeninhistory/content/unit6/opposition.html
X – X – X

The millennium mark has come and gone, but I’ll warrant not much else has altered other than the

date on the castle walls. Even Mr Flat Penny is still on the airwaves, and has expanded his TV-pay too!

Can anyone get any ‘gray’r; than he? Where have his pals Mr Gold-Standard Man and Mike Murphy gone?

Do you have youth over there? And, are they considered as equal (in terms of being human) as

superstars like Mr Spend’a Penny & Mr Flat Penny? Maybe ‘that’ ought to be on your scoilnet curriculum?

After all… Ehman Killmore : it’s no good shutting down diplomatic relations with the German Shepherd,

and informing everyone the world-over that your (sexual) disregard for the *unconfirmed* RK-Irish non-children

(past and present and future) is buried, buried somewhere very, very deep and safe in the catacombs below

the City of the Seven Sins… and that everything in the shire will be a-OK from that day on, because of the

detachment expressed by the Irish political male classroom-attendants (In Molesworth St. grammar school)

to all things true, regarding the sinister and generational crises that can be caused by a culture being

given to generational sexual abuse (as a mark of what that culture represents): be that in Mayo, in

Ballinasloe, or on any show.

Listening to the brutality and shocking anti-humanity put on display this week on “his” program, the

Today show, Flat Penny sent out a clear signal to the in-the-plus countries, a ‘shocking signal’, that

these countries (their peoples) since 2008, have been unwittingly funding, underwriting and supporting

a regime of brutality & torture over there on your islet, ……. by (as countries with a few bob left) giving

Your People (there’s only one name for ye lot internationally) a ‘sub’ on all your salary payments, so as

to keep those institutions of brutality in operation? How many other awfully shocking practices have

been financed and underwritten by our countries’ hard-working tax payers? Where is this going to

end Irish (nation)? Do you have leaders, and who put them there. To do what exactly? Did you have

an agreement with these people you placed into Uber-Power, before you put them there? Or do they

just play it along, as the money and the offers of riches roll in, once they have ultimate power in their

hands? (& We are talking far-more power than ze Germans would ever relinquish to théir Angel) a.

Do none of you realise that? Are the European Courts also to foot the bill for these tortured-Irish

human beings to obtain some kind of redress? Or any dress? After all, we already know that any

funds Mr Shatter’d expends, well: we all know who is paying for that? So either way? What is the

‘dividend’ in continuing at-sea with ye? Ask your selves that. Not each other, no. Ask your-self: i.e.

Try to look yourselves in the mirror too, as you do. See if you can see that ‘pupil’, standing there

looking back at you.

~):(~

I don’t think this is funny but, it’s got to be said….
I am saving up to rape the girl down the road, wonder how long it will take.
Maybe I can get a loan from one of the banks I now have a share in.

Stop discussing the technicalities ot the case. The man was found guilty of the crime and was given the option to buy his way out of jail. Irish prisons are obviously not good enough for the rich. Nothing has changed in Ireland. Money talks!
Only the poor will be jailed in the Land of Saints and Scoundrals!

Why was my comment removed?

actually even going back to 1990 social workers and priests trying to enforce adoption on single women.. and lousy doing it the way they work.. seems single women and people subjected to horrors or pimped out or used by whomever are just deemed as not worthy or unwanted or a nuisance unless hitched stitched and towing the line and bring in the taxes…

people who go through these issues get shafted daily in this country and elsehwere..when problematic just thrown to the curb…

one of the most interesting sites is the european guide to all sorts of these issues…

i think its epa.gov or something…

as you would also know most of the government politicians are either ex lawyers bankers or doctors or you know .. the usual bunch of business heads..

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm off topic..

interesting to see human rights history in this country and also the cover ups of the catholic church in relation the magdalenas.. interesting exhibition in temple bar in relation to the information related to adopted children and the loss of files going back to prevent the history being know .. here as well as in spain.. and elsehwere. states .. other places … take your pick…

the irish state constitution is a fraud and not only that the high court judges have it stitched to protect their own and those elected..

if you go through it with a fine tooth comb … youll find where theyre are issues….

interesting if you do the research..

id be done for slander but as it is.. you have to understand who and how it protects at the end of the day