Hustveit Case.

Samaris

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/rape-victim-niamhs-shock-as-ex-walks-free-im-left-reeling-and-my-parents-are-too-and-all-my-friends-who-were-there-to-support-me-31375084.html

I've thought a bit on how to phrase this. I can't make any rules, but I am asking if we can all keep it civil, and refrain from debate over whether she was raped. The courts have agreed that she was, and he has admitted it himself. Let's leave it at that, please.

So the line of debate I'm aiming to open is whether the sentence was lenient to the point of implying that what happened to her didn't matter, whether it is any deterrent to rapes, and what this means for people reporting rape in this country.

He admitted it, and without his confession, the case would not have gotten anywhere. Did he deserve such a reduced sentence based on that, particularly given that it was a repeated offence? It seems rather like throwing this woman under the bus to encourage other rapists to plead guilty in the future. Or is there an element of because she wasn't aware of it while it was happening, it was considered less serious?

It seems fairly appalling to me that he is being so publically supported by his company, and I reckon I wouldn't be too comfortable working for such a company. It smacks rather of the shaking-the-rapist's-hand disgusting business in Lisdowel a few years back.

Edit: I did ask for and get permission to reopen this topic, in case anyone's wondering

RichardCeann

I'm hoping for the DPP to appeal the sentence. It's extraordinarily lenient. The judges reasoning that the case wouldn't have been successful without the man's complete admission to raping her isn't exactly a great reason to pass a fully suspended sentence.

VisibleGorilla

Samaris wrote: »

It seems fairly appalling to me that he is being so publically supported by his company, and I reckon I wouldn't be too comfortable working for such a company. It smacks rather of the shaking-the-rapist's-hand disgusting business in Lisdowel a few years back.

On your last point here, how is he being supported? By not being fired? Should anyone convicted of a crime not work? And cost myself money by paying their dole?

Why would you not be comfortable? Is he going to rape you? What if he is very good at his job, an asset to the company, who has received his sentence by the courts, what is he meant to do?

Rosie Gardens

RichardCeann wrote: »

I'm hoping for the DPP to appeal the sentence. It's extraordinarily lenient. The judges reasoning that the case wouldn't have been successful without the man's complete admission to raping her isn't exactly a great reason to pass a fully suspended sentence.

Absolutely, it's a appalling sentence to hand down, and the company he works for welcomes a convicted rapist back into their midst. The mind absolutely boggles! The more I think about it, the more vexed I get.

Rosie Gardens

VisibleGorilla wrote: »

On your last point here, how is he being supported? By not being fired? Should anyone convicted of a crime not work? And cost myself money by paying their dole?

Why would you not be comfortable? Is he going to rape you? What if he is very good at his job, an asset to the company, who has received his sentence by the courts, what is he meant to do?

If it was my company he'd not have a job. There's a lot I could possibly try to ignore, but this is probably one of the few things I couldn't overlook.

Samaris

VisibleGorilla wrote: »

On your last point here, how is he being supported? By not being fired? Should anyone convicted of a crime not work? And cost myself money by paying their dole?

Why would you not be comfortable? Is he going to rape you? What if he is very good at his job, an asset to the company, who has received his sentence by the courts, what is he meant to do?

They have publicly given him their support and said that they hope he doesn't go to prison, as he is invaluable to the company. This rather seems to be going above and beyond, to be quite honest.

It doesn't matter whether I personally felt that he might rape me, it's not really about that. But it does give the message to people working there that the company itself doesn't feel repeated raping of his partner when she was unable to consent is ok. It doesn't exactly give one confidence as to what their methods of dealing with sexual harassment or anything of that ilk might be.

jaja321

Also hoping the DPP appeal. I can't understand how admission of guilt would lead to a full suspended sentence, partial perhaps, but not full. Think it also gives out the totally wrong message to other victims/survivors too.

