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Child Item

Ruth Coppinger holds up thong in Dail

Comhrá

Ruth Coppinger + thong. Not a pleasant thought by any stretch of the imagination.

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/td-ruth-coppinger-holds-up-13584968

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PlaneSpeeking

Hurrache wrote: »

Lord you must be the most insecure man I have the pleasure of not knowing. Is your masculinity threatened by every woman, or just ones that talk?

Any need ?

I'm a woman and I find her and Daly and that pox Mary Mitchell O'Connor to be insufferable bores. And I have no masculinity to be threatened!

Sometimes women are ****s, sometimes men are ****s - it's not a gender specific issue.

Hurrache

Sometime it's not, but a track history will tell a different story. I'm far from a fan of her myself, we even had words before, but I don't go around "feminist agenda this, feminist agenda that". I can live with the fact we disagree on a great many things without feeling emasculated in the process.

Outlaw Pete won't be happy with you, a woman, leaping to his defence though.

El_Duderino 09

professore wrote: »

Personally I don't think her underwear was relevant either but the barrister thought it would play well with the jury. All sorts of "irrelevant" evidence is routinely used, like the whatsapp messages in the recent rugby trial. No one was protesting that.

Its up to the judge to stop the prosecution badgering the witness in this way.

That’s amusing because in a recent discussion about consent the topic of the WhatsApp messages being used as evidence was brought up. Plenty of posters objected to them being used as part of the prosecution. I’m not sure if you were one of them.

I wonder how many people have switched sides.

nullzero

Hurrache wrote: »

Outlaw Pete won't be happy with you, a woman, leaping to his defence though.

You're looking like the one with the problem at the moment. Pete's a good egg, if you have a problem with him take it to Pm, or hug it out.

limnam

Harvey Attractive Baby wrote: »

And sometimes a girl will tan her arse incase she gets the ride, but her having a spray tan done doesn’t mean she’s asking for it

Don't know why your directing your childish retorts at me.

That was stated by the girl friend of the victim.

raah!

Being open to the possibility of sex is not the same thing as being open to sex with this particular person, nor does it mean that you will still be open to sex later in the night. However, if you were never open to the possibility of sex, then you were definitely raped. If you were open to the possibility of sex, then you were not definitely raped. Underwear which indicate, not that you consented, but that you at least at one stage had a positive disposition towards the possibility of sex, are therefore relevant to the case.

To say otherwise you have to say "clothing doesn't say anything about anyone's attitude about anything", which is absurd.

The point that the underwear were more prejudicial than they were relevant, is based on the notion that the average juror will be of the mindset "what a slut, I'm glad she was raped, I love rape" etc. , is an unjustified common assumption that society is an oppressive malevolent patriarchy, and a "rape culture".

The Bishop Basher

Hurrache wrote: »

Sometime it's not, but a track history will tell a different story. I'm far from a fan of her myself, we even had words before, but I don't go around "feminist agenda this, feminist agenda that". I can live with the fact we disagree on a great many things without feeling emasculated in the process.

There's very clear and destructive feminist agenda permeating every aspect of our lives, laws and our liberty right now.

You might not be able to see it but many of us do.

I'm astounded at the response from our Taoiseach and the minster to this latest topic de jour, where we have them both threatening to interfere with judicial processes all because of a case they know fluck all about.

All the while not one mention of the true victim in all of this, a 27 year old man who's life lies in ruins as a result of a false accusation of rape.

We are being ruled by a mob mentality driven by a bunch of gob****es on social media platforms who have nothing better to do then get outraged at every possible opportunity..

Dangerous times.

retro:electro

raah! wrote: »

Underwear which indicate, not that you consented, but that you at least at one stage had a positive disposition towards the possibility of sex, are therefore relevant to the case.

Do you measure how “up for sex” a woman is by the type of underwear she has on? Since underwear tends to be worn, erm, under wear how can you even tell? Someone could already be in the process of raping a woman before they even notice what type of underwear she has on. That is if they even notice at all, since the sole purpose of raping someone is to remove their clothing.

Rennaws wrote: »

All the while not one mention of the true victim in all of this, a 27 year old man who's life lies in ruins as a result of a false accusation of rape.

