Saturday, March 06, 2010
IT was, in the words of one seasoned care worker who has attended numerous rape trials over the years, "unprecedented".
She had just witnessed a young man who had suffered systematic rape and sexual abuse at the hands of his father being hugged by some members of the jury who had convicted his abuser a fortnight earlier.
The fact that such ordinary members of the public, who had been excused future jury service for the rest of their lives at the end of the nine-day trial last month, returned to court to witness its final chapter highlighted how the harrowing case had touched them so deeply.
The gesture also proved a major comfort to the 20-year-old victim, for whom yesterday’s sentence hearing at the Central Criminal Court brought some element of closure to an ordeal that had dominated his young life.
During the trial, the eldest of six children had been forced to recount how the horrific ritual of being raped up to three times a week began on his 12th birthday in 2001 because of his father’s insistence he was innocent of all 47 counts of rape and sexual assault with which he was charged.
Although it is known that the young man and his siblings were deeply upset with some media reporting of the trial, the shy, soft-spoken victim yesterday was still happy to give his reaction to journalists on the outcome of the case.
The man, who was accompanied by one of his brothers, admitted that he would have preferred if his father had been given a life sentence, although he acknowledged that he was happy enough with the 14-year term of imprisonment imposed by trial judge, Mr Justice Barry White.
He was also hugged by the aunt and uncle who have looked after him in recent years, treated him like one of their own children and provided him with the first place he can truly call home.
In a victim impact statement read out in court last week that was described by Mr Justice White yesterday as "poignant and powerful," the young boy had described how he had been forced by his father to make false allegations of abuse against the same uncle to prevent him and his wife from getting custody of the six children.
He also painted a grim picture of everyday life in the family home which was marked by almost consistent hunger, dirt and untidiness and where "the pub was the centre of everything else" – a reference to the habitual drinking of both his parents.
"I can’t say when my childhood started or finished because as far as I am concerned I never had a childhood," said the young man in a statement that visibly moved many people present in the courtroom to tears.
Yesterday, the grey-haired man whom the victim refuses to call "father" stared dispassionately ahead until called on by the judge to stand to his feet for sentencing.
Dressed in a grey woollen jumper, blue shirt and beige trousers, the convicted sex offender gave no reaction as he was handed down a 14-year sentence with the final 18 months suspended.
His features remained unchanged as Mr Justice White rebuked him for his gross breach of the trust and innocence of a young, vulnerable child and his failure to show any sign of remorse.
At the conclusion of the hearing, he turned immediately towards prison officers without any glance in the direction of a son whose only happy memory of him is a rare occasion of fishing and playing pool together.
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