‘Going to bed hurt and waking angry’ achieved so much
ON Tuesday night, just 24 hours after being told her father would not be jailed for his crime of raping her throughout a decade of her childhood, Fiona Doyle, as she often does, cooked dinner for her children.
She was “distraught” and “heartbroken” that it had all come to nothing. That her father, Patrick O’Brien had walked free despite admitting to his crime while she remained a prisoner of the horrific sexual abuse that had held hostage to her childhood.
That night she decided that if the Irish justice system would not help free her from the nightmare that haunted her, she herself would find her own release.
She gathered her children around and told them that night she wanted to “go to bed hurt and wake up angry”.
In the two days that followed, she secured a meeting with the Taoiseach; saw the decision to release her father on bail overturned — landing him in prison — and forced the public, the political establishment, and judiciary to step back and take a hard look at the sentencing regime in this country.
It is something that was unimaginable to the sexually abused girl who left school early with no confidence and little chance of a career or a successful and happy life of her own.
Her ordeal, the courts heard, began when she was just seven, the night before her First Communion when her mother went to Bingo “leaving me at the mercy of my father, almost certainly knowing what he would do to me”.
There was none of the usual excitement you’d expect in a family home where such a big occasion was to happen the next day, Fiona told the court.
“My father raped me that night,” she said. “I remember lying in bed that night but being unable to sleep because of the pain.”
Her daughter Kristel O’Brien, 26, told RTÉ radio the rape had started “way before that, but it had to be said it was that night because that was the first rape he actually admitted to”.
She said her grandfather was being tried on his own terms.
“There is a whole lot more to this story and my mother wants to get it all out there,” said Kristel. “Some of the stories you will hear, you will not believe.”
But what has already been told before the court is hard to believe — abuse, involving vaginal, anal, and oral rape, took place over 10 years and was “as frequent as having dinner”.
At times Fiona would continue watching television while he raped her, turning herself into a “zombie” to avoid thinking of what was happening.
The court heard of a culture of fear and violence in the home where Fiona’s mother would call her a whore while beating her, treating her as “the other woman” in an “evil marriage”.
When the family decided to move to England, Fiona was told stay behind with her father and he moved her into his bedroom and began abusing her “whenever it