LAST UPDATE | 26 Jun

MINISTER FOR JUSTICE Helen McEntee has said that there is “still so much work to do” towards curbing violence against women after 24-year-old Natasha O’Brien, who was assaulted by Irish Defence Force soldier Cathal Crotty two years ago, publicly criticised her yesterday.

Speaking to Newstalk yesterday, O’Brien said: “Helen McEntee, I would not need to speak out if you were doing your job, correctly,  in the first place.”

O’Brien was punched up to six times and was left unconscious by Crotty in the May 2022 assault after she had “politely” asked the soldier to stop shouting the word “faggot” to others on a Limerick city street.

During the assault, the court was told, O’Brien believed she was going to die and was left with severe injuries, including a broken nose.

Crotty pleaded guilty to the assault charge.Crotty walked walked free from court last week after receiving a three-year suspended sentence over the assault.

O’Brien said she has been energised by the wave of support from the public in response to the sentence handed down by Judge Tom O’Donnell last week to push for changes to be made around sensitivity in the judicial system.

Natasha O'Brien sends a clear message to the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee following the suspended sentence that was handed to her attacker.

📻Tune in to @LunchtimeLiveNT Live with @andreagilligan1 Gilligan from 12pm for the full interview. pic.twitter.com/2SNE4prIWB

— NewstalkFM (@NewstalkFM) June 25, 2024

A Limerick court heard that Crotty had initially denied the assault had taken place until he was presented with CCTV evidence of the incident.

Before sentencing Crotty to a suspended term, Judge O’Donnell, on two occasions, told and asked O’Brien it she knew of the significance of her attacker’s guilty plea. 

The judge told O’Brien that he had “no doubt” that Crotty would lose his job in the Defence Forces if he sentenced him an immediate prison term and that he had taken the aforementioned guilty plea and the fact he had no previous convictions into account.

Crotty boasted afterwards to friends “two to put her down, two to put her out” and had tried to blame O’Brien for the unprovoked assault.

She added she would be pushing for “Helen McEntee, our Minister for Justice, to actually address these issues in a serious degree and not just wish me her best and tell me I’m great for speaking out.”

Responding to a question from The Journal about the criticism today, McEntee said:

“I appreciate Natasha and the fact that she has come forward. I cannot commend her enough for her bravery, not just in speaking up and making sure that the person who was responsible was brought to the courts.

“I appreciate while I might have things to say – I think it’s really important – there is a separation of powers is there to protect all of us – to protect against any kind of political interference.

McEntee said she is willing to work with Natasha and other victims to achieve better outcomes on the work she has already been doing. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

“But it is so important that more victims like Natasha come forward, I understand her frustration, I understand her upset, I understand why she’s doing what she’s doing.

“But for me, it’s equally as frustrating. Because for the past number of years, everything that I focused on, in terms of dealing with combating domestic and sexual violence has been to protect and to try and protect people like Natasha.

“Whether it’s new legislation, whether it’s new domestic violence agency, whether it’s introducing a new strategy which means education at the earliest stage possible is now going to be rolled out, making sure that we change the attitudes which underpin so much of the behavior that we’ve seen.

“All of this and yet we are still here, and yet we still have so much work to do.

“So I will do whatever I can. I would work with Natasha, I would work with other victims to make sure that whatever further changes you need to make. But we all have to make changes here. It is a problem – it is an epidemic and we have to acknowledge that,” she added. 

‘It wasn’t the judge’s fault – it’s the systems’

O’Brien in Limerick today told politicians and judges around the country “to do better” in respect of sentencing laws for serious crimes outside the same court Crotty walked free from last week.

She told the crowd that the sentences was not the fault of Judge Tom O’Donnell, who is retiring today in a unrelated, pre-announced arrangement, but that of the justice system.

She called for legal reforms and an end to soft sentences for violence, particularly against women victims.

O’Brien told the could of 100 protesters that she was “not criticising the actual sentence given, I am criticising the way it was given, and the reasons for giving it, and the insensitivity in which he (the judge) handled me”.

Natasha O'Brien at a protest in Dublin yesterday. Alamy Alamy

Just O’Donnell imposed a fully-suspended three-year sentence on Crotty for the attack.

As first reported by The Journal, the Irish Defence Forces have began the process to dismiss Crotty from his role in the army. Politicians, including the Taoiseach Simon Harris, have condemned the actions by Crotty. 

O’Brien said today that she would like to see judges receive “sensitivity training” when dealing with victims of crime.

“These judges are at fault for their absolute lack of empathy and insensitivity. They are dealing with victims in the 21st century, they need to (step up) with the times,” she said.

Later, O’Brien told those gathered outside the courthouse that, she wanted her case to be a catalyst for change in how victims are treated in courts.

She said her experience of the court had left her she felt “utterly alone” and she “didn’t want to be alive”. She was without legal representation, while Crotty had a solicitor, a senior barrister and a junior barrister.

“I felt discarded of, I felt violently attacked, and not at the hands of my attacker – but at the hands of the justice system.”

Appealing for people to continue to support her victims rights campaign, she said:

“Without your continued support this just fades away and becomes another [statistic], another news headline, and I am sick of [headlines], I want this to be the last one.”

Includes additional reporting by David Raleigh and Niall O’Connor