This will probably be the last heard of the Rossport "rape tape" - because, as the Irish Times has noted, the Ombudsman's recommendations of disciplinary action against gardai who have misbehaved at Corrib have never been acted on. In other words, gardai have carte blanche to do whatever they like in defence of Shell. This, of course, is what Jerrie Ann Sullivan has been stressing all along: that the case is not just about her, but about a culture of sexualised violence which is tolerated at the highest levels - as it is if the Garda Commissioner refuses to take disciplinary action, and the Minister for Justice defends gardai against those making the complaint.
This site has carried a series of background pieces about the issue, particularly about the recording: see here, here and here. For the original events, see here, here, here and here.
For an explanation of the issues involved in this, see this statement by a number of academics involved in the case. The only significant point to emerge following this statement is the Ombudsman's strange claim that it rejected offers to have Ms Sullivan's confidential research data, present on the same camera but recorded a month earlier, deleted under mutually acceptable conditions by a third party, because of the need to have technically competent staff do it. As the Ombudsman's own report makes clear, it does not itself have such staff but had to outsource technical work on the camera...
As the dust settles, ordinary citizens in Erris have to go back to a situation of daily occupation and harassment by an enormous force of gardai and private security along with the overwhelming impact of the construction and haulage works and a situation where the Ombudsman has refused to investigate other threats of sexual violence recorded from gardai. And all so the state can continue handing over natural resources to multinationals in the midst of a massive economic and financial crisis...