Most people are here discussing the comment made and not the verdict. However, if you have proof that a false accusation was made well then I suggest you forward it on and let this guy take a case against her. An acquittal implies absolutely nothing about the accusations the plaintiff made. It implies absolutely nothing about anybody only there wasn’t enough evidence to secure a conviction.
Another reason women tend not to bother going to trial, with this notioney myth that in the likely event the defendant will get off, there’s a massive cohort of opportunists who will twist the verdict into meaning she must be a liar.

Rennaws wrote: »

We are being ruled by a mob mentality driven by a bunch of gob****es on social media platforms who have nothing better to do then get outraged at every possible opportunity.

You sound a bit outraged yourself there.

raah!

retro:electro wrote: »

Do you measure how “up for sex” a woman is by the type of underwear she has on? Since underwear tends to be worn, erm, under wear how can you even tell? Someone could already be in the process of raping a woman before they even notice what type of underwear she has on.

No I don't. But, as the text you quoted states, the underwear do have statistical implications about the disposition of the person towards sex. This doesn't mean that sexy underwear can't be worn for other purposes. Whether or not anyone else can see them is irrelevant to the quoted text, it is about what is implied about the woman's attitude towards sex.

Your argument here is the same conflation that is common when discussing this case. Nobody is saying "underwear=consent", that's not what the solicitor said (and this inequality is explicitly stated in the text you quoted). Somebody earlier said that the alleged victims friend said something about spray tan and shaved legs; those things also imply things about someones attitude towards sex , and could be brought up in the same way.

TerrorFirmer

retro:electro wrote: »

Do you measure how “up for sex” a woman is by the type of underwear she has on? Since underwear tends to be worn, erm, under wear how can you even tell? Someone could already be in the process of raping a woman before they even notice what type of underwear she has on.

That is entirely not the issue raised in the post you are quoting, or even close.

I'm not saying I agree with it but the use of the underwear in the case was to put the suggestion in the minds of the jury that the woman, at some point that evening, may have chosen the underwear on the basis that she might be sleeping with someone. Equally, she may not have considered that. We do not know, hence it was a suggested consideration by the barrister.

Is that relevant to the fact that she may have had consensual sex? I would say vaguely, but it's not completely unlinked.

It's that simple. Morally low but that's what lawyers do, they do it day in, day out. It's not "her underwear means she asked to be/deserved to be raped".

The Bishop Basher

retro:electro wrote: »

You sound a bit outraged yourself there.

Hardly.

I’m not the one out on O’Connell St waving my jocks around..

Or screaming and shouting about any other cause for that matter.

I have a pain in my hole listening to gob****es screaming and shouting about theirs though..

retro:electro

Still outraged about the alleged outrage though..

So you want to police people? If people want to protest peacefully what of it? We have the right to protest in this country and as long as it’s done respectfully and not anywhere inappropriate when what of it? No one is stopping you from going out protesting about the protests.

tritium

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

That’s amusing because in a recent discussion about consent the topic of the WhatsApp messages being used as evidence was brought up. Plenty of posters objected to them being used as part of the prosecution. I’m not sure if you were one of them.

I wonder how many people have switched sides.

You realize it’s not a question of switching sides don’t you? It’s actually rather simple - as far as I can see (and feel free to link me to a post that contradicts this) no one has actually been in favour of the thong being presented as a simple tool to blacken the reputation of the accuser.

What a number of people HAVE said is that they can see cases where there may be evidential aspects where this could be justified, for example if it directly called a witness statement into question. That there are checks and balances on what can be used in court and how. And generally people have acknowledged that if it was simply brought up in summing up in that manner, rather than as an element of something more substantial to cause reasonable doubt, then that would be wrong. And, of course, that they weren’t privy to the full transcript of the court trial to allow full context. Indeed as one poster pointed out, Coppinger appears to fundamentally misunderstand how this type of evidence has been used in many cases, notably the Belfast case.

Which was pretty much perfectly consistent with the position of many on the WhatsApp messages- did they add evidential value or were they used purely to blacken one party in court to drive a desired outcome. The thing is, the nature of the Belfast trial was such that we had a far more detailed view of what went on (albeit still incomplete). And it was relatively clear there that the was little or no evidential value in the messages, as was picked up by a jury in their decision to acquit.

So actually what you’re positioning as “switching sides” appears to be an excellent example of congruent thinking by those posters.

The Bishop Basher

retro:electro wrote: »

Still outraged about the alleged outrage though..

Ok I'm incredibly outraged if that helps put this to bed :rolleyes:

retro:electro wrote: »

So you want to police people?

