Haunted By The Ghosts Of Past Selves

"It is... hard to fathom why, if Judge White genuinely believed the sentences to be insufficient, he suspended the last two years in the case of the three foreign nationals. Admittedly, this was on condition they leave the country and never come back. Doubtless, some will say we are well rid of them. But old-fashioned as it may sound to some, the primary purpose of the criminal justice system is to punish the wrong-doers. Getting a ticket home two years ahead of schedule is not exactly punishment.
"...Sorry, Judge White, but in this regard you are plain wrong."
- from the editorial in The Irish Daily Mail

By Charley Brady

You see, this is the problem that I have with what you call justice, Mr. Justice Barry White. I was hard on you last week because that's what frustration and anger does to people; but you didn't prove me wrong, did you? Not when it came to your sentencing, you didn't.

I'm sure that you're a decent guy who looks after his wife and kids, because even you saw something wrong in the sentence that you had to hand down - BY LAW - yesterday.

It's now out there in the open: despite that fact that everybody and his mother knows the swine who beat Rebecca French to death, they will never be charged with murder; and all because of a technicality.

One creature that is a fellow pig to the four thugs, yesterday said to me: "She must have done something to deserve it, mustn't she?"

How do you answer a creep like that?

Justice White (who I am actually beginning to feel sorry for because of the mad system that he's tied into) said that even though it was likely that one or more of the men had killed her, they still had to be presumed to be innocent.

I don't get that. I mean, I know it's the law but in my world if I witness a woman being beaten to a pulp by a gang of heroes and I don't intervene then I am complicit in murder.

But then, because of that annoying technicality, well, murder didn't come into it. It was just a bunch of high-spirited boys who felt that because they were in one big macho s***-eating group were tough enough to beat a thirty-year-old woman to death, stuff her in the trunk of a car and then burn it.

Some heroes; some monsters.

And they were not charged with murder, but with manslaughter. Ah, well that's all right then isn't it?

How can this, even in a country as insane as Ireland, be considered manslaughter? I should have mentioned last week that one of the men was an Irish "man" called Patrick O'Connor. He had already pleaded guilty, along with the Polish Piotr Pasiak to impeding the investigation so they were, by the half-mad laws of this country, never up on a murder charge.

Look. I have to be careful here - ah, what the hell, life is too short - the two

Lithuanians were charged with manslaughter. In a sane world it would have been murder.

I am not being xenophobic, Barry White, even though I will be accused of it. I am just saying what other people wonder about.

A sentence of ten years, with two suspended as long as they bugger off back to their own country? Are you having a laugh or what?

So with time off for good behaviour they might be back on the streets in under six years. And people think that I'm the crazy one. You gotta be kidding me.

If it were my sister that these vermin had kicked to death I'd be more that a little bit upset about this.

Deep down I know White tried his best. For Christ's sake he's a human, unlike the things that were in his courtroom. He said:

"In my view, ten years is inadequate as a maximum punishment for this type of offence, but I am bound by the law. It seems to me there is little if any room for distinguishing between the four of you."

The four of you: think about that as you think about Rebecca French, beaten to death, stamped on repeatedly and then dragged out, shoved into the boot of a car and set alight to.

That sounds like manslaughter to you, does it? Because it as sure as hell is black at midnight sounds like just plain murder to me.

What the hell do I know? I'm not a judge.

All of the vermin agreed to the conditions and signed €100 bonds. Yeah, you read that right.

As I wrote last week the case had been adjourned after the victim impact statement showed that Rebecca's sister Rachel had written:

"People with criminal convictions in their own country should never be allowed to live among us... The country has enough to deal with. Justice in Ireland is sleeping while it's people are dying."

Well you can't have that in this country, can you? You can't have people telling the truth, can you?

Judge White reckoned it was offensive. I'll say no more.

Still, what did you think about those selfish sons of bitches, the blind people, the other day? They actually had the cheek to be moaning because they are having cuts in their money after the budget!

Well, of course you are, you blind fools! When the politicians had to take a tiny cut in their wages did it never occur to you that it would be you and the carers and the unemployed and the sick and damned near every weak link in society that would be taking it up the rear end in order for the corrupt pigs of politicians to make up their ill-gotten gains?

Screw the blind; let them sell their guide dogs. As one man admitted during the week, he is only one of many who can no longer afford to have one; so to hell with him too.

To pick on the blind? Have they no shame at all left?

Those with medical cards? We're shafting you as well now. Dig deep into your pockets because you are being ordered to bend over with the rest of the small-timers.

Cut those on the minimum wage. They don't matter. At least we're going easy on the rich. We don't want them too upset, do we?

The Irish found this a good budget, of course. I mean, they left the booze and the cigarettes untouched so that was all right. That's the way that you make slaves of everybody: just give them their little bit of comfort zone and then their masters can continue and will continue to p*** on you from a very great height.

The Fianna Failures knew that they would be getting booted out at the next election so I guess that they just decided to get their revenge in first. Let's give the electorate a hiding on this budget - what the hell, we're not writing it anyway, that's done by our masters in Europe - and show them that they actually needed us.

