Panty Protests Across Ireland After Victim-Blaming Lawyer Cites Rape Accuser's Thong

[DonViejo]

Irish women have come out in force after a rape defendant’s lawyer used the underwear the alleged victim wore before the attack as evidence that she was asking for it.

Barbie Latza Nadeau
11.14.18 12:26 PM ET

A massive group of women in Ireland has taken to the streets and taken off their panties to protest the acquittal of a 27-year-old man of raping a 17-year-old girl after the victim’s thong was used as evidence against her.

The acquittal in early November is being reviewed by the Irish justice ministry after a parliamentary debate in which Ruth Coppinger, a Teachta Dála (or legislative researcher), held up a thong to draw attention to the travesty of blatant victim-blaming in rape cases. On Wednesday, hundreds of women protested in Dublin and other Irish cities. Many waved their own lacey underwear over their heads and chanted “Clothes are not consent.”

During the trial, the suspect’s lawyer, Elizabeth O’Connell, asked the eight-man, four-woman jury to consider the message the young victim was sending in her choice of intimate apparel. She suggested that by wearing such underwear to a party venue, the young victim was “open to the possibility of being with someone and that the person she became attracted to ended up being the defendant.”

The defendant, who cannot be named because he has been acquitted of the crime, told the court that he had kissed the victim and that she suddenly “became funny” and asked him to stop, according to court testimony reported in the local press. He also said that due to the amount of alcohol he drank, he was not fully erect and did not remember if he penetrated the victim, but that they were lying down on a muddy road.

The victim, who told the court she was a virgin before the alleged attack, testified that the man had his hand on her throat and dragged her to a secluded area outside the party venue where they met. She told the court that she immediately told her assailant, “You just raped me.” To which he answered, “No, we just had sex.”

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/ppanty-protests-across-ireland-after-victim-blaming-lawyer-cites-rape-accusers-thong?ref=home