The Gazette 1982

JULY/AUGUST 1982

GAZETTE

Rape Cases — A Trial Within A Trial? by Brenida Power

child, and rich. He caught up with her, dragged her into a nearby field, and raped and beat her. "I didn't go home at all that night. It was summer, and I lay in thefield for. .. . I don't know how long.Then I went to the Garda Station." Not surprisingly, the dice were heavily loaded against Christina. The man was well known in the town, a member of all theright clubs andsocieties. "I was well-known, too, but for all the wrong reasons!" Her treatment at the Garda Station should have been fair warning. One ofthe Gardai even went as far as to suggest she had led him on. Why if she had not spent the night with him, did she not report the attack straight away? "The court case was a nightmare. I wish I had never pressed charges." Christina stops talking now, sitting rigid- ly and staring into space. She looks atme, almost virulently, and begins again, slower, quieter. A trial within a trial. A travesty ofjustice. The accused was allowed to cross-examine the complainant. The judge decided that it would have been "unfair" if he was not allowed to bring up evidence, referring to Christina's past. "They made it all much worse, and he twisted every- thing I said. He was educated, I wasn't. He was rich. Who do you think they believed?" The man was acquitted, and Christina left the town shortly afterwards. "I couldn't stay then. I was worse than a whore. No, I never want to go home again. I'd still see him around." The law relating to rape, and indecent assault in the Republic of Ireland dates back to the Offences Against the Person Act, 1861. In 1981 the Criminal Law (Rape) Bill was passed to amend the act. The main purpose of the amendment was to restrict the admissibility in proceedings for rape offences ofevidence of any sexual experiences of the complainant with men other than the accused. Yet this amendment is largely ineffectual, because, by their intrinsic nature, rape trials immediately cast shadows of suspicion on the victim of the attack. Evidence about a woman's past is just a red herring which distracts the jury from evaluating the real evidence about the crime itself. If there is a jury. In Christina's case, the legal proceedings involved nothing more than a summary trial in a District Court. The 1981 amending Act does not alter the legal position on rape within marriage. In the eyes of the law of the Republic of Ireland, it does not exist. And assault on a woman with some foreign body, a bottle for example, is not even classed as rape. It seems wrong that the onus should be on the woman to

Christina is afraid of the dark. The glare of an orange street light turns the old window bars to beaten gold and, inside the third-floorflat, the gentle, greasy flicker ofan old oil-lamp keeps the night away. The electric light is much too strong for sleeping by. She pulls the curtains across, and smiles nervously, but it doesn't reach her eyes. She is wary, and it shows. "I should feel strange talking about it, but it's easiernow. I suppose I need to. Don't use my name." The noise ofcars passing in the street fills the room some- times, making conversation difficult. But even in the silent intervals, Christina talks in a hesitant, almost breathless manner. She is 21, tall and slim, with dark blonde hair cut short. She smokes as she talks, holding the cigarettes be- tween long, red-tipped fingers. I wanted to be a nurse andwork in a hospital in the town. She loved the lazy peace ofthe large rural town she was bom in, and never planned to leave it. Yet on a wet Thursday evening four years ago, she caught the late train to Dublin, and has not gone home since then. I'm still afraid to go out late — I hate the dark. Most evenings Ijust stay in and read. I leave the light on all night. Winter is the worst time for Christina. Darkness comes down quickly, and traps her before she gets home from work. She smiles again, easier, and stubs out the half-smoked cigarette, resolved. She wants to talk, but where to begin? I cannot help her — is this how a priest feels, in a confes- sional? Helpful, yet helpless. She begins. "I suppose I was always a bit wild, but I swear it wasn t my fault. Don't make them think it was my fault." Any absolution will do. Even fromme. Christina's father died when she was thirteen. Her mother, with whom she never really got on, subconsciously blamed her for his death, and her impotent revenge took the guise of indifference. Christina began to drink and smoke, hanging around with a rough crowd who were known around the town. Her mother never seemed to know, or care. "We were just young, and silly. I can't blame her, but I didn't know any better. They were my friends." Walking home from adance one night, Christina noticed a car pass her, then stop and turn around, nosing along beside her as she walked separated from her friends. "After a while I heard footsteps behindme. They sound- ed odd, because it's a lonely road." She began to run, and the footfalls quickened, too. She turned around in a bright patch ofthe road, and recognised a man she knew vaguely from the town. Older than her, he was married with one

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