By Sonya McLean
A High Court judge has praised a woman for her courage in delivering her victim impact statement in person telling her “you are helping other little children who don’t have the voice at this stage to make a complaint”.
Ms Justice Karen O’Connor told the woman “I know this is very painful for you and very triggering.
You have to know there are other children that haven’t the voice at this stage to make a complaint but at least they will know they are not alone.”
“Their voices are taken away from them – eventually they will hopefully find the voice to come forward,” the judge continued.
The woman delivered her victim impact statement in the sentencing of a man who had sexually abused her as a child while she was minding his young son.
The abuse involved the man touching the girl’s breasts, vagina and performing oral sex on her.
The man regularly cornered the girl in his home as she was leaving a room or in a hallway before molesting her.
On one occasion he sexually abused her in his son’s bedroom, while on another occasion he sexually abused her in a car that his wife was driving.
The girl was sitting on the man’s lap as there was not enough room in the car because his son, mother-in-law and another teenage girl were in the car with them at the time.
The now 68-year-old man pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 17 charges of sexual assault of the girl while she was aged between 12 and 14 years old in his home on dates between September 1992 and September 1994.
The case was adjourned to November to allow for an updated probation report to clarify the man’s level of remorse and “his attitude towards the victim’s account of the offending”.
A local detective told Gerardine Small SC, prosecuting, that the woman reported the abuse to the garda in July 2022.
When the man was interviewed a number of months later, he told gardaí he believed the girl was older and that she was consenting to the activity.
The woman said in her victim impact statement that the man took away her childhood and stole her innocence.
She said he also took away her choice as to when and where she would have her first sexual experience.
“You abused me for over two years, abused me while I was minding your son. You groomed me and breached my trust – you physically restrained me,” the woman continued.
“You made me ashamed of who I was – ate away at my confidence. You didn’t seem to care who was around,” the woman said before she referred to the fact that the man made her watch pornography.
She said the abuse has affected all aspects of life and she has had “constant issues” with her health.
She said she is plagued with anxiety and panic attacks and has missed out on simple things in life, like nights out, family dinners and going to the cinema.
The woman said she was afraid to tell anyone because she was worried that she had done something to make the man abuse her.
“You made me question my trust in others. You made me feel dirty and ashamed of who I was,” she said.
The woman said that the abuse has affected her life as a mother to her children because she is afraid to leave them alone.
“I reported the abuse for myself to hopefully be one day at peace. I reported it for my children,” she continued adding that she wanted them to grow up confident and not to be afraid to stand up for themselves.
The woman said she knew that with the help of the garda and the charity One in Four she would get through things. She said she was in court “not as a victim but as a survivor”.
Ms Justice O’Connor thanked the woman “for the time and effort you put in and having the courage to read the statement”.
Eoghan Cole SC defending said his client wished to offer an apology to the woman and to indicate he is “deeply ashamed and remorseful”.
He suggested that the man’s account to gardaí was “a version of events he had derived from his retreat into denial”.