GARDA WINS APPEAL Rape Crisis centre hails belief debate OVER TWO ASSAULTS Judge has doubts about attack on car share women
(Mum: Mel Hamrick) (Mum: Jerry Hall) (Mum: Jerry Hall) (Mum: Luciana Gimenez) (Mum: Jerry Hall)
DUBLIN Rape Crisis centre has welcomed the discussion by the Law Reform Commission on the topic of “honest belief ” as a full defence to rape.
The current law states a person can be acquitted if they convince a jury they honestly believed the victim was consenting to sex, even if that belief is clearly not reasonable.
In a statement the centre said: “The current standard is not acceptable and puts individual victims and all of society at risk.
“Rather the test should be that an accused person’s belief in consent was ‘reasonable’ so that there is some element of rationality to a person’s belief.” A GARDA convicted of assaulting two women during a row over a lift home has won his appeal.
Brian Hanrahan was found guilty last year of attacking Emer Kelly and Aisling King, causing them harm, in the early hours of March 6, 2016.
The 34-year-old, of Ballintotty, Nenagh, Co Tipperary, got suspended sentences of six months and three months.
Mr Hanrahan, who survived being shot by a robber on holiday in New Orleans in 2015, appealed the verdicts.
At Nenagh Circuit Court yesterday, Judge Thomas Teehan said that, while he wasn’t disbelieving the women, there was a “residual doubt” concerning his guilt.
On Thursday, Ms Kelly told the court Brian Hanrahan had kicked her in the face and punched her several times after she asked him for €15 which they had agreed he would pay for a lift home.
Aisling King claimed he hit her twice when she attempted to stop him assaulting Ms Kelly.
Mr Hanrahan told the appeal hearing he was trying to prevent Ms Kelly hitting and kicking him when he hit her.
He added: “I’m sorry about everything
Brian Hanrahan that happened but more so about that than anything. I didn’t want to hit her but the situation I was in, I felt I had to.”
The incident happened at about 4am after he asked Ms King, Ms Kelly and another of their friends to give him a lift from Nenagh to his home 4km away. They didn’t know each other beforehand.
In the car, he said the girls took offence after he described the nightclub they had been in as “a bit rough” and Ms Kelly started demanding he pay €50 to Aisling King, the driver.
When he got out near Lisbunny graveyard she followed, grabbed his wrist and started kicking and hitting him in the face, at which point he “hit her back”.
Judge Teehan said if Ms Kelly had sustained six to eight blows to the face from Mr Hanrahan, more damage would be expected. He allowed the appeal against both convictions.