I believe you: Abusers need to pay the price

A recap: last Monday I told of the trial in which I’ve been a witness, that of the man – the turd in human skin – who was found guilty of raping my friend in the back of his taxicab, and another woman too on another night.

Last week he was sentenced to nine years for the rape of my friend, and eight for the other girl.

These sentences were imposed consecutively, said the judge: 17 years for both.

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And then there was the other case which ran at the same time, in which he was found guilty of the rape and sexual assault of another woman 12 years ago, when she was a child.

This happened in the days immediately after her mother’s funeral, when everyone else was most distracted, when she was most vulnerable… when she was just seven.

For this, he was sentenced to an additional 13 years.

So he received 30 years in total.

Not guilty does not mean innocent

I hope they throw away the key. But this got me thinking again about something the judge said in court when he was directing the jury (in Ireland we have a jury system).

“Not guilty,” he explained, “does not mean innocent.”

And my head exploded.

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The truth is I feared this predator, this rapist, would get away with it because ultimately it came down to “he said, she said”, and yet I knew without a shadow of doubt that he was guilty, that he had raped these women who had fallen asleep after a big night out in the back of his cab.

We, the public, assume that “not guilty” is a synonym for innocent. We think there is no nuance, and sometimes we rage because it seems obvious the accused is dodgy, shifty, toxic, and sometimes there is so much smoke but no provable fire.

I believe you

However, in law “not guilty” simply means the burden of proof has not been sufficient, has not been “beyond reasonable doubt”.

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It does not by default mean blameless, faultless, upstanding and irreproachable. It does not automatically make the accused harmless, a decent bloke, give the man a job.

Sometimes, it merely means he got away with it.

I tell you this for all the women – and men – who’ve seen their abusers walk free.

I tell you because I believe you.