Leaving aside for the moment the question of the punishment receved and served, what Ms Finnigan has done by her clumsy remarks, is attributed some of the blame for the rape to the victim -
"The rape - and I am not, please, by any means minimising any kind of rape - but the rape was not violent, he didn't cause any bodily harm to the person."
The inference there is clear - violent rape is not nice, but non-violent rape is not as bad.
Personally, if i were a woman on national television, I would not be keen to start grading rapes in terms of severity - someone might point out that rape is rape, there are no 'less pleasant' or 'more pleasant' parts to it.
"It was unpleasant, in a hotel room I believe, and she [the victim] had far too much to drink."
'Ubpleasant"??? We are talking non-consensual sex - rape, it's a crime and its effects are devastating, so I don;t think 'unpleasant' is the first adjective that would spring to my mind.
"...and she [the victim] had far too much to drink.""
Well there you go, she obviously dserved everything she got Judy - what a shame she wasn't concious enough to actually 'ask for it'!
Now that really is beyond the pale - the notion of providing any sort of mitigation in the fact that the victim was too drunk to defend herself - that is simply appalling.
As a woman, and the mother of a yong daughter, this woman should be ashamed of her attitude, and her carelessness in expressing it on national television.