VisibleGorilla

Samaris wrote: »

They have publicly given him their support and said that they hope he doesn't go to prison, as he is invaluable to the company. This rather seems to be going above and beyond, to be quite honest.

It doesn't matter whether I personally felt that he might rape me, it's not really about that. But it does give the message to people working there that the company itself doesn't feel repeated raping of his partner when she was unable to consent is ok. It doesn't exactly give one confidence as to what their methods of dealing with sexual harassment or anything of that ilk might be.

This is a Norwegian company, Norwegian society has a much, much more progressive and effective way of dealing with issues such as crime and punishment.

This happened over 3 years ago, he has not offended since and is an asset to the company, I don't get your outrage.

Samaris

VisibleGorilla wrote: »

This is a Norwegian company, Norwegian society has a much, much more progressive and effective way of dealing with issues such as crime and punishment.

This happened over 3 years ago, he has not offended since and is an asset to the company, I don't get your outrage.

It may have happened three years ago, but the case has only just been dealt with now.

And as for Norwegian society having a more progessive and effective way of dealing with crime and punishment...well, I'm not sure it's shown in this situation. Yes, it's not down to the company to punish him. It is down to the law, and unfortunately, the law here had basically hung this woman out to dry and let your man off. But the company could have refrained for the sake of decency and his victim's feelings from publicly dismissing "up to ten" rapes in supporting him openly and commenting that they hope he gets off without a prison sentence.

Rosie Gardens

VisibleGorilla wrote: »

This is a Norwegian company, Norwegian society has a much, much more progressive and effective way of dealing with issues such as crime and punishment.

This happened over 3 years ago, he has not offended since and is an asset to the company, I don't get your outrage.

What the absolute fcuk??? Progressive??? Towards RAPE??? Are you serious? A 7 year suspended sentence isn't remotely progressive, infact, it's nothing short of a sentence that victim blames!!!

Jesus wept, I despair, I absolutely despair!!!!!!!!!!!

VisibleGorilla

Rosie Gardens wrote: »

What the absolute fcuk??? Progressive??? Towards RAPE??? Are you serious? A 7 year suspended sentence isn't remotely progressive, infact, it's nothing short of a sentence that victim blames!!!

Jesus wept, I despair, I absolutely despair!!!!!!!!!!!

Jesus this post is stupid as hell, did I say that? No.

Progressive towards rehabilitation and integration.

SEPT 23 1989

Who did he work for?

Samaris

Don't know the company, but he's an event organiser, apparently.

Rosie Gardens

VisibleGorilla wrote: »

Jesus this post is stupid as hell, did I say that? No.

Progressive towards rehabilitation and integration.

Oh for gods sake, you've made it perfectly clear you don't have an issue with a rape he has admitted to committing because it was 3 years ago.

You can't see the connection between his rubbish sentence and our outrage. Stupid post indeed!!!!!

QuinDixie

I am confused, how did he rape her while she slept.

Menas

QuinDixie wrote: »

I am confused, how did he rape her while she slept.

Ah here.....birds and bees.

QuinDixie

Menas wrote: »

Ah here.....birds and bees.

what are you inferring, was he drugging her

wp_rathead

Rosie Gardens wrote: »

Oh for gods sake, you've made it perfectly clear you don't have an issue with a rape he has admitted to committing because it was 3 years ago.

You can't see the connection between his rubbish sentence and our outrage. Stupid post indeed!!!!!

Ahh fairly sure the poster meant he doesn't get the outrage in relation to him keeping his job..

Tombi!

QuinDixie wrote: »

I am confused, how did he rape her while she slept.

QuinDixie wrote: »

what are you inferring, was he drugging her

Mod: read the article in the first post. She was raped; under the influence of medication and raped also. He has admitted to doing this.

If you post again while questioning this, cads or bans can be handed out.

