Natasha O’Brien: Protests against verdict for assault by soldiers

Protests broke out in four cities across the Republic of Ireland after a serving soldier was given a suspended sentence for attacking a woman on a Limerick street.

Cathal Crotty, 22, punched Natasha O’Brien, 24, six times after she asked him to stop shouting homophobic slurs.

He later boasted about the incident on social media

Protests in support of Ms O’Brien took place in Limerick, Cork, Dublin and Galway on Saturday.

Joining about 500 protesters on Limerick’s Bedford Row, Ms O’Brien said: “I decided to speak out because I couldn’t imagine the impact on other victims.”

“That’s enough. It’s time to stop this. They (the Justice Department) are not listening to us.”

Crotty was sentenced to three years probation on Thursday.

Referring to the sentence, Ms O’Brien said: “What about me? What about my life? What about so many victims like me?”

One of the speakers at the rally in Limerick was Edith Busteed from the socialist feminist movement ROSA.

“It happened again and again,” she told Irish broadcaster RTÉ.

“We have organised so many protests with ROSA, but this is a systemic problem, systemic gender-based violence and it is constantly justified, particularly in the Irish court and justice system.

“The survivors of this attack have a right to justice and that is why we are here today to fight for it.”

In her testimony during the trial, Ms O’Brien said she suffered from nightmares and panic attacks.

The judge described the attack as a “cowardly, vicious and unprovoked” attack.

However, he said the defendant should be “credited” for his guilty plea and told the court that he had “no doubt” that Crotty’s military career would end with a prison sentence.

Outside court on Thursday, Ms O’Brien said: “This is not justice.”

She added that when Crotty joined the Irish Armed Forces he made a promise to “protect the citizens and civilians of Ireland”.

Ms O’Brien said on BBC Radio Ulster’s Evening Extra on Friday that she would not have gone to court “if it had only been about me”.

“I really, really hoped I could set a good example that when you do something bad you have to face consequences – but instead our system has shown that it is broken,” she added.

Ms O’Brien, who was not known to her attacker, said she wanted to go public and “speak out” because so many women had been “traumatised”.

“It’s not just about this man, it’s about many, many, many young people in Ireland who carry on like this and there really has been no justice,” she added.

Irish Justice Minister Helen McEntee praised Ms O’Brien’s courage in speaking out, adding that prosecutors in the Republic of Ireland could appeal the verdict.

Ms O’Brien said on Friday that an appeal was “the least of our worries”.

She said she wanted to see a cultural and legal change.

“What worries me is that something like this could even happen,” she said.

“What is happening to the Irish armed forces? What is going on with the justice system? Why are they failing the victims?”

Former Irish Army officer Tom Clonan, a Senator in the Upper House of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament), said there was a problem with gender-based violence in the Irish Armed Forces.

However, in every private and public organization or institution there are people who are capable of committing acts of violence, he added.

The Irish armed forces said in a statement on Friday that they had launched an internal investigation following the soldier’s conviction.

It said that it “clearly condemns any actions by active personnel that contradict or do not reflect our values.”

It also praised “the courage of the victim.”