Four out of Ten people agree with the controversial view that women who drink or take drugs are part

Younger and older age groups strongly agree that the victim is partly responsible.Overall, 8% of respondents feel a woman who was drunk or took drugs is totally to blame. Chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Ellen O’Malley Dunlop, said this attitude has to be challenged. The centre runs the victims’ helpline and gets at least two calls per week from women who were sexually assaulted while drunk.

“These are people don’t know what has happened to them but they know something is wrong and might be having flashbacks.

“Whatever the problem with alcohol is, it is a separate debate, this is strictly a question of consent and when a person is that intoxicated, they do not know what is happening, there is no way they can give consent,” Ms O’Malley Dunlop said.

The influence of alcohol has been one of the most divisive issues in recent sexual assault trials. In 2004, Mr Justice Paul Carney told a sentencing hearing there was a “significant and surprising number” of cases coming before him where women fell asleep at a party and woke up to find somebody having sex with then. The case in question involved a man who pleaded guilty to sexual assault. Mr Justice Carney said had he sought a trial, he would have been acquitted because of attitudes to alcohol.

“This is not a statement that alcohol affords either a justification or mitigation of the crime, but is a recital of how juries have consistently treated this sort of case,” said Mr Justice Carney.

Speaking more recently the judge said this trend is changing and juries are now more likely to convict even if drink is involved. However, eight weeks ago, a female witness who admitted to drinking and snorting cocaine before she was raped had to take the witness box to argue what she consumed was her own business. The accused man admitted having sex with her without asking permission. The case went to trial twice. First a jury failed to reach a verdict and later, a female-dominated jury acquitted the man.

In a recent paper, Mayo Rape Crisis Centre said society’s attitude was being exploited by a “small but significant group of male perpetrators”. Teenage victims it supports would not make a report because of the belief that after drink, young women were “fair game”.

“They had absolute belief, sometimes confirmed by friends or peers, that having taken any alcohol or drugs they would either not be believed or they would be seen as having asked for it,” said the Mayo centre’s submission.

Source: Conor Ryan, Irish Examiner March 26th 2008.