Sex trial ordeal: victims call for protection
Cooke, who went by the broadcast name of ‘Captain Cooke’ and was known by local children as the ‘Cookie Monster’, received a 10-year jail sentence for a total of 42 indecent assaults on young girls in the 1970s.
It was the second trial for the 70-year-old father of 11 after he successfully appealed a 2002 conviction for multiple offences against four girls.
Two of those victims, both now aged 39, described the ordeal of having to give evidence twice as “traumatic”.
They availed of their right to anonymity but asked to be heard on behalf of all victims.
“I have suffered emotionally during both trials. At one stage I felt I was the person on trial. I had to listen to horrible accusations and lies and I felt my good character was being assassinated,” said one of the women.
“We need our own personal representation. I feel every assistance was given to the accused and we were left like headless chickens wondering what was happening.”
The second woman had to give evidence four times in seven years because of Cooke’s continued insistence on his innocence.
“To be re-exposed to the trauma time after time in such a public arena is a very difficult journey of endurance, not only for us, the victims, but for our loved ones, our families, our friends.
“The impact has been incalculable and is made more difficult by a system that is heavily weighted in favour of the accused.
“He was wrapped in the protections of the Constitution which he proved very clever at using to his advantage.”
Cooke, who has addresses in Tallaght and Clondalkin in Dublin, was the founder of Radio Dublin, one of the original pirate stations, which he ran from his home from the mid-1970s up to his arrest in 2000.
His retrial heard how he systematically groomed local girls as young as seven for increasingly serious sexual abuse, stopping short only of full penetration.
Sentencing him in the Central Criminal Court yesterday, Ms Justice Maureen Clark took into account the fact that he never acknowledged his guilt.
She sentenced him to 10 years in prison, minus the three years he served prior to the quashing of his earlier conviction. Taking into account remission for good behaviour, he is expected to serve five years and three months.
Both women welcomed the sentence, but one said: “He will never do the time in prison that I have done in my life."
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