Concern as sex offender walks free with no treatment

IN 1995 he was sentenced to 238 years imprisonment, the longest sentence in Irish legal history, today he walks free.

Joseph McColgan, one of the country’s most notorious sex offenders, terrorised his children, subjecting them to serial rape and abuse for over 20 years. Yet he will be freed without having received any treatment.

After pleading guilty to 26 token charges of physical and sexual abuse against his children, in a case where the sheer depravity of the abuse shocked the nation, McColgan should have spent the rest of his life behind bars. However, because the sentences ran concurrently, he will be released from Arbour Hill prison today after just nine years behind bars, less than half the sentence of abuse he imposed on his children.