‘All through the dinner a male judge engaged in unwanted touching’
In this extract from Judge Gillian Hussey’s searing new memoir, she explains that it is still tough to talk about how pioneering women judges had to parry the sexual advances of their chauvinistic colleagues
THE Bridewell District Court was like a madhouse, and I lost half a stone in my first few weeks working there. On my first day, I was in a state of terror, barely able to think straight and take everything in. I didn’t know where the dock was, I didn’t know where I was to sit, I didn’t know the solicitors or the detectives or the uniformed gardaí. There was no induction day or training to get me up to speed. I just arrived at Chancery Street, walked through those doors and that was it – Judge Gillian Hussey was officially on duty. Perish the thought!
Inside the building, it was quite overwhelming. There were detectives swarming everywhere, criminals loitering, some in handcuffs, and a dense scrum of legal types, all laden with files and folders and dashing about as if the place was on fire. Mostly, I couldn’t tell the criminals from the gardaí.
The residents of the vicinity treated the Bridewell as a sort of local theatre, a place they came to each day for entertainment and warmth, adding to the melee of bodies and voices. It felt utterly chaotic, so many comings and goings, so much noise, such a dense fog of cigarette smoke in the passageway. The whole effect was desperately intimidating.
My only friend in all this chaos was my registrar, Alberta Egan, who introduced herself to me and helped me get settled.
‘I had no idea the prisoners came up to the court through an opening in the floor’
My gratitude to her knew no bounds – I am still expressing it to this day as we remain friends. She gave me a quick debriefing on the normal run of things before the day got under way. As registrar, it was her job to organise the schedule of hearings for the day, to handle the charge sheets and all the paperwork, to announce which case was up next and to liaise with the gardaí and detectives involved in each case. It was an onerous task but, like all of the registrars I ever worked with, Alberta performed it with calm and remarkable efficiency.
It is a strange feeling to sit down into your judge’s chair, which is usually situated at a height above everyone else in court, and to know that you and you alone must listen to, assess and pass judgment on whatever comes before you – and, of course, you never know what is going to be brought before you. It was not lonely, as such – I was so independent that thought simply wouldn’t have occurred to me – but it was a huge responsibility, and I felt that very keenly every day of my 17 years on the criminal bench.
I owed it to everyone present to conduct myself appropriately and do a good job. This was life and liberty stuff, and that could never be taken lightly. So on that first day in the Bridewell, I was focused on breathing – which was suddenly a bit of a challenge – and on listening and learning. As it happened, that would turn out to be how I spent every minute in that chair.
When the first case was called, there was a shuffling sound beneath my feet that grew louder and louder. Footsteps. And then, suddenly, a head emerged from the floor. I worked to hide my surprise as another head popped up and proceeded to enter the courtroom. I had no idea that the cells were below the court and that prisoners were escorted up the stairs and into the room itself though an opening in the floor. I also didn’t know that emerging from that particular spot meant the person was in custody.
I didn’t know what was going on down there at all!
So that’s how the day started, with a sudden appearance and a mental note to find out where they had ascended from. Then, we were off.
The district court is not at the glamorous end of the law. It is a processing house that is open to all comers. It is a vastly busy court system, taking care of the whole gamut of criminal actions, from the petty to the serious. It was fast and furious, and I had to be mentally alert at all times. This was all markedly different from what I was used to in the civil courts, but I soon found it was utterly compelling. I might have been way beyond my comfort zone, but I discovered that it was quite a thrilling place to experience.
The Bridewell’s Court 6 bailiwick included Ballymun, Finglas and Coolock, all on Dublin city’s northside. These were areas of Dublin with which I wasn’t familiar, with social problems and levels of poverty that differed markedly from the place where I had grown up and gone to school. It was utterly eye-opening for me to meet the people from these areas in the court and hear about their lives and challenges.
It quickly became apparent that many of the crimes that came before me could be described as ‘survival crimes’ – acts of theft and the like committed by people who had very little and few opportunities to improve their lot.
These were the forgotten communities, the ones who would be left behind as Ireland roared towards the Celtic Tiger years.
I was largely ignorant of the abuse of alcohol and drugs, but here it was a constant presence, shadowing those in the dock, often for the whole of their lives, thanks to their parents’ addictions. It was quite humbling to realise that my own quietly ordered life was, in fact, a paradise of privilege, and that I had been spared the bad luck and unfavourable environments of those who stood before me simply by the circumstances of my birth.
I was on an extremely steep learning curve in every way from day one, that’s for sure. There were very few ways to educate myself on the work I was
‘Many of the cases before me were survival crimes – theft by people with very little’
expected to do, but one of those ways was lunch with my fellow district court judges in the Bridewell.
This formal occasion was observed daily, with the president of the district court taking his place at the head of the table. No one else would dare lower their posterior on to that dining chair – it was an unspoken and unbroken rule.
Once gathered together, we would discuss cases and judgments – although I tended to do an awful lot of listening as I strove to learn quickly what I needed to know to execute my task well. It wasn’t all good advice, though. I remember an older judge at the table who retired from the Bridewell three weeks after I started.
