Pat O'Connell
π€ SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
retired kind of existence you might have expected from somebody who had been convicted of such heinous crimes.
She was shocked and disgusted, to be honest with you.
She said that the images had sickened her to her stomach, had sickened her to her core.
She was concerned at the fact that here you had three pedophiles, you know, openly associating with each other, not making any attempt to, you know, to stay out of the limelight, I suppose.
She was also concerned that, you know, somebody operating a massage parlor had seen fit to invite men convicted of these crimes to the opening.
She said she didn't see how anybody could think that was acceptable.
Yeah, well, I suppose that's one of the, that's the other side of, you know, wider society is obviously going to treat people like this as pariahs.
You know, most people won't want anything to do with them.
So I suppose you do have a situation where some of them will drift together and end up being friends amongst themselves outside of prison.
Now there is, look, I mean, there is systems in place for dealing with pedophiles after they get, convicted pedophiles after they get out of prison.
Well, he told Sinead during the restorative justice meeting that he had taken part in the Building Better Lives program, which is basically what they do in the last couple of years with these guys' sentences is they will put them into these groups of, say, eight, and they will take part in these modules, basically
offering different therapeutic services, but also teaching them how to manage their lives on the outside and how not to re-offend.
Yeah, no, the Building Better Lives program is something that's run by the Irish Prison Service.
It's been on the go for over a decade.
It's based on a Canadian program and
Basically, it's a modular program.
So, you know, you'll do two years.
The last two years, you're sent inside and the prison, you'll take part in this.
And then when you come out, there's other things, you know, there's these other programs that have also been set up, you know, circles of support and all of that kind of thing that help.
They treat it as a crime.