In 2018, John Murphy, a former member of the Defence Forces, was jailed for 18 years for numerous counts of rape, and sexual assault against his daughter Sophia Murphy when she was aged between three and 15.
In the wake of these horrific crimes and the sentencing of her father, Sophia Murphy engaged in a process known as restorative justice, led by Dr Marie Keenan, a professor Emeritus at the school of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice at UCD.
Professor Keenan describes the practice as “a way of giving justice to victims that centres the victim of crime in the process, as distinct from the criminal justice system, which centres the perpetrator”.
This process facilitated Murphy to meet her father again in a supervised environment to discuss the impact and the harm of his crimes.
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“Restorative justice helped me accept that my dad is a paedophile,” Murphy tells Róisín Ingle, on The Women’s Podcast.
“I said goodbye to my father because he had this thing in his head that when he got out of prison, that me and him were going to have a relationship.”
“And I was like, ‘I could have went along with it and thought, no, he’s never going to get out of prison, so that’s fine’.
Murphy felt that she couldn’t do that “because I’m going to be carrying that for the rest of my life. I was like ‘How can I have a relationship with you? You’ve completely destroyed my life’”.
Another victim who also engaged in restorative justice is Janet O’Brien. Her son Luke O’Reilly was killed in a one-punch attack in 2017.
Although her son’s killer pleaded guilty, O’Brien had to attend court 13 times over the course of the following year.
“For somebody who has no experience in the criminal court, it’s quite harrowing to be in there,” she says.
“You were totally invisible,” she adds.
As her son’s attacker Jack Hall Ellis was coming to the end of his 3 and a half years sentence, O’Brien says she “felt a real need to see him before he came out of prison to ask him to be good because nothing was going to help us now. Nothing’s bringing Luke back for us”.
She feels strongly that the outcome of their meeting was positive: “Jack was really respectful. He was really remorseful”.
“He actually thanked me for the meeting. He said he expected me to come in shouting and roaring, you know, and all guns blazing,” she says.
In this powerful and insightful conversation, the women discuss the benefits of restorative justice and the difficulty of going through the criminal justice system as a victim of crime.
But first, Irish Times Opinion Editor Jennifer O’Connell is here to chat about Holly Cairn’s difficult first day back after maternity leave, the benefits of moderate drinking and the Walsh Sisters, the highly anticipated TV adaptation of Marian Keyes’ beloved novels.
In association with Kildare Village.
