Any victim of crime who wilfully abuses the victim impact procedure will be dealt with firmly by the courts, the presiding judge of the Central Criminal Court, Mr Justice Paul Carney, said last night, writes Barry Roche, Southern Correspondent.
Delivering his annual address to the Law Society at University College Cork where he is Adjunct Professor of Law, Mr Justice Carney, a senior member of the High Court, said the courts "will face down any venom directed at them by the tabloid press" in such cases.
In an address entitled The Role of The Victim in the Irish Criminal Process Part II, Mr Justice Carney said: "that is not of course to say that compassion should be not exercised where appropriate as for example in the case of a victim clearly motivated by obsessive grief as distinct from malice".
He said that victim impact evidence achieved its greatest notoriety "in the case of a murder trial before me". It is understood that he was referring to Majella Holohan's statement at the trial of Wayne O'Donoghue, who was acquitted of murder but pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his neighbour, 11-year-old Robert Holohan, in Midleton in January 2005.
He did not, however, name Mrs Holohan or O'Donoghue but referred to "the victim" and "the accused" in his speech.
At the sentencing hearing in January 2006, Majella Holohan departed from an agreed victim impact statement to ask why semen was found on her son's body, information which had not been introduced by the prosecution.
Mr Justice Carney referred to the judgment given by the Court of Criminal Appeal in October 2006 in an unsuccessful appeal by the DPP against the leniency of the four-year sentence imposed on O'Donoghue by Mr Justice Carney.
He expressed reservations about "guidelines" offered by Mrs Justice Fidelma Macken in which she said victims could be held in contempt of court if they depart significantly from the victim impact statement submitted. He said he feared conferring "a right of censorship on killers and rapists over their victims".
He said the case over which he presided highlighted what can happen when the media build up "selected victims into such an iconic status that other participants in the trial process including the judge are handicapped in the discharge of their independent roles".
He described the press coverage of the case as phenomenal and said that his initial impression of the coverage was that there was a great deal of public sympathy for both families involved but this changed after the victim impact statement.
He said he had tried to ignore the allegations but within minutes the word "semen" was on the airwaves and the accused was branded "a paedophile killer" which he was not.
"The tabloids stirred up such hatred for the accused that he has no future in this country when his time is served. This was not the intention of the sentencing judge and it is not acceptable that a sentencing objective of the High Court, upheld by the Court of Criminal Appeal, should be frustrated by an unwitting coalition between the victim and the tabloid press."
In a statement issued last night, Mrs Holohan said she was "offended and hurt at the remarks of Mr Justice Carney".
"I understand that as a legally trained person, he can and should distinguish between facts he has to take into account and those which he cannot. I do not believe it is fair to put a victim in the same position.
"The features that I alluded to, semen and the like . . . were matters that any responsible mother would allude to. Was I to go into court and give a statement which made no reference to these matters although they were of considerable concern to me? I think I would not have done justice to my much loved son Robert if I had done so."