http://time.com/5456712/ireland-thong-ra...-protests/
'You Have to Look at the Way She Was Dressed.' Ireland Protests After Lawyer Cites a Thong as Consent
Scores of demonstrators have taken to the streets across Ireland this week to protest after a defense lawyer held up a teenager’s lacy thong in a rape trial to indicate consent, the Guardian reports.
In her closing argument, lawyer Elizabeth O’Connell asked the jury to consider a 17-year-old’s underwear as an indication that she was “open to meeting someone.” Prosecutors said the teen was raped in a muddy ally by a 27-year-old man.
“Does the evidence out-rule the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front,” O’Connell said.
The defendant was unanimously acquitted by a jury of eight men and four women at Cork’s Central Criminal Court on November 6.
But the lawyer’s remarks sparked outrage far beyond the trial. Women’s rights activists and others took to social media to protest victim blaming, and posted photos of underwear on Twitter with the hashtags #IBelieveHer and #ThisIsNotConsent. Protests also erupted in Belfast, Cork, Dublin and Limerick with hundreds of women and men calling for a national reckoning over how sexual assault cases are handled.
'You Have to Look at the Way She Was Dressed.' Ireland Protests After Lawyer Cites a Thong as Consent
Scores of demonstrators have taken to the streets across Ireland this week to protest after a defense lawyer held up a teenager’s lacy thong in a rape trial to indicate consent, the Guardian reports.
In her closing argument, lawyer Elizabeth O’Connell asked the jury to consider a 17-year-old’s underwear as an indication that she was “open to meeting someone.” Prosecutors said the teen was raped in a muddy ally by a 27-year-old man.
“Does the evidence out-rule the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front,” O’Connell said.
The defendant was unanimously acquitted by a jury of eight men and four women at Cork’s Central Criminal Court on November 6.
But the lawyer’s remarks sparked outrage far beyond the trial. Women’s rights activists and others took to social media to protest victim blaming, and posted photos of underwear on Twitter with the hashtags #IBelieveHer and #ThisIsNotConsent. Protests also erupted in Belfast, Cork, Dublin and Limerick with hundreds of women and men calling for a national reckoning over how sexual assault cases are handled.
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