Recently, I saw a documentary that featured him and the case of drug dealer Larry Dunne, who was brought before him charged with drug possession. Dunne wasn’t convicted, and he cheekily requested his personal items – the drugs, in other words – be returned to him by An Garda. The judge granted his request. I was flabbergasted when I saw it – and it was that same judge who held court at lunch in the Bridewell. However, I understand that judge was by far the most spot on, usually.
I wasn’t really a joiner, but I did my best to be attentive and polite with my colleagues. However, I soon learned that they had given me a nickname behind my back: Reverend Mother. It was intended as an insult, but I can’t say I cared – after all, that nickname wasn’t as bad as the other one I was told about. I got that one courtesy of a female judge who seemed to hate me on sight and who, it seems, only ever referred to me as ‘that bitch Hussey’. I don’t know what irked this judge about me, and I wasn’t inclined to give it the time of day.
Whatever it was, it was her problem, not mine. This same judge rang me once, in August 1984, several months after my appointment. A contact of this sort from the particular judge was an unprecedented occurrence. My father took the message, which was to return the call. When I did, the judge
snidely informed me that it was being said in the Law Library that I had ‘kept the condoms’, a reference to the Well Woman Centre case. [A May 1984 hearing when the Well Woman Centre (WWC) was charged with selling contraceptives contrary to the Health (Family Planning) Act 1979. Judge Hussey was on the bench for the first hearing of the controversial case. The courtroom was packed, and a packet of condoms was handed up to her as evidence.]
Innuendoes galore in the sotto voce delivery. I listened to this nonsense then replied, ‘That’s odd, seeing as the Law Library is closed’. Needless to say, we never became friends. I had started out with good intentions, but these childish incidents meant I was glad to just get on with my job.
There were judges’ conferences twice a year, one in Dublin and one at a rural venue outside Dublin. I went along to the first one, open to learning, but it was a waste of time. There was little relevant discussion that I could attach myself to. I got the impression that it was more of a day out among chums. It quickly got to the stage where I was first in to ask for the Saturday sitting in the
Bridewell so I could avoid the conferences held outside Dublin.
I had nothing in common with my colleagues other than a job title, and, as ever, I was happy to plough my own furrow.
There are certain things I find difficult to talk about, even now, and one of those is another very pertinent reason for avoiding those conferences. During my second swearing-in ceremony, I was being formalised alongside a judge I greatly admired and respected, Judge William Hamill.
We chatted about work and other things, before and after the ceremony, and I remember saying to him that I wasn’t enamoured with some of his male colleagues. I told him that certain men among his ilk saw women as playthings – even in the professional sphere. He was astounded by this revelation and simply couldn’t believe his fellow judges could act in such manner. However, I was telling the truth as it was for me and other female judges. We didn’t tend to talk about such things, but I did go to one conference early on in the company of Justice Mary Kotsonouris, who had suggested we attend together – a safety-in-numbers approach.
Although we went to the conference dinner together, we were not seated at the same table. I was seated next to a male judge who was, unfortunately, one of the type I had complained about to my friend Judge Hamill. All throughout dinner, this man engaged in unwanted touching. I parried his advances with the minimum of fuss and certainly without confrontation.
At the end of the evening, Judge Hamill approached and said quietly, ‘I believe you now’. He had seen with his own eyes what a minority of his colleagues got up to when there was a woman present.
The problem was that there were so few women in the room, we stood out. We were wildly outnumbered, and we were easy targets. That was particularly the case at that time, when women were expected to be demure and ladylike and not assert themselves. Woe betide you if you made a fuss – that was simply not the done thing. And I acquiesced in this, in that I didn’t tackle this man’s behaviour or order him to stop. I dealt with it by ignoring it, physically and mentally.
The only answer I could see was to remove myself so that it couldn’t happen. And that’s what I did. I never went to another of those dinners again, and I know I wasn’t the only woman in the legal profession to avoid social occasions like that because of what we might be subjected to by our male colleagues.
It was, of course, only certain judges who behaved in this way. I liked and respected many of my male colleagues, and they would never have dreamed of treating any colleague in this manner.
But those men who did see women as playthings had a disproportionate effect, causing many of us to miss out on social and networking opportunities.
I have to say, though, those were the only times it happened, at such functions. It never happened with the gardaí, probation officers or court staff – only with certain judges. That’s why it heartens me to see women now becoming aware of their right to speak up, their right not to consent and their right to tell a man, in no uncertain terms, to remove his hands from their person. I came from a generation of middleclass women who didn’t feel able to do that, and it was to our cost.
In the workplace, in my courtroom, such unpleasantness didn’t occur. There, at least, it was an equal pitch, and I was treated with respect. Well, most of the time – a defendant might hurl abuse on a bad day.
‘It never happened with gardaí, probation officers or staff – only judges’
Lessons From The Bench, Reflections On A Career Spent In Ireland’s Criminal Courts by Judge Gillian Hussey is published by Gill Books, €23.