Character references and courtroom displays of support for convicted sex offenders are worthless, and serve no other purpose than to re-traumatise victims.

They queued up to shake Danny Foley’s hand, that day in the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee, dozens of people, most of them men.

It was December 2009, and Danny Foley, from Meen, Listowel, had been convicted of sexually assaulting a young woman a year earlier in a Listowel nightclub, and was awaiting sentencing.

Later, Catherine Shanahan, writing in the Irish Examiner, described the scene as “a group of 50 people, mainly men, trooped into the courtroom and marched up to the accused, in single file. Each man shook his hand, some hugged him, with tears in their eyes.

“The show of support was witnessed by the 24-year-old victim who sat in the front seat of the public gallery flanked by a female garda, a counsellor from the Kerry Rape Crisis Centre and a friend.”

One of those who embraced Danny Foley was Father Sean Sheehy, then Castlegregory parish priest, who stood as a character witness for Foley, and who said afterward “I just wanted to support him, just let him know he was not alone”.

On the night of the assault, Foley, then employed as a bouncer, had been celebrating his 34th birthday, and he had met his victim, who had known him for nine years, in the nightclub. Foley bought her a drink, and she became incapacitated after drinking it. She would later remember trying to stop Foley from removing her clothing.

When two patrolling gardai chanced upon the scene, the victim was lying beside a skip in a car park, semi-conscious and covered in cuts and bruises, and naked from the waist down, with Danny Foley crouching over her.

Foley claimed “I came around here for a slash and I found your wan lying on the ground”.

When CCTV footage revealed that Foley had carried his victim across the car park, he changed his story, claiming that she had taken off her trousers and asked for sex.

The jury of ten men and two women unanimously convicted Foley and, sentencing him to seven years in prison with the final two years suspended, Judge Donagh McDonagh said Foley’s allegations about mutual sexual acts were designed “to add insult to injury” and “to demean and denigrate her further in the eyes of the jury and the........

© The Avondhu