If you want real life courtroom drama where better to find
it but at the courts itself. This week in County Meath they are testing the
limits of any defense as a solicitor/lawyer, charged with stealing €2.8 million
of clients funds from his own fathers firm, is now being painted as a ‘Genuine
Christian’ in his attempt to get him his get out of jail card.
This ‘genuine Christian’ apparently worked all his life for
the Church, a Christian one, not withstanding of course the €1.5 million he
stole from them while he was working there. To help his defense along he has
also completed a Masters Degree in Human Rights and has ambitions of working
for a non governmental organization if he does avoid that 6ft by 4ft cell with a
man that just held up a bank for less than €200 using a water pistol. The pen
is definitely mightier than the sword.
His defense barrister described him as a “man of
contradictions” which is a nice way of calling him a thief and a liar, and also
said he is a true Christian and in the “exceptional category” of offenders. Well, not everyday do you get to steal
€2.8 million I suppose.
He also said his client, Ruari O Ceallaigh, donated his
time, energy and money, (the money he stole I expect) to protect the rights of
the disadvantaged, (which has to be his victims) and to advance the cause of
those who had little. Definitely the core values of a true Christian, and had
the back up of another 2000 of them in England who just happened to be
solicitors as well; and their motif is that they “exist to influence lawyers
and laws for Christ.” Can you be a Christian and a lawyer at the same time or
is it just a stretch too far? Well, at least they struck Ruairi off the
solicitors roll though now it seems he is up for sainthood.
The theft by good and Godly Ruari who is ‘driven by
Christian values’ was only discovered by a routine investigation by the Law
Society for confession was not on the cards for this penitent and only if
caught like a rat in a corner. For the rest of us looking for a level playing
field in the courtroom in all of this can only wonder what makes you a bad
Christian?
Barry Clifford
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