Injustice for all
We’ve grown accustomed to it by now, grown used to seeing them, standing outside the courthouse, ashen-faced, barely able to comprehend what they’ve just heard.
Their beloved, their son, daughter, mother or father, the person who experienced untold pain, untold anguish, had suffered for nothing. Having campaigned for justice, appealed to the judge, placed their faith in the system, the family had received nothing but a kick in the guts for their efforts.
Instead of being left to grieve, safe in the knowledge that the person who took everything away from them will never see the light of day again, they must live in fear, knowing that eventually, on a day in the not too distant future, they will open up the paper and see that face, the face of a killer, of a rapist, the sun beaming down upon it, free as a bird.
Dale Creighton died in horrific circumstances, beaten to death by a gang of callous thugs. Set upon in the small hours of New Year’s Day 2014, he was methodically and viciously assaulted, battered senseless by five men while their friends egged them on in the background.
The attack was only stopped when the Gardaí arrived, if they hadn’t came when they did it would have continued, the outnumbered victim toyed with until his assailants grew tired or bored, or both.
His family were unable to identify his body. His face had been pulverised, beaten beyond all recognition, distorted to such an extent that even after being restored to a shadow of its former self by morticians, mourners were advised not to touch it lest its true horrors be revealed.
This week, at the Central Criminal Court, those responsible for ending Dale’s life, having plead guilty to manslaughter, were sentenced. Partly suspended, their sentences ranged from three years to seven and a half years imprisonment which, in the Irish system, means they will serve half that or less.
Is that justice? Did the punishment fit the crime? Does it ever in this country?
In a statement released by the family, the sentences were described as “too lenient”. Choosing not to stoke the already raging fires, they should be credited for retaining their dignity and composure in the face of such provocation.
Because that’s what this is, provocation.
In telling the Creightons that their twenty-year old son’s life can be taken, violently and brutally, over nothing more than a perceived slight, and that those responsible will be free to resume their own lives in a matter of months after but the briefest of spells behind bars, our judicial system is thumbing its nose up at us all, informing us that should we fall foul to those mean streets it will not be there to protect us.
And this is just the latest injustice, one more high-profile case to attract interest on a national scale. Every day, throughout the country, similar injustices are carried out, sentences so lenient passed down that it can be difficult to decipher who the bigger criminal is, the judge or the defendant.
Indeed, in this very paper you will have almost certainly read of one heinous act or another, a beating, a robbery or worse, punished with nothing more than a slap on the wrists and an “away with you now, you little scamp.”
There are, of course, mitigating circumstances. Our prisons are overcrowded, underfunded and understaffed, dangerous breeding grounds, more likely to spew forth hardened, institutionalised criminals than reformed pillars of society.
On that basis, a certain degree of leniency in exceptional cases can be explained. A petty thief may indeed benefit from monitoring and mentoring rather than the company of those likely to lead him further astray.
But how then, can you explain the case of Karl Smith, the Dublin teenager who was sentenced to two years prison for spending money inadvertently lodged to his account?
Smith, who admittedly did have a string of former convictions, had been due to receive two day’s wages from a former employer, a sum total of approximately €200. Instead, thanks to a clerical error, he got €20,000. How would you react? What would you do?
Nowadays I’d probably be a boring old fart and contact my bank, but when I was nineteen? I would have been on the first plane to Ibiza, not to be seen again until each and every cent had been spent and the few brain cells I possessed had been burnt to a crisp.
Young Karl was slightly more circumspect. Yes he still lived it up a bit, went on a few benders, but he also paid off some of his debts and made some home improvements, buying a PlayStation, a new bed, planning for the future, wise beyond his years.
We may joke, but for his endeavours Karl received a sentence comparable with that of those involved in Dale Creighton’s death.
On the one hand, we have an errant, opportunistic young man who chose not to look a gift horse in the mouth. On the other, we have someone who played a part in the ending of a life, who rained down blows on an unconscious body until it no longer resembled the person it had once been.
Not only is our judicial system too lenient, it is also grossly inconsistent. In Limerick, and elsewhere, judges forge reputations based on the severity of their indictments, some become feared, the ones to avoid, others, those likely to admonish and release, become cherished, the plum draw for all amenable sinners.
There is no real deterrent, nothing to make repeat offenders think twice, to make them stop in their tracks and reassess their way of living. Petty criminals go round and round in circles, indulged by the system until finally, they overstep the mark and incur the full unbridled wrath of one of those tough, uncompromising judges.
Yet in Ireland, as we have seen, full unbridled wrath isn’t all that scary; ten years with five suspended is the going rate for kicking someone to death, a life sentence is never just that, and rape, one of the most abhorrent crimes of them all, is treated like a minor misdemeanour.
Establishing new sentencing guidelines in this country would, no doubt, be a long and laborious project, something which would have to be batted round the Seanad for months on end, discussed and argued over in the Dáil, used as a stick to beat one another over the head with.
But it needn’t be that difficult, we could simply follow Britain’s lead and set up a sentencing council, an independent body to oversee our judicial system and implement changes if and when it saw fit.
It may surprise you to learn that a similar body has already been set up in this country. It is considered a resource for those working within our courts, a place for judges, lawyers and citizens alike to access previous crimes and learn of the penalties imposed on those who committed them. The name of this organisation? The Irish Sentencing Information System. Or ISIS for short. The website for ‘ISIS’ has lain dormant for the best part of three years, its creators realising the enormity of their error around the time its namesake declared military authority over all Muslims worldwide.
The thanks we get
If you’re female and you’re reading this, stop right now. This doesn’t concern you, it’s for the lads only. Right. Are they gone? Good.
Some terrible news has emerged, something which affects each and every one of us, and especially those who have recently tied the knot. According to dating website, Victoria Milan, Irish women who cheat do so after just three and a half years of marriage, making them the quickest cheaters in the world. I know, can you believe it? The dirty tramps.
All our hard work, all those years cultivating our dad-bods, bringing her out for a Chinese twice a year, putting the toilet seat down two out of every three times, and this is how she repays us! By hot-footing it over to the neighbours’ house, to yer man, the fellah who goes to the gym or does yoga, or whatever it is that gives him such a firm bum.
Well, she can have him and his bum, we can manage right enough; we’ll figure out how to use that microwave in no time and where will she be then? Out on her ear, that’s where, dispensed with by Mr Firm Bum and no longer welcome in our house.
Not that we’ll be sticking around. No chance. Because rather than sit alone every night, crying over photos of our wedding day – which, if I need to remind you was just over three years ago – we’ll be taking an extended holiday, with a view to relocating in a different country. And our destination? Why Sweden of course; home of the second quickest cheaters in the world.