And God help us, would you look at the jackasses that are preparing to take over from them? The same shower that should have been fighting the good fight at least two years ago but are now all gung-ho because they know that when they are in power they will be able to point to the four year plan and the economy in general and say: "Look, this is what we have inherited. It wasn't our fault. It was those guys that you - the electorate - kept in for more than a decade."

Why aren't we burning down the Dail? When it reaches the stage where you are ripping off blind people, just because you can, you know that you have plumbed the depths of not only political depravity but human depravity.

No doubt the political swine who have robbed people of their guide dogs will be the first to be in the pews as Christmas Christians.

If I wrote until the end of time I could never explain how much I hate them.

Ah, to the Devil with doom and gloom. This is my last article for the moment and, since I feel an end - or at least a change - coming on it may be the last one I write. If that proves to be the case I'd like to think out loud for a bit, if that's OK?

I suppose that every man's life looks pathetically normal to him; but last night I had one of those strange evenings where you drift in and out of sleep. I found myself remembering things that I hadn't thought of in years: My first memory, while being walked by my mother, of a lorry shedding its load of apples. I remember vividly people running from everywhere to snatch them off the ground.

At the age of four, frightened at seeing my father crying for the first and only time I knew of, when my brother Alex died. Was that the seed of the doubts that grew about the God myth? What was the point of creating a little life to just take it away again?

What a great childhood, though: Having parents that really cared for my three brothers and me, I was never aware that money must have been in short supply. I remember the last day of a caravan holiday when the money had run out but we still had some cans of tomato soup and some potatoes. So those were mashed up and dunked into the middle of the soup plate. I've tried it since but it never tasted as downright gorgeous as it did on that day.

My dad was a great one for the pleasures of Nature and so we enjoyed things like studying caterpillars or grasshoppers for ages at a time, without being bored. If the weather was fine, he would no sooner be in from work than we would be off out somewhere with him, my mother beaming at us. Or we would spend many a happy hour, fishing with very poor results.

To this day it just breaks my heart that I never lived up to his expectations. I was the first to move away from home and, apart from short spells, have always enjoyed living alone. When I think of it, I've been so lucky, really. I've had four or five really good male friends over the years, working in different towns and cities and I've had several women who loved me. Unfortunately I've never been very good at relationships. Too selfish, I suppose.

One very clear memory that returned last night was of me at seventeen, working off the coast of Spain on a yacht. It's an aching memory of a young guy with the whole world in front of him. Hair bleached from months in the sun, slim brown body that seldom knew the feel of a shirt. Hell, it's typical how you can only appreciate how you looked from the perspective of thirty-five years and a body that in no way resembles the one in the photographs. Whoever said that youth was wasted on the young knew what they were talking about.

A few years later and where is the young man who couldn't spend enough time in the gym, lifting weights? What happened to him? I mean, I remember his thoughts as mine but where did he go? He appreciated Shakespeare and Beethoven and Lou Reed and Robert Howard and H.P. Lovecraft just as much as the grown man does, so where is he?

Then comes the car accident and I foolishly allowed that to end my training days. This was when the years of drinking far too much began. All the same person; all different.

Moving to Dublin and twenty years of working in a hotel bar, hating every minute of it. Think of it: hating every minute of twenty years of working life. All because of cowardice and the fear of leaving that safe wage packet behind. What a waste.

The decision to pack it in before it packed me in; and then those wonderful years as a travel writer. Now those are memories that can be played back over and over. The boom years: sailing up the Panama Canal. Falling in love with Mexico, which I've been lucky enough to return to again and again. Travelling all over Europe. Seeing Venezuela.

I loved the trips where I was on my own but if I was in company it was in the main with like-minded people. Although I recall one young woman in her early twenties who really shouldn't have been travelling anywhere. It was just wasted on her.

We were on the truly beautiful island of St. Lucia in the Caribbean. I had been there before and was confident that nobody could be disappointed with it. Yet this girl was bored with everything and most annoying of all wouldn't try the magnificent food but actually insisted on eating only hamburgers! I swear, some people just shouldn't be allowed outside the country when I think of the many who would have relished such an experience.

I suppose that these experiences spoiled me, although I revelled in every moment of a different culture. It's made the austerity of the last year or so all the harder, but that's been also down to a lot of stupid decisions on my part.

So with Christmas coming up and the end of 2010, where to now? As I said, it feels like the end of something but does that make it the beginning of something else?

Certainly, for a variety of reasons, this has been the worst year that I ever put in and I wouldn't care for a repeat of it. I also wouldn't care for a repeat of last night.

Memories are all well and good but to be actually haunted by yourself? Well, perhaps it's the same for everybody. Either that or as a certain lady has said quite often, I would give a psychiatrist a field day.

On the off chance that this does indeed turn out to be a swan song then let me thank all who have emailed me. It's been a real pleasure trying to answer all of you and indeed in a couple of cases I almost feel as if I know the people involved. You know who you are and thanks.

To those who send me the more - ahem - critical words of wisdom I also hope that you get what you deserve in the New Year; and you can roll that one up and take it any way you want.

I wish you all the very best over the Christmas season. Be good to each other. We only get one role of the dice (no matter what you say, Alicia!).

And if I am still around in the New Year then I'll hopefully see you here.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net