Earlier this week Alison Chawke walked free from prison, just 28 days into a 12-month sentence for a violent assault. She and her brother Bill both pleaded guilty to an unprovoked attack on two middle-aged men, total strangers to the siblings, in a Co. Limerick hotel in November 2023. She was sentenced to 26 months, with 14 months suspended, while her brother was jailed for two-and-a-half years, with one year suspended.

The details of the attack were excruciating, and not just for the victims. As the children of well-known publican Charlie Chawke, the shame of their behaviour that night will surely haunt the pair for the rest of their days. The court heard that they were drunk and ‘hangry’, after a day-long binge on vodka, gin and tonic and Guinness at nearby Adare Village, when they arrived in the hotel bar after midnight.

Bill Chawke began pestering hotel employees for food, after they told him the restaurant was closed, with the arrogant entitlement you’d expect from a rich bloke used to having bar staff at his beck and call.

It was all the more inexcusable, in fact, because of the contempt it showed for the very people whose labour made him so rich. And you can bet there’ll be someone on hand to remind him, when he tries to order himself some pub food in future.

Two men, who were having a quiet drink in the bar, politely suggested that he leave the hard-working staff alone. But instead of taking their advice, Bill Chawke squared up to the men and, without warning or provocation, he lunged at them with his fists. His sister joined in enthusiastically and, between them, the siblings inflicted a black eye, kicks and punches, extensive bruising and contusions, scrapes and cuts, and soft tissue damage to a victim’s shoulders and neck.

One man sustained a swollen eyelid after his eye was gouged and, as his friend lay on the ground, Alison Chawke knelt beside him and ‘locked onto’ his left cheek with her teeth, leaving bite marks on his face.

Can you just imagine the taunts, the jibes, the ‘Jaws’ gags she’s going to have to listen to for years to come? Having done jail time is bad enough, especially for a woman, but the disgrace of having behaved like a rabid beast, and taken a bite out of another human being, will be impossible to live down.

Not to minimise the trauma of the siblings’ victims, who will surely be dealing with the physical and psychological effects of the shocking attack for years to come, but that sounds like an exceptionally – if fittingly – lengthy punishment for her crime.

Naturally, the news of Ms Chawke’s early release provoked outrage from left-wing politicians. Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy suggested that she was freed early on a community service scheme because she was ‘a woman from a well-to-do background’, while less privileged women serving sentences for non-violent crimes were not given the benefit of early release. And you can see why it might look that way, but I’m not convinced.

For a start, the relevant authorities will have been more than cognisant of the optics of releasing Alison Chawke early, and the temptation to keep her behind bars, rather than invite accusations of unfair lenience, must have been strong.

But the women’s prison in Limerick is grossly overcrowded, with 89 women incarcerated in a space designed for 56. In the face of such pressure, it is highly unlikely that anyone is being kept there without good reason.

A jail sentence serves three main purposes: punishment, deterrence and the protection of the public.

Public opprobrium is part of that punishment, and few convicted women suffer that fall from grace quite as acutely as Alison Chawke. In this case, being posh and rich arguably makes the punishment harsher, not easier – just how readily will her previous social circle welcome her back?

Given the publicity around her crime, her conviction and her imprisonment, I suspect that her 28 days behind bars, facing the prospect of up to a year in the harsh conditions in an overcrowded jail, will surely serve as a life-long lesson.

In terms of deterrence, the jailing of a woman with no previous convictions, who had pleaded guilty, sent the message that nobody, no matter how affluent or well-connected, is above the law.

And in the circumstances, given the shame and embarrassment she has visited on her family – who can forget that pathetic picture of her father, stumps of legs on display as he sat in his wheelchair emerging from visiting his disgraced children? - I’d say Alison Chawke is unlikely to trouble the courts again. Chawke may be at liberty, but she is a long way from being free of the consequences of her drunken, violent binge.

Wasting prison space on offenders who have been publicly shamed and punished, are at low risk of re-offending and are no danger to the public, just for the optics, is a poor use of scarce resources. But parents who allow their teenage children to rampage around the city at night, stealing cars, burgling houses and ramming Garda vehicles? Now, I’d certainly make space for them.