BAD JUDGE MENT; Outrage as judge says mostly women make false complaints.

Byline: By MICHELLE NIC PHAIDIN

A JUDGE yesterday claimed it is "mostly women" who make false complaints to gardai.

Judge Thomas Fitzpatrick said that people should not make vindictive and serious accusations for no good reason.

He made the comments after a woman withdrew a complaint against a man she had claimed threatened her and broke windows in her home.

Mr Justice Fitzpatrick added gardai and court staff were put to a considerable amount of inconvenience by the work involved in processing the case.

He said: "They have more than enough work to do without these spurious complaints being made. It is mostly women that make these spurious complaints."

The woman told a special sitting of Dungloe District Court in Co Donegal she had been depressed at the time she made the claims.

Justice Fitzpatrick told her that when women make complaints against partners or former partners they should realise that gardai have to take statements and issue summonses.

Labour's Donegal North East general election candidate Siobhan McLaughlin hit out at the judge's comments.

She said: 'It is a disgrace for the judge to make such reckless comments considering the amount of violence that women experience in the county and nationally on a daily basis."

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