Another shameless bid to avoid justice

IT is little more than a fortnight since retired hospital consultant Michael Shine was sentenced to a 20-month prison term. Yet now it emerges that he will return to court later this week in a bid for freedom.

The 85-year-old is going to the Court of Criminal Appeal to challenge both his sentence and the original conviction. He is also expected to ask judges to let him out on bail for Christmas.

By any reckoning, it is difficult to fathom the mentality of such an individual. His monstrous arrogance appears even worse when it is considered that there are legal actions pending by patients alleging they were sexually assaulted by him.

The plain fact of the matter is that a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court found Shine guilty of committing heinous offences against two teenage boys. At his sentencing hearing, the trial judge observed that one of the principal aggravating factors in the case was the breach of trust by a senior doctor at the peak of his profession.

Meanwhile, one of his victims said he didn’t know whether he could speak out at the time because he was ‘just a young boy’. He spoke of suffering from anxiety, depression and insomnia in the years after the assault.

The other victim told how he had suffered from guilt, shame and embarrassment. ‘That is the insidious nature of sexual assault,’ he said. ‘It leaves you believing somehow you were at fault.’

Defence lawyers pointed to the fact that Shine is now elderly and afflicted by ill health.

But it should be remembered that he did everything in his power to delay and, indeed, attempt to stymie the legal process from taking its course. Not only did his denials prolong this entire business, he also went to the High Court in an attempt to stop the case from going ahead at all.

Besides, the fact that he is old and poorly seems almost irrelevant in the context of such a serious case. Nor should we forget that his victims were young and vulnerable when he assaulted them.

There is an adage in the legal system: justice delayed is justice denied. It took a very long time indeed before Michael Shine was finally jailed for his crimes.

The fact that he can apply to be set free less than three weeks later is a grievous insult to his victims. And it also makes a mockery of our so-called justice system.