Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There was a harrowing, heartbreaking letter from a victim of rape carried in The Irish Timeson Monday. I do not know if the Taoiseach has read it. This person was a victim of marital rape and the letter was shocking. The author wrote bravely and with considerable dignity. Her words reflected the trauma of being sexually assaulted and the additional horror inflicted when the perpetrator is one's intimate partner. She describes being terrified for hours the night she was attacked. She wrote:

I was threatened with a knife, I was threatened with being raped a second time until I promised to stay in the relationship. For the remainder of the night I was threatened with being killed unless I promised that I would stay.

Her child witnessed this.

The crime was punished and the perpetrator was sentenced. However, the woman expresses her deep anger and distress at the news in February that the sentence of the perpetrator of her rape was to be reduced by two years. She explained that "Every day of those ... years counted for us", and how the reduction in the initial sentence has robbed her, as she puts it, of her "peace of mind and freedom". The victim believes that the judges did not take seriously enough the gravity of the offence against her, that is, the offence of marital rape. She feels abandoned and let down by the judicial system.

I have raised the issues of inconsistency, leniency and light sentences, particularly those related to sexual crime, in this House previously.

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