Soldier beats a woman unconscious, gets a great reference from his CO. Jailed after appeal

Today after reading comments I read online about restrictions on visas to USA and Australia for people with criminal records.

The BBC and The Guardian in the UK have this story too.

Oh what does the future hold for Private Crotty? The internet does not forget. He cannot be a taxi-man as that involves checks. Ireland needs building labourers I suppose (nothing against those hard working people doing back breaking labour I could not do!). A decent paying job he could get but no Defence Forces pension!

Crotty's career? Any excuse to avoid a custodial sentence…read between the lines ffs. Suspended sentences are being handed out all the time for vicious assaults, even when there's no exemplary army career to use as an excuse. I've posted the link to the thread several times above, you really should read it. Shur there's one where a young fella kicked the teeth out of some seventy something year-old's head not long ago, and did no jail time.

I'm in Asia and my partner just discovered this story. I've always told her about the Irish justice system being a complete and utter farce and this is a viral story that is universally seen as unacceptable. The judge should be investigated.

The Irish Times reports today that there's a naval service officer who pleaded guilty of seriously assaulting his then gf, got a fully suspended sentence, paid compensation (which was accepted) and is still serving in the navy 12 months on while the defence forces admin does its thing.

The judge? O'Donnell

That's why the DPP won't get far with an appeal I reckon - the precedent has been set.

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2024/06/24/naval-service-officer-still-in-role-almost-a-year-after-guilty-plea-in-violent-attack/

So, can you tell us why Crotty (specifically) was spared jail?

So nobody should respond when they see someone doing something wrong?

We should all just let scumbags do and say what they want, unchallenged like cowards?

**** that.

It's nothing to do with cowardice. People should be reluctant to confront a drunk who is shouting homophobic abuse at a third party. If that person was reasonable, he wouldn't be shouting that abuse in the first place.

Random/street violence primarily affects men, anything from looking at someone to bumping off them or spilling their drink can trigger it. A man, at least a sober one, would instinctively be wary of confronting another man behaving like Crotty was as they'd know there was a high chance of escalation to a fight with potentially dire consequence. Also high likelihood that you'd be on your own as passer by would see it as two male drunks brawling, you're not going to get a posse of white knights coming to your rescue.

I'd be better able to deal with the likes of Crotty than 99.9% of women and a lot of men. Yet, if I witnessed Crotty shouting abuse at someone, I'd keep my mouth shut. I'm not risking getting killed or killing someone to protect some third party's feelings/honour. Different if Crotty had already escalated it to a physical attack.

Because they are rarely victims of street violence, women and especially young women often don't understand this. They've grown up with social media and think that "calling out" someone in real life is the same as doing so on Twitter.

I said they can't just quit on the spot, "Purchasing a discharge" is not the same thing.

The poster I was responding to had suggested that Crotty just resign and so avoid any court martial or disciplinary action. I was making the point that no army can allow that, or you would have situations where soldiers just decide to "change jobs" right when the bullets start flying.

A soldier can make a request to leave but it has to be accepted by the army and then processed. They can't just resign or quit because it suits them to get out of town right that very second.

100% common sense.

I've done martial arts most of my life and I wouldn't accost a drunk roaring abuse at someone. The vast vast majority of people don't understand one strike can knock you out and smash your head off the ground causing death. Self preservation is very very important and most don't understand at all how much damage one strong guy can do with punches. As the comedian Richard Pryor use to say 'A bruised ego heals quicker than a broken jaw' She's very lucky she only had a broken nose, several punches to the head can cause massive brain damage when a drunk maniac is attacking you.

Do you ever notice in these discussions only those with fighting and martial art experience are always the only ones stating this could have very very easily being avoided and that you should only engage a violent person unless 100% necessary?

It's people with ZERO experience in any physical combat encouraging people to 'get them' or 'not be cowards' etc. As you said was she willing to die to stop someone's feelings being hurt? That's the reality that very very few accept but it's always a very real possibility when you approach or accost a highly drunk very aggressive and violent person who it seems could easily out strengthen her and out combat her. I may be wrong but I don't think she has any martial art or fighting training so she would have known if it got physical she was in trouble. Of course she's not expecting violence but again why approach the person? He wasn't attacking someone he was saying offensive things but as said was she willing to die to protect someone else's feelings? Should it have happened? 100% of course not your man is a thug but what drives me mad in these secnarios is very very very few people use logic or simple common sense.

Drunk violent people can be avoided and should be. Prevention always beats cure

Speaking of which = we did have a celebrity trial recently in Limerick which also involved an absolutely brutal beating handed out, where guilty party was also supported by a character reference from a 'commanding officer', and where suspended sentence was the decision.

On the one hand, there is a grave inconsistency if society thinks this crime is worth jail time only where the victims are women.

On the other hand, I think the woman in this particular case would be doing all of society a massive favour if there was an appeal that saw Cathal Crotty do jail time. And I wonder if that did happen, would it open the door for male victims to look for appeals in their cases too.

Not true though: I grew up in Northern Ireland, and was a teenager at a time when there was starting to be a lot of random violence as well as the sectarian stuff - as girls we intervened several times to help some unknown lad who was in the process of being targeted by a bunch of drunken lads. One of us would pretend to be his girlfriend, we'd go over and "gently" help him away, relatively sure that they wouldn't attack a girl. Because back then in the 80s, it wasn't the done thing to beat up random women in the street, even among thugs. I don't know when that changed.

TBF, this was only ever in our own areas, we probably wouldn't have dared get involved if we'd thought it was sectarian, as we'd have been targets then too. But as we only socialised in our own areas that wasn't an issue.

Weird turn alright. But some posts and posters make valid and sensible and “caring” points around this issue. Others seem to be of an attitude that reads “wtf did she expect.”