‘Mary’s hope is it will give others the strength to seek justice’

AFTER a 31-month wait for justice, Mary Shannon arrived two minutes late.

After a three-hour drive from Ennis, Ms Shannon and her three sisters missed the start of the Judge CJ Murray’s reading of a defining moment of her life to the Court of Criminal Appeal. By the time they arrived in the courtroom the judge was explaining how it, unlike the Central Criminal Court before it, had taken the trauma of the Clare mother of three on board. Yesterday her sister Sarah Shannon said the occasion was a marked difference from the other occasions when they made the journey to Dublin to hear a judge’s decision.

“Judge Paul Carney didn’t even bring into his decision what effect it had on Mary. It was all about Adam Keane’s circumstances and the fact, if you were drunk, you had less responsibility. Mary thought that verdict was wrong and that is why she fought it.”

Unlike in the previous sentencing hearing, the Court of Criminal Appeal decided Ms Shannon deserved to have her suffering considered and not just the mitigating factors offered on behalf of her rapist Adam Keane.

“He, uninvited and illegally, entered the house through a back door, which for some considerable time could not be locked due to a defect in the lock.

“He climbed upstairs, turned off the landing light, which had been left on to enable the children asleep to have easy access to their mother’s bedroom in the case of need. He surreptitiously entered her bedroom, crept into her bed and raped her.

“He violated the mother, her home, her family wellbeing and the sense of security which she was entitled to expect for herself and her children in that home,” the CCA judgment said.

Despite this vindication, Sarah Shannon admitted they were worried coming to Dublin for the ruling. On their three most recent visits to the Four Courts the Shannon family had experienced vastly different results.

On the first occasion Mary Shannon’s rapist, Keane, was convicted of rape, the second time he walked free with a suspended sentence and on the third trip he was jailed for effectively flicking a cigarette at his victim.

“We were apprehensive. Every time we came up [to Dublin], it never turned out how we thought. But it is good to know Mary got justice,” said Sarah Shannon.

After yesterday’s ruling, the family’s thoughts turned to others and Mary Shannon’s hope that the sense of injustice that forced her to waive her right to anonymity would not be visited on new victims who come before the courts.

“From all the media coverage, Mary’s hope is it will give other people the strength to seek justice,” said Sarah Shannon. “She feels, hopefully, the verdict will say to women and men that they will not have to go through the same lengths to get justice. You have to see that rape is a serious mental and physical assault.”

Yesterday afternoon, after the Shannon sisters, Mary, Deirdre, Antoinette and Sarah, arrived back at the family home in Ennis, thoughts were directed at a new start and not the events of the past two years that have made Mary Shannon a champion of silenced rape victims across the country.

“It was not difficult as a family to lose our anonymity. It was difficult to watch Mary go through it and the effect on us was only a small price to pay.