Report warned of further crimes

WARNINGS that serial sex offender Robert Howard would commit even more serious crimes were given eight years before he abducted, raped and murdered a 14-year-old schoolgirl.

A psychologist’s report compiled for the Northern courts in 1995 said Howard had admitted experiencing strong, recurrent sexual urges directed towards teenage girls and that he had a “strong desire to dominate teenage girls both sexually and physically.”

It was the psychologist’s opinion that Howard had a “propensity not only to commit further offences... but also to escalate his offending behaviour.”

In summary, the report stated the risk of him reoffending was “high”.

The report was prepared while Howard awaited sentencing for attacks on a 16-year-old girl he had lured into his flat in Castlederg, Co Tyrone two years earlier.

His victim said she was drugged, stripped and repeatedly raped by Howard over a two-day period, while all the while he kept a noose around her neck, tightening it whenever she tried to resist his attacks. The petrified girl only managed to escape her ordeal when she broke through a window.

Howard, however, put up a convincing argument that the girl was a willing partner in the sex acts and he was convicted on a reduced charge of having unlawful sex with a minor. All he got was a three-year sentence, suspended for five years.

It is not clear what weight was placed on the psychologist’s report as it was a private document seen by the judge, prosecution and defence but not disclosed in public. Its contents have been revealed after crime author and RTÉ reporter, Barry Cummins, had sight of it.

It was to prove a chilling forewarning. Eight years after Howard effectively got away with his attacks on the teenager, he targeted another young girl, Hannah Williams.

The 14-year-old’s decomposed body was found with the rope used to strangle her still tied around her neck almost a year after her disappearance from her home in England where Howard had relocated in one of his countless moves around Britain and Ireland.

The rope was a significant feature. In the 1970s, Howard had served time for the vicious assault and rape of a woman in Cork after he broke into her home and tied her up with strips of torn sheet.

The family of missing Arlene Arkinson, who hold Howard responsible for her murder despite his acquittal of the charge, believe he would also have had to restrain her as the 15-year-old would have fought for her life.

It is not known what caused Robert Howard to embark on a life of perversion and violence although it has been noted that he spent three years at St Joseph’s reform school in Clonmel after getting into trouble for stealing at the age of 12.

St Joseph’s, which was run by the Christian Brothers, became notorious for its harsh regime and allegations of persistent sexual abuse by the priests in charge of it.