Public safety must come before bail
IT is welcome news that an assistant Garda commissioner has been appointed to find out how Eoin Berkeley remained at large despite the fact that he was seen by gardaí in an area of Dublin from which he specifically had been excluded as a condition of his bail.
If he had been returned to custody, he would not have been in a position to lure a young Spanish student to Ringsend where he brutally raped her three times, assaulted her further, and threatened to kill her.
Her life, and that of her family, have forever been changed, and there was absolutely no need for that to happen.
Other state agencies have been involved with Berkeley over the years and hopefully all of them will learn lessons from this case, but the greatest focus will be on the role of unpoliced bail in this horrendous crime.
In another court yesterday, we saw just how broken the system is.
Damien Sherlock, from Ennis, Co. Clare, appeared in the town’s Circuit Court seeking bail while awaiting sentencing for affray after he, two brothers and their father were party to a horrific attack on a taxi driver in which the man was stabbed six times by Sherlock’s younger brother, who was only 17 at the time.
Bail is an important part of our justice system, but it clearly has not worked in the case of Damien Sherlock. At just 26 years of age, he already has 110 previous convictions for everything from firearms offences to theft to the misuse of drugs.
Extraordinarily, when previously granted bail, he managed to run up 15 of these offences, including theft, handling stolen goods, a weapons offence, drug offences and the attack on taxi driver Abi Ohiku.
These offences were not committed during one period of bail, but on 15 separate occasions when it was granted, a quite staggering illustration of the ludicrousness of our revolving-door system.
Had Sherlock not been granted bail, victims such as Mr Ohiku would not have suffered as they now suffer; twice in court, he broke down as his victim impact statement was read out, detailing the physical and psychological scars that he now has to deal with.
The failure to put the public first when it comes to considering bail is what has left Mr Ohiku traumatised, just as it is at the root of the sickening violation a young Spanish woman will have to carry for her entire life.
In court yesterday, sense finally prevailed as Judge Gerald Keys refused to grant him bail, but the fact that it has taken 15 prior violations to get to this point is utterly horrifying.
Bail indeed is important, but the safety of the public is more important still, and savages like Berkeley and Sherlock have no place on our streets.