No joy only relief for Marcella as ordeal finally ends

Marcella Breslin did not jump for joy or whoop when a jury awarded her €2.8m damages.

Raped and sexually assaulted as a child by a trusted family member — her godfather, Patrick Gillespie — she considered suicide at the age of 16.

Not only did she have to give evidence in the criminal trial which saw Gillespie convicted and jailed in 2008 for her rape and sexual assault, she has also had to endure the pain of her case causing a rift in her wide, extended family.

She may have made legal history yesterday, but the mother of three seemed just relieved to have spoken out about the pain and tragedy of her lost childhood, and more relieved again that her ordeal was now finally over.

The woman whose precious years as a child were stolen from her by a man — who raped her in his own home and in special trips to the forest — walked from the Four Courts taller.

She was like a new woman, given strength by the unstinting support of her husband, John Joe, and the fact that a jury of nine men and three women, had seen fit to award her millions in aggravated and exemplary damages.

That she may never see the money in hard cash seemed somehow irrelevant.

Earlier in court, the jury were told by her counsel they were going to have to “put a price on a stolen childhood”.

They were under no illusion what this meant. Richard Lyons told them that, at just 13 years of age, Ms Breslin was pushed back in the bed and raped as she continually screamed. This often happened on a Sunday morning when everybody else in the Gillespie household was at Mass.

Then there were the Friday night trips to the forests where she was raped by Gillespie, who afterwards dropped her home. At 14, he said Ms Breslin suffered the indignity of Gillespie’s wife, her aunt, confronting her to try and blame her. After she managed to tell her story and Gillespie was charged, he said an ex-garda followed her to the US to pressure her to drop the charges.

She told the court of the flashbacks when she smells perfume or if somebody is too close and happens to breathe heavy on her neck. “I would feel trapped.”

The jury was told there has been no indication of remorse from Gillespie.

The extended family has been divided, with the effect of the criminal case and the subsequent revealing of what happened to Ms Breslin being like a “nuclear bomb”.

The case, he said, was undefended. Gillespie could have come to court to try to minimise the damages.

“He has not chosen to do that,” said Mr Lyons.

The jury, he said, would have to try and come to a figure “which accurately reflects the horror story”.

“You are putting a price on a stolen childhood.”