Court decision reopens nightmare for sexual abuse victims

TWO sisters who once sought the help of a teen magazine “agony aunt” in a desperate bid to end their sexual abuse nightmare stood at the front of yesterday’s demonstration outside the Dáil.

Just a year ago, Bridgeen Doherty, 35, and Fionnuala Amrein, 34, from Falmore, Dungloe, Co Donegal, were in court to see their cousin Michael O’Donnell, 43, jailed for five years.

O’Donnell was aged just 14 when he first began to abuse the girls. He went on to repeatedly rape them on various dates between 1978 and 1987.

When the girls were aged 12 and 13, they wrote a letter to British teen magazine, Suzie, to seek help, but the letter was never printed. They eventually confided in their mother.

The sisters waived their anonymity at Letterkenny Circuit Court to name and shame their cousin, who pleaded guilty to unlawful carnal knowledge and indecent assault.

Bridgeen and Fionnuala thought they could get on with their lives but last week’s Supreme Court decision brought the sisters’ nightmare back.

A local garda sergeant warned them that O’Donnell could seek an early release.

Bridgeen said they wanted to join the protest to make sure the new legislation that was being introduced was watertight.

“It must protect victims,” she insisted.

“My sister and I were abused from the time we were four-and-a-half years old until our early teens by Michael O’Donnell,” she said.

“We have to make a stand on this. Justice has to be seen to be done.”

Also at the protest was Sonia Irwin, the daughter of John Adams, originally from Belfast, who is serving four life sentences in a Dublin prison for grooming three children for sex.

“I am a victim myself and I am here to make sure that John Adams, a serial child rapist, should never be set free from prison,” she said.

She said she was shocked by the Supreme Court’s decision.

“It has instilled much fear, not only in myself, but also the three victims whom John Adams is actually serving the four life sentences for,” she said.

“I have been working on this in the North and South. I have sent many letters to Government members and to the Attorney General,” she said.

“All we can do is hope that this time they get it right and no more children will have to suffer as a result of their decisions.”

The mother of the 12-year-old raped by Mr A thanked everybody who participated in the protests. The woman, who could not be at the protest for fear of being identified, said people who stripped children of their childhood and dignity should not be allowed walk the streets and do it again. “Don’t let our children suffer any more,” she said.