Imagine this situation. You are accused of a heinous crime, of sexually abusing young and vulnerable children. You become a figure of hate, to the extent that you are attacked in the street, and death threats are issued against you. It takes years for your case to come to trial.
Meanwhile,your health breaks down and you fear you are going mad, as one accusation becomes dozens of accusations. The trial itself is protracted, but the jury takes a mere hour and a half to return a unanimous vote of not guilty.
Sympathy and support from the public pours in, but nothing can go back to the way it was before. The wounds are too deep, and the damage to yourself and your family too great.
Then out of the blue, you receive a letter from the Residential Redress Board that informs you a claim for redress names you as the person accused. The person claiming compensation is the same person who originally made the allegations that destroyed your life.
As you read on, in disbelief that this nightmare can be beginning again, you see that if you make an application to the board, you will be given a copy of the allegations made against you.
The letter specifies that you must reply within 14 days with any written evidence that you choose to offer, but also tells you that you are not obliged to reply.
This is a certain indicator that while you are being consulted, you have no power over the outcome. The letter also informs you that this is highly confidential, and that it is an offence to do anything that could be construed as revealing the identity of the person making the application to the Redress Board.
For one person, this is not an exercise of imagination, but excruciating reality. Nor can I reveal the identity of this person, or I too will be in breach of the legislation governing the Redress Board. The anger and frustration felt by this person is immense. Even if the claim for money is eventually thrown out, the idea of having to defend your good name yet again, despite a unanimous jury verdict of not guilty, is a shattering prospect. Meanwhile, the identity of the person making the claim is protected by law.
In order to protect the rights of some, we are in danger of damaging the rights of others. There are many people in similar situations to the one just described. Some of their experiences could scarcely be credited.
A mild-mannered Waterford woman was sentenced to life imprisonment for rape, and would be in prison yet had not a man come forward to say that one of her accusers had also falsely accused him of rape.
This week, the Director of Public Prosecutions indicated that he would not be contesting an application by Nora Wall for a certificate declaring a miscarriage of justice.
Nora Wall has gone on with her life, nursing her invalid mother until her death, attending the baptisms and communions of her children's children. How does a woman who spent most of her life as a nun have children? Nora Wall has lots. She often went to bed carrying four bottles to feed babies in the night. She watched over them as they went to school, and then out into the world. Before her conviction was quashed, a moving interview by RTÉ's Mary Wilson with some of Nora's children had planted doubts in the public mind that any woman who had inspired such love could be guilty of rape. Yes, Nora has gone on with her life, but nothing, and certainly not compensation, will erase the scars of her experience.
Britain has been convulsed with scandals involving sexual abuse too, the difference being that generally they have nothing to do with Catholic institutions. Just this week, a Muslim named Anver Sheikh had a conviction quashed. He had been convicted of a serious sexual crime against two boys.
From 1979 to 1980, Anver Sheikh, a former soldier, had worked in a north Yorkshire care home.
Twenty years later, the police knocked on his door. Charges and conviction followed, and he spent 20 months in prison. His case was taken up by the Historical Abuse Appeal Panel, a newly formed group of legal people who share expertise on these kinds of cases. Very rapidly, they were able to establish that he had not been working in the care home at the time that the claimant had alleged the assault had taken place.
Why had Anver Sheikh not been able to point that out at his original trial? Well, how would you like to give a detailed account of what you did on February 8th, 1984? For Anver Sheikh, the time he worked in the home was part of a distant past, of no particular significance.
The appeal team were also able to establish that records indicate heavily that the second claimant had absconded from the institution at the time he claimed he had been abused.
Given this evidence, one has to ask how careful the police investigation was. Anver Sheikh is not the first to have his conviction overturned. Over 100 cases involving carers and teachers and sexual abuse are up for review in Britain. The Historical Abuse Appeal Panel is confident that many of these convictions will be overthrown, too.
In Britain, horror at the crime of child abuse lead to trawling and over-zealous pursuit by police.
People became willing to believe any tale of depravity, so a person like Anver Sheikh, with no previous convictions or any complaints from the other institutions he worked in, was still easy to convict.
The parallels with Ireland are obvious. The deep frustration of victims, their desire to be heard and believed, gradually and understandably made us less sensitive to the rights of those who are accused.
Justice Laffoy may chide the religious orders for their slow pace. Anver Sheikh would have been grateful for a slow, meticulous approach. If we are ever to achieve closure on this issue, we need to acknowledge that there are two vulnerable categories here - the victims, and those thrust into a living hell by false accusations. We cannot damage one group to serve the needs of the other.