Serial sex abuser a monster, says victim

A VICTIM of serial child sex abuser Thomas Waters described him as a monster, and said he took away his innocence and replaced it with fear.

The 41-year-old Co Clare man told Ennis Circuit Court it is unknown how many children were under the direct care of Thomas Waters, aged 66, of Moore Street, Kilrush.

In court, Waters pleaded guilty to five separate counts of indecent assault against the man — then aged 12 to 14 — on dates unknown between September 1981 and September 1983.

The former judo coach is serving a four-year jail term for the indecent assault of three young boys and the buggery of one of the boys in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Judge Carroll Moran imposed a suspended four-year term in June 2009 for those offences and this was activated by the Court of Criminal Appeal last December on appeal from the DPP.

Previously, Waters kept himself out of jail in 2006 when he paid two other victims a total of €60,000 in court.

Waters was first convicted of indecent assault at Ennis District Court in 1982 and given the Probation Act.

Waters’ latest victim to come before the courts, in the course of his victim impact statement, said: “I will never understand or want to understand what type of monster you are. One thing I know for sure is I have the courage now so you can never state ‘this is our secret’. I hope today that I find some sort of resolution.”

He said in court: “Tommy, I cannot never forget what you did to me, no matter how much I try. Every day I see some picture of you in someone else, I don’t look for you, but you are there. Your evil eyes, your sadistic mouth, your breathing are what nightmares are made of. I know, because you are in mine.”

The victim said that Waters was respected in the community. “I even looked up to him, you gained my trust and that of my family.”

Waters kept his head bowed throughout the course of the hearing.

Garda Marie Burke said that the victim first came to Ennis Garda Station to make his complaint in July 2009.

Stephen Coughlan BL, for the State, said that on one occasion at the complainant’s home when he was 12, Waters was giving the boy a goodnight hug, “but took advantage, put a hand inside the boy’s pyjamas and began to stroke his penis”.

Mr Coughlan said that on another occasion, Waters sat on the bed of the complainant at the boy’s home and “worked his hands under bedclothes so as to manipulate the complainant’s penis. This lasted 10 minutes. The boy was crying, he became so distressed, and Mr Waters promised he would never do it again.”

Counsel for Waters, Anthony Sammon SC, said his client’s deviant behaviour was a gross violation of the victim, stating that Waters wished to express his regret and remorse for the pain, suffering and damage.

Judge Moran said that the abuse “must have been very traumatic” on the victim, stating that the nature of the abuse was “appalling”.

Judge Moran sentenced Mr Waters to four years in jail and backdated the start of the sentence to March 9, when he first pleaded guilty.