Irish defence forces to discharge soldier who attacked woman and avoided jail

Ireland’s defence forces are to discharge a soldier who avoided jail after brutalising a woman in a random street attack, in a case that provoked a national outcry.

Senior army officers have completed dismissal proceedings against Cathal Crotty, 22, who is to be formally discharged on Thursday, Irish media reported.

Street protests flared last month after a court let the army private walk free after he was convicted of a brutal assault on Natasha O’Brien, 24, who became a symbol of the legal system’s handling of gender-based violence.

Crotty attacked O’Brien in Limerick city centre on 29 May 2022 after she asked him to stop shouting homophobic slurs at passersby. He grabbed her by the hair and punched her at least six times, inflicting a broken nose and concussion and leaving her unconscious. He bragged to friends via Snapchat: “Two to put her down, two to put her out.”

The judge Tom O’Donnell gave Crotty a fully suspended three-year sentence and ordered him to pay €3,000 in compensation. He called the assault appalling and vicious but took into account Crotty’s guilty plea, lack of previous convictions and the end of his army career if given a custodial sentence.

The sentence triggered a backlash. Thousands marched in Cork, Dublin, Galway and Limerick to show solidarity with O’Brien, who said the court case had created fresh trauma. Lawmakers applauded her when she appeared in the public gallery of the Dáil. A government minister called the case a “watershed moment” in the campaign for legal reform.

The defence forces launched internal proceedings, which resulted in the decision to discharge Crotty, from Ardnacrusha, County Clare. He will have to return his equipment and uniform and will be escorted from Sarsfield barracks in Limerick.

The defence forces came under renewed scrutiny when it disclosed that 68 serving soldiers had been convicted in the past three years or were facing charges on a range of criminal offences.

Crotty may yet go to jail because last week the director of public prosecutions appealed against the suspended sentence on the grounds of undue leniency.

When he was first arrested the soldier claimed that O’Brien had instigated the violence, but he admitted guilt after CCTV footage showed it was unprovoked. O’Brien had been on her way home after working a shift at a pub. She did not know Crotty.

She told the court the attack had left her feeling like “a punching bag” and that her last thought before she fell unconscious had been “he’s not stopping, I’m going to die”.