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

You’re going off-topic, ie. “what percentage of the government budget should we spend on prisons” would probably fill a whole thread.

off-topic again, but wasn’t there some study done saying immigrants overall are net contributors to the governments coffers, rather than detractors?

Maybe we should split this off into another thread.

If Cmdt, Togher had called Crotty a coward

Not sure how people still cannot get their head around this, Togher read out what Crotty's army record said - "exemplary" and "disciplined". Can you really not understand that on any level?

Yes

https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0625/1456546-cathal-crotty/

My first thought was "wait, what?"

The problem here is that the sentence that was passed down by judge Tom O Donnell was meaningless. The defence forces had no power to do anything until after sentencing and they now have their own internal investigation ongoing. They defence forces have literally done everything they could in this case up to now and still have the power to dishonourably discharge the soldier in question

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Thomas E. O'Donnell was nominated by the government of Ireland in 2011 and the political party that was leading the government in 2011 or the fact that said party didn't see a need to dismiss the judge since then? That would be a stretch though…

Could he, in fact, be related to the O'Donnell Fine gael family of Limerick. Helen, Kieran, the late Tom?

Obviously he was referring to the character of Crotty that he was aware of, exemplary and disciplined soldier was his experience of Crotty's character, so he was perfectly justified in saying that what he heard about Crotty in the case presented in court was totally 'out of character' of what he knew of Crotty. Like ffs…it's not rocket science.

Or, alternatively, the DF's/Togher's evaluation of his character isn't worth a toss.

That's what I'd take from it anyway.

If they weren't so arrogant, they'd be looking into what is wrong with their procedures that they are so bad at evaluating someone's character in the first place. What does that say about all their other reports on other members of the defence forces? Are they likely to be equally delusional?

I’d be inclined to agree with the poster who said that character references (and also victim impact statements) should have no place in a court of law.

character references - basically a popularity contest.

victim impact statements - so a victim’s eloquence can affect the perpetrator’s sentence, and if a victim is not eloquent, then the perpetrator doesn’t deserve the same sentence?

BS IMO.

If your evaluation of an employee's character is that he's a lovely man, kinid, polite and honest, and then it turns out that he beat his wife and stole old ladies' pensions, does that mean that your character evaluation is still grand because you never thought to ask if he did any of those things?

Or does it mean that you're a bad judge of character?

Cos if it's the former, as you seem to suggest, then what is the point in any sort of character references at all? Everyone looks a great person until they get caught doing something horrible.

But if at that point we're still going to say they were great except for this one thing they got caught for, then I think it's 50/50 (at least) that you were just a poor judge of character, not that they just lost the run of themselves that once. Certainly in this context, where it was an unprovoked attack.

None of what you posted there makes it a gender based attack. And there's no evidence in the reports that it was a gender based attack. If Crotty started ranting about "women are bitches" etc., then there would be evidence that it was a gender based attack.

Women being weaker than men and more vulnerable if attacked is an entirely separate issue. And as we know, women are much less likely to be attacked on the street than men are which is why the feminist NGOs and man haters have to lump domestic violence in with this attack to make a bigger story out of it.

As I posted already, men, at least sober ones, are aware that if they confront a drunk over their behaviour, it could result in dire consequences. Therefore the potential benefit of that action should outweigh the potential cost.

Men also need to assume that they'll be on their own and that even if there are people around, they're not going to have a posse of white knights jumping in to save them.

If you get injured and the perp gets a suspended sentence, you won't have anyone organising marches afterwards

If you die, you won't get saturation media coverage. The President and Taoiseach won't attend your funeral as they did for Ashling Murphy.

I've no idea who Matt O'Brien is I'm assuming some sort of "tough guy"?. Any such man who thinks he can call out drunks on the street after "sizing them up" is a dangerous idiot and sooner or later will end up injured or in court. No competent self protection instructor would recommend that someone confront someone over verbal abuse on the basis of being able to handle them if they kick off. A professional fighter, male or female could easily get their head kicked in. What if Crotty has a knife? Also, even if you win, you lose. Crotty goes down, bangs his head, dead, and now you're in court trying to defend your actions.

Suggest you read this, references Geoff Thompson who is a world renowned expert in the field of self protection

https://www.blackbeltmag.com/the-fence-and-verbal-de-escalation

Quote: "While many people are primarily enamored with the physical aspects of self-defense, it’s crucial to hone your awareness, assessment, avoidance and control/de-escalation skills, even more so than the associated combat tactics. Mastery of those skills can keep a volatile situation from developing in the first place or prevent one from turning violent. A physical response should be the last resort. Many elements and variables are involved in de-escalation, which is why several books have been written on the topic. I, however, will keep things as succinct as possible so they’re as accessible as possible.

De-escalation boils down to this acronymic sentence: Don’t AACT to de-escalate.

Translation: Don’t antagonize, don’t argue, don’t challenge and don’t threaten. Instead, do the opposite. When contextually applicable, cooperate, apologize and/ or deflect the focus of your adversary’s ire through body language and speech. I’ll illustrate what I mean through some scenario-based examples"

Lee Morrison is another world renowned expert. See in this video where he makes a comment about someone tapping away on their phone and ipod? OMG, victim blaming! I'm ENTITLED to be on my phone! This victim blaming stuff is where people get confused about the difference between the social media world where points scoring and "calling out" others is the aim and the real world where you are dealing with other people who are sometimes drunk and violent.

You're missing my point, which is that all women are in that situation with all men, all the time. So when she spoke up, she wasn't being reckless in the way some male posters are saying, she was doing what women do all the time when they contradict a man: taking her life in her hands. I think that imbalance of strength requires some recognition in law. Even though most men don't take advantage of it, for those that do, it should be recognised as a specific form of violence so as to stop it becoming the norm from Andrew Tate type eejits.

IMO.

You evaluate a character (and in fact everything) based on the evidence. Well, actually that's how you should evaluate things, unless you are allowing prejudices to come into your process?

To be arguably considered bad at it there needs to be some evidence that you missed, failed to take into account, or didnt weigh correctly. Is there some other evidence, outside of this case, that you think the DF should have used to judge his character on?

I would guess that the point of a character reference is to show that the incident is not normal for the persons character?

Again, you cant say someone is a bad judge of character if there was no negative evidence relating to the persons character!

I agree with you. We get taught by our parents not to intervene with people like Crotty in the way that O Brien did that night so we don't see a similar fate, but it doesn't make it the right thing to do