Brenda Power

It's not as if they were presenting themselves as a private individual.

They were clearly employing the clout that their political career imparted.

in an attempt to secure lenience for this man.

So since 2024, it has been the law that anyone giving these references has to do so on oath.

In other words, they have to be prepared to stand over them.

Either they come to court and take the Bible or affirm or whatever, or else they swear an affidavit.

So, I mean, this person arguably expected that this document would be in the public domain.

And I don't see any reason that the judge said, well, it didn't stand out from apparently a significant number of affidavits that they received in support of this man.

And what prompted the Court of Appeal to comment on this was the fact that nobody referred to the child who was the victim of this paedophile, basically, in their haste to trip over themselves to say what a great valet he was.

Yeah.

And so would you say that we need

A further law change now, which would mean that anybody who gives a character reference in such circumstances would be named publicly.

Yes, although I think there's also an argument, this is the point I was making in the Sunday Independent on Sunday, there is an argument to say that in cases of sexual assaults and sex-related offences, sexual offences, that really the value of these testimonials should be called into question and maybe they shouldn't be considered at all because we know there's huge under-reporting of these type of crimes.

And one of the reasons cited by victims is that they feel they won't be believed.

And that often, even after conviction, they're really not believed.

And the case that I refer to, I know it's a while ago, but most people will remember it, a case in Kerry where 50 people

queued up to shake the hand of a rapist who'd just been convicted of a really really gross assault including the parish priest who had written a character testimonial for him and said he had held women in the height of respect apart from the money he dumped half naked beside a skip obviously but I mean I would say that when these testimonials are produced in court it's

the in in in sexual offense cases the impact of them is really to suggest that that doubt still lingers in some people's mind and i'm not sure that that is ever appropriate i can understand why people might be happy to and willing to give a testimonial for somebody you know who'd made an error who'd made a mistake who had whatever it was a theft or or or

you know, a less serious type of a crime and say, look, this is out of character for this person.

Well, it's, well, you know, regret the offence and lament it and so on, that I really think this person deserves a second chance.