Samaris

QuinDixie wrote: »

what are you inferring, was he drugging her

She was taking medication that meant she was sleeping very heavily, basically conked out. He took advantage of that "somewhere under" ten times (in terms of full rape) by his own admitting, and an uncounted number of times in terms of sexual assault.

brevity

A lot of people texted into the Anton Savage show this morning with similar stories.

Its astonishing that he was let go. I cannot quite wrap my head around it. There really needs to be a clear explanation for things like this..

What kind of message does this send out? That rape is OK if its not violent?

QuinDixie

Samaris wrote: »

She was taking medication that meant she was sleeping very heavily, basically conked out. He took advantage of that "somewhere under" ten times (in terms of full rape) by his own admitting, and an uncounted number of times in terms of sexual assault.

I have read a few articles about it and have never seen the mention of medication. That was why I was asking.

mailforkev

I don't know what his employer has to do with anything, their opinion is their own business. Nothing to do with the rest of us.

But how he didn't get any length of custodial sentence is beyond me.

VisibleGorilla

brevity wrote: »

What kind of message does this send out? That rape is OK if its not violent?

It doesn't really send out any message.

You really think someone will think to themselves "Oh look at that chap with his 7 year suspended sentence and sex offender list, I'll get my rape hat on so!"

Cop on to yourself, punishment is no deterrence. If someone is going to rape, they will rape no matter what. Criminals do not believe they will be caught thus the idea of whatever punishment they could receive means nothing.

suicide_circus

Dont really understand why the full sentence was suspended. But it is an interesting case in a way. If a tree falls in a forest with no one around to hear it, does it still make a sound? Had this guy said nothing, the victim would have been none the wiser and may not have the mental and physical ailments she now suffers. You could almost say that the admission compounds his crime in a weird way.

brevity

VisibleGorilla wrote: »

It doesn't really send out any message.

You really think someone will think to themselves "Oh look at that chap with his 7 year suspended sentence and sex offender list, I'll get my rape hat on so!"

Cop on to yourself, punishment is no deterrence. If someone is going to rape, they will rape no matter what. Criminals do not believe they will be caught thus the idea of whatever punishment they could receive means nothing.

No, it means that people who are raped might not see the point of reporting the crime.

Samaris

VisibleGorilla wrote: »

It doesn't really send out any message.

You really think someone will think to themselves "Oh look at that chap with his 7 year suspended sentence and sex offender list, I'll get my rape hat on so!"

Cop on to yourself, punishment is no deterrence. If someone is going to rape, they will rape no matter what. Criminals do not believe they will be caught thus the idea of whatever punishment they could receive means nothing.

So should rape victims just shrug passively? It's not just for the deterrence, it's for the sake of the victim and to prevent that person from doing it again to someone else.

But it DOES send a message that it doesn't "matter" so much if they rape someone, it's not a "serious" offence. Particularly if it's non-violent. You still hear people using the phrase "real rape". Which is disgraceful.

suicide_circus

suicide_circus wrote: »

Had this guy said nothing, the victim would have been none the wiser and may not have the mental and physical ailments she now suffers. You could almost say that the admission compounds his crime in a weird way.

I listened to part of a radio interview with the victim yesterday, how she realised it was happening at all was because she woke one morning with no pyjama bottoms on and covered in semen.

She didn't just find out because he told her.

Tombi!

Deleted User wrote: »

I listened to part of a radio interview with the victim yesterday, how she realised it was happening at all was because she woke one morning with no pyjama bottoms on and covered in semen.

She didn't just find out because he told her.

...
Wow. I really, really wish I didn't know that.
How does this guy get a suspended sentence after all this and admiting to the damn thing

suicide_circus

Deleted User wrote: »

I listened to part of a radio interview with the victim yesterday, how she realised it was happening at all was because she woke one morning with no pyjama bottoms on and covered in semen.

She didn't just find out because he told her.

According to the article the relationship continued after that happened and the scale of it only became known via his confession. Indeed the judge said the entire case was based on said confession

Saipanne

Judges in this country love rapists.