No. That's not what I said and this discussion ends here for me

Boggles

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I'm not saying I agree with it but the use of the underwear in the case was to put the suggestion in the minds of the jury that the woman, at some point that evening, may have chosen the underwear on the basis that she might be sleeping with someone. Equally, she may not have considered that. We do not know, hence it was a suggested consideration by the barrister.

I imagine it was only brought up because the prosecution brought the girls sexual history (or lack of) into it, using it as a valid reason why there is no way she would have consented.

To put it bluntly the prosecution as one of their main reasons to convict on a rape charge was painting the girl as a beyond reproach innocent virgin, the defense TBF had to counter that someway. They are not allowed bring up anything about sexual history, but they are allowed counter within legal reason anything the prosecution base their case on.

There is very few details published about this case with only a few selective out of context quotes.

Even still it would appear the prosecutions case all but fell apart early on and they ended up clutching at straws.

tritium

Boggles wrote: »

I imagine it was only brought up because the prosecution brought the girls sexual history (or lack of) into it, using it as a valid reason why there is no way she would have consented.

To put it bluntly the prosecution as one of their main reasons to convict on a rape charge was painting the girl as a beyond reproach innocent virgin, the defense TBF had to counter that someway. They are not allowed bring up anything about sexual history, but they are allowed counter within legal reason anything the prosecution base their case on.

There is very few details published about this case with only a few selective out of context quotes.

Even still it would appear the prosecutions case all but fell apart early on and they ended up clutching at straws.

That’s interesting. It certainly gives a little more context as to why the defence took a particular route, and indeed why a court might permit it. Unfortunately (for good reasons) details from this case seem limited, so most of the outrage has been based on one aspect, with no context applied.

bloodless_coup

Happened to see some pictures of the thing protestors, lots of blue and red hair. Says a lot.

PlaneSpeeking

doylefe wrote: »

Happened to see some pictures of the thing protestors, lots of blue and red hair. Says a lot.

Front of today's Irish Mirror could have been subtitled "These People Will Never Hold A Job".

SusieBlue

Sorry, what relevancy does someones hair colour have? I know plenty of people who went to the protest on their lunch break.

SusieBlue

doylefe wrote: »

Apology accepted

So mature. Fair play.

Bigbagofcans

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Front of today's Irish Mirror could have been subtitled "These People Will Never Hold A Job".

So judgemental.

nullzero

SusieBlue wrote: »

So mature. Fair play.

I see your sense of humour bypass was a resounding success.

PlaneSpeeking

Bigbagofcans wrote: »

So judgemental.

And likely correct.

Bigbagofcans

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

And likely correct.

How kind of you on that high horse of yours.

PlaneSpeeking

Bigbagofcans wrote: »

How kind of you on that high horse of yours.

I apologise, I should of course have said "real" jobs.

I imagine there's a fair few activists in that crowd who'll end up as Trinity SU Officers or part time Gender Studies Lecturers.

SusieBlue

nullzero wrote: »

I see your sense of humour bypass was a resounding success.

Its not funny, its just annoying and derails the thread.

I bothered to take the time to reply to a someones post, and instead of replying to the point I made, he took one word out of context to suit his own position and to make a joke.
That's a really immature way to conduct yourself during a debate on a serious issue, and if you can't see anything wrong with that, I can't help you.

Its poor forum etiquette.

Bigbagofcans

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

I apologise, I should of course have said "real" jobs.

I imagine there's a fair few activists in that crowd who'll end up as Trinity SU Officers or part time Gender Studies Lecturers.

A job is a job at the end of the day, who are we to judge?

WinnyThePoo

nullzero wrote: »

SusieBlue wrote: »

So mature. Fair play.

I see your sense of humour bypass was a resounding success.

What was the joke?

SusieBlue

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

It really does show the intellectual level of some. And as for those that thanked it ...

Absolutely no surprise there. The same few who were thanking posts suggesting a t-shirt could consent on behalf of a person yesterday.
The mind boggles.

PlaneSpeeking

SusieBlue wrote: »

Its not funny, its just annoying and derails the thread.

I bothered to take the time to reply to a someones post, and instead of replying to the point I made, he took one word out of context to suit his own position and to make a joke.
That's a really immature way to conduct yourself during a debate on a serious issue, and if you can't see anything wrong with that, I can't help you.

Its poor forum etiquette.

As is attacking the poster not the post but it's been allowed to go on for some.