‘I was nailed to the cross — not on the hill of Calgary, but on every TV screen and newspaper’

NORA WALL was sentenced to life in prison after she was wrongly convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl.

She can still hear the screaming crowds hurling obscenities at her outside the Four Courts when, along with Pablo McCabe, she was found guilty in June 1999.

In the days that followed she became the "face of evil" in a manner similar to Myra Hindley.

The TV documentary States of Fear, which showed widespread child abuse in religious-run institutions, had been broadcast earlier that year, and Nora Wall's face became the new embodiment of these heinous crimes.

The former Mercy nun, 56, is soon expected to get a certificate proving she was the victim of a miscarriage of justice after the DPP indicated this week he will not contest her application.

The certificate will at last allow Ms Wall to pursue damages against the State. However, the immense pain she endured since first questioned about the alleged rape of the girl at St Michael's Childcare Centre in Cappoquin, Co Waterford, on an unknown date in 1987 or 1988, will never fade.

She had spent her working life caring for children and was described by her superiors as an "exceptionally kind and considerate professional".

This counted for little, though, on the day she was arrested and questioned about the alleged rape, in October 1996.

Ms Wall said only her faith and the support of family and friends got her through the horrific four-year ordeal.

"I was nailed to the cross not on the hill of Calvary but on every TV screen and newspaper," she told the Irish Catholic newspaper.

"My way on the cross couldn't have been more painful, extreme or despising. Everything was there aplenty cross, condemnations, nails, thorns, spears, sponge, towels, helpers, rejections, disowning, consolers, public stripping and lashings by the media."

Ms Wall and Mr McCabe's convictions were quashed four days after the sentences were handed down. Mr McCabe has since died.

It emerged the DPP had ordered that a key prosecution witness should not have been called to give evidence in the trial.

The fact that the alleged victim had spent time in psychiatric hospitals and made a rape allegation against another man in England cast further doubts on the 11-1 guilty verdict.

At the Court of Criminal Appeal in November 1999 the DPP said he "fully and ungrudgingly" accepted the former nun and Mr McCabe were entitled to be presumed innocent of all charges.

Ms Wall said she was helped through her darkest hour by people who believed her story.

"There were chinks of hope. There are always two ways to approach life as a victim or as a gallant fighter," she said.

"There were people who got together in groups and pledged their unyielding support to me and my family. There were others who, like Peter, said: 'Stand aside, I know not this person'."

This kindness was also evident in Mountjoy, where she found herself beginning a life term. The words of one prison officer are forever etched in her memory.

"We are not here to judge you or condemn you: we are here to help you and do what is best for you," the officer said.

Ms Wall has not lost her faith in humanity following the gruelling experience. She remains convinced that values such as kindness and fairness are worth defending.

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness, and nothing is as gentle as strength. In time, the reality of this trumped-up case brought its own truth."