FROM OUR JUDGE NOT THAT THOU SHALL NOT BE JUDGED CORRESPONDENT

“SURE YOU NEED to do a lot more than beat an innocent woman senseless to get jail in Limerick today.”

The words of a thug with ninety seven convictions for violence offences appear to echo the recent decision of a court to impose a suspended sentence on a serving Irish soldier who grabbed a young women by the hair and beat her until her nose was broken and she was unconscious.

Described by his commanding officer as “exemplary”, the vicious bully was given credit for pleading guilty after his initial lies were revealed by CCTV, and having never done this kind of thing to anyone else.

“The courts always try to look on the bright side,” insists lawyer Daniel O’Dan, who hasn’t lost a client to jail since the 1990s. “In this world, everyone is a victim. Don’t you know that? This bloke is trained to kill, what do people expect of him when he sets upon someone? He’s a victim of his training. Victims don’t go to jail. And he could lose his job if he was jailed. And if that happened then he would never have the opportunity to beat the shit out of someone in some conflict or other. What a waste of all that investment in training him to kill.”

“Well I suppose that kind of savage violence is probably useful in hand to hand fighting in a trench,” admitted social psychologist Ruth Lesson. “This soldier’s mistake, perhaps, was just one of timing, you might argue. Had he behaved like this in combat, they’d have given him a medal. Maybe the Irish Army just needs to see some actual combat, to get all this savagery and aggression out of its highly trained exemplary soldiers. At least we know that when the need does arise, they are prepared to go the whole nine yards. No prisoners!”