Tombi!

suicide_circus wrote: »

According to the article the relationship continued after that happened and the scale of it only became known via his confession. Indeed the judge said the entire case was based on said confession

Good thing he was stupid enough to confess; terrible thing that without his confession, it wouldn't have been sent to court.

Gatling

What I don't get in this beside the sentence was the victim when she relised it happened the first time. they talked about what happened and carried on the relationship.
That's what was reported by the media

* just seen the above posts*

Samaris

Gatling wrote: »

What I don't get in this beside the sentence was the victim when she relised it happened the first time. they talked about what happened and carried on the relationship.
That's what was reported by the media

* just seen the above posts*

Yeah, they talked about it and she told him it was Not On. Presumably he reassured her that he wouldn't do it again.

Then he did.

SEPT 23 1989

Samaris wrote: »

Yeah, they talked about it and she told him it was Not On. Presumably he reassured her that he wouldn't do it again.

Then he did.

She said on the Ray Darcy Show yesterday that they had a pet rabbit and she was afraid to leave in case he did something to it

TheLastMohican

Now, if you just reverse the situation ............

"Woman plays with man while he's asleep"

Shock, horror and manufactured indignation? I don't think so.

Tombi!

TheLastMohican wrote: »

Now, if you just reverse the situation ............

"Woman plays with man while he's asleep"

Shock, horror and manufactured indignation? I don't think so.

Banned.

Shouldn't have to say this but do not make light of rape

Ush1

Deleted User wrote: »

I listened to part of a radio interview with the victim yesterday, how she realised it was happening at all was because she woke one morning with no pyjama bottoms on and covered in semen.

She didn't just find out because he told her.

Didn't the relationship continue after? Even after she woke up with him next to her, masturbating watching porn on a laptop?

Menas

Ush1 wrote: »

Didn't the relationship continue after? Even after she woke up with him next to her, masturbating watching porn on a laptop?

Yes, it did. She said that she had been worried about his excessive use of porn.
It was only after they broke up that he sent her the email confessing what he had done.
Fcks sake, imagine getting that email. Poor woman.

Neyite

Ush1 wrote: »

Didn't the relationship continue after? Even after she woke up with him next to her, masturbating watching porn on a laptop?

It can take years for a rape victim to get their head round it and call it rape. Sometimes decades.

Menas

Neyite wrote: »

It can take years for a rape victim to get their head round it and call it rape. Sometimes decades.

In this case it took Seven decades
http://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/loretta-young#.oiB3gLg0AZ

GLaDOS

Ush1 wrote: »

Didn't the relationship continue after? Even after she woke up with him next to her, masturbating watching porn on a laptop?

She said it took her awhile to come to terms with the fact she was in an abusive relationship. Not a unusual occurrence.

Neyite

Menas wrote: »

In this case it took Seven decades
http://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/loretta-young#.oiB3gLg0AZ

That's who I was thinking of after I wrote it. Some of Cosby's victims too took years to put a name on what had happened to them.

Ush1

Ush1 wrote: »

Didn't the relationship continue after? Even after she woke up with him next to her, masturbating watching porn on a laptop?

It did, according to her interview yesterday, she spoke to him about it and told him that he couldn't have sex with her while she slept. He agreed not to do it again. She said that she didn't want to believe that it was rape, and kept trying to put that thought out of her head, as she didn't want to think of herself as a rape victim.

She stated that she was also quite fearful of Hustveit, and was not a happy relationship at all.

It's not always easy for people to walk away from abusive relationships, if it was, they wouldn't exist.

Stheno

Was the sentence so lenient due to his confession?

Sunnyisland

Stheno wrote: »

Was the sentence so lenient due to his confession?

The facts of the case emerged only when Hustveit wrote to his former partner stating he had been using her "body for my gratification" for nearly a year.He continued: "I didn't want to hurt you, I just wanted to come. I used the fact I wasn't allowed watch porn or masturbate as an excuse. Now I've written this, you can have me prosecuted. I hope you won't."
Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said the most significant features of the case were the deceit, the repetition of the offences, and the effect on the victim.
Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said it was a very exceptional case. He said he had to consider the fact that there would be no rational case but for the confessions of the accused.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Samaris wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/rape-victim-niamhs-shock-as-ex-walks-free-im-left-reeling-and-my-parents-are-too-and-all-my-friends-who-were-there-to-support-me-31375084.html

I've thought a bit on how to phrase this. I can't make any rules, but I am asking if we can all keep it civil, and refrain from debate over whether she was raped. The courts have agreed that she was, and he has admitted it himself. Let's leave it at that, please.

So the line of debate I'm aiming to open is whether the sentence was lenient to the point of implying that what happened to her didn't matter, whether it is any deterrent to rapes, and what this means for people reporting rape in this country.

He admitted it, and without his confession, the case would not have gotten anywhere. Did he deserve such a reduced sentence based on that, particularly given that it was a repeated offence? It seems rather like throwing this woman under the bus to encourage other rapists to plead guilty in the future. Or is there an element of because she wasn't aware of it while it was happening, it was considered less serious?

It seems fairly appalling to me that he is being so publically supported by his company, and I reckon I wouldn't be too comfortable working for such a company. It smacks rather of the shaking-the-rapist's-hand disgusting business in Lisdowel a few years back.

Edit: I did ask for and get permission to reopen this topic, in case anyone's wondering

On that point, there was a lot more in that case than was reported by the media. And, tbh, I'm not even going to comment on what that was.

It really opened my eyes to an agenda driven reporting that seems prevalent in Irish media these days.

tritium

Tombi! wrote: »

Good thing he was stupid enough to confess; terrible thing that without his confession, it wouldn't have been sent to court.

Kind of understandable though. In the absence of the confession, and looking at the rest of the dynamic, it would seem pretty hard to get over the reasonable doubt hurdle.

That's not to say the sentence isn't perplexing

DoniBrowne

Any non consensual sex is considered as rape. So because she was asleep she didn't give her consent. Therefore it's rape and of course is a serious crime.

seamus

So, I've been trying to reconcile this one a bit by taking the emotion out of it.

Working back; at the end of the day, what is the purpose of punishment? To rehabilitate. To punish someone for a crime they have committed is to deny them of liberty in the hope that they will understand the impact of their crime and come out of their punishment reformed and not likely to commit another crime.

The purpose of sentencing is not to make the criminal suffer. It is not to "make them pay". It is not to make a victim feel that justice has been done. It is not to serve as a deterrent to other would-be criminals.

This is why guilty pleas get shorter sentences. The person got away with their crime until they were discovered. But then they put their hands up and said, "OK, fair cop, take me away". Incarceration in that case is to attempt to help the person realise that their mistake was not in getting caught, it was in committing the crime in the first place.

This case goes one step further. The convicted man realised that what he did was wrong, and as the judge remarks, he extraordinarily came forward with his admission and his apology. He offered up the entire case because he already knew everything that he had done was wrong.

With that in mind, what purpose would a jail term serve? The rehabilitation is "done" to a certain extent, it's clear from his actions that he understands the wrongness of what he's done.

So as abhorrent as it "feels" that someone can rape another person multiple times and not be jailed, I can see the logic behind the judge imposing a completely suspended sentence. There's nothing to be accomplished by incarceration except to satisfy some concept of revenge or the outdated notion that penance should be paid for sinning.

Samaris

I have difficulty in fully agreeing with the outcome, particularly for the sake of the woman who waived her anonymity to deal with this and who will be dealing with this whole horrible situation for a long time, but I can't really fault your logic.

There is a question of if he knew it was wrong, why the hell didn't he stop when she confronted him? If he could agree he was wrong then and then -continued-, then he proved himself a danger because he couldn't control himself. Getting away with it again? I don't know, it doesn't seem like it can have much of an affect on him.