Paedophile accused of rape and assault escapes extradition

An Irish American convicted of sexually assaulting two 12-year-old girls in Dublin has escaped extradition from Britain to the US to face trial for abusing three young girls there.

Shawn Sullivan, who holds US and Irish dual citizenship, is accused of the rape of a 14-year-old girl and the sexual molestation of two 11-year-olds in Minnesota between 1993 and 1994. He is seen in the US as one of its most-wanted alleged sex criminals.

He fled to Ireland after the charges were levelled against him and met and married an Irish woman. In 1997 he got a suspended sentence for sexually assaulting two 12-year-old girls in Dublin while his wife was pregnant.

Sullivan then obtained an Irish passport in the name Ó Súilleabháin, and moved around Europe before settling in Britain where he met his future wife, who works as a policy manager in the British Justice Ministry.

The couple married while he was being held at Wandsworth Prison, having been arrested in June 2010 on foot of the US warrant.

He was subsequently released on bail. Due to Britain’s failure to extradite him, he is now a free man.

The two British judges ruled that Sullivan should not be sent back to the US because authorities there would not give assurances he would not be placed on a controversial sex offenders treatment programme in Minnesota.

The “civil commitment” programme provides for the indefinite detention of people found to be “sexually dangerous”.

In the US, the lawyer representing Sullivan’s alleged victims, Michael Hall III, said the only avenue open to them now is through the civil courts.

He said he expected a civil jury to award “significant punitive damages” against Sullivan, but conceded it would be difficult to enforce a judgment if Sullivan remains in Britain.