Madam, - I would like to thank Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, June 23rd) for articulating how many women feel about the injustice they suffer when they are brave enough to come forward to the authorities after they have been raped, and about how society regards the crime of rape.
The case of Salman Aslam Dar highlights once again how our justice system seems rarely to punish rapists in accordance with the crime they have committed. The suspended two years of each of the three seven-year sentences which Dar received will mean that he will probably be out of prison in 10 years.
As Mr Myers wrote, Mr Paul Justice Carney's decision to suspend the last two years of each sentence was due to the fact that the Court of Criminal Appeal had reduced a previous sentence he had passed on a taxi-driver convicted of raping three women on one night.
It is essential to draw attention to the fact that when a woman has been viciously beaten as well as raped, leaving the plaintiff little chance of making a "not guilty" plea, he actually benefits from his "guilty" plea. Mr Myers is right to highlight this point and voice the opinion that in such a case the judge should retain full discretionary power over sentencing, regardless of whether or not a guilty plea has been entered.
Dar was found guilty of violently raping three women. When women come forward after this most horrific of crimes is committed against them they rely on gardaí, solicitors and ultimately judges to see that justice is done.
The majority of people working in these three professions in Ireland are male. The women who were savagely beaten and then violently raped by Dar were let down by the justice system.
Why do the men who have the power to punish rapists in this country let them away so lightly? It is because they have no understanding of the utter destruction a crime of this stature wreaks on the victim's life?
You have to wonder if the judges of the Court of Criminal Appeal who reduced the 21-year sentence to 15 years on the taxi driver guilty of raping three women in one night would have reduced that sentence if it had been one of their daughters, mothers, wives or sisters who had been attacked.
The men who have the power to set an example to the rapists in this country let down the victims of rape. After all the years and years of rape and abuse of women and children in this country that have come to light in recent years, is it not time to show rapists and paedophiles alike that these crimes will not be tolerated in this country? - Yours, etc,
SIOBHAN McCARTHY, Christchurch, Dublin 8.