The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
VICTIM ON TRIAL - WHAT PRICE JUSTICE?
EARLY on the morning of April 4, 2017, elderly farmer Anthony O’Mahony was killed, in brutal fashion, when Michael Ferris repeatedly rammed his car with a pronged teleporter.
Four years earlier, in June 2013, young mother Jolanta Lubiene and her eight year old daughter were murdered – butchered might be a more apt description – in their home.
The lives of the 73-year-old Ballyduff farmer and the young Lithuanian mother and her little daughter couldn’t have been more different but the trials of their killers bear a distinctly unpleasant similarity.
In both cases it was the victims who appeared to be on trial, with their personal lives laid bare in the courtroom.
In Jolanta Lubiene’s case it was her sex life.
As her murderer Aurimas Andruska tried, in vain, to escape justice for the appalling double slaying he sought to further malign the woman whose life – and that of her daughter – he had already stolen.
Jolanta Lubiene’s personal life was poured over in minute detail that, at times, bordered on the prurient.
Like so many rape and sexual assault victims the implicit suggestion was that she had, somehow, been asking for it.
His personal life wasn’t a factor but Anthony O’Mahony’s reputation suffered a similarly brutal battering in court over the last fortnight.
Painted as a selfish, irrational, unreasonable and violent man once again the implication was that the victim was, in some manner, responsible.
When it comes to deciding on a case a jury can only rely on what they hear in court.
The same is true of a journalist reporting on a trial.
Based on what was said at the Ferris trial Anthony O’Mahony certainly came across as an unpleasant man who had few friends in Rattoo.
But is that the full story? In the need to ascribe motive or prove a defence it wouldn’t have suited the prosecution or the defence to paint a more positive picture of Mr O’Mahony.
A defendant, of course, is entitled to use all means available to prove their innocence.
In addition, unlike those we see in courthouse dramas on TV, prosecutors are legally hamstrung in that they cannot, generally, go on the attack to seal a conviction or to defend a victim’s good name.
We may never know the full story but we do know that many of Mr O’Mahony’s distraught family and friends were in court to see his killer face justice.
Whatever the trial heard there are clearly many people who are devastated at his loss and who miss him dearly.
Anthony O’Mahony may well have been a “difficult” man but – like all victims – he deserved better than to be viciously killed and then, as a further indignity, to have his reputation publicly ruined at his killer’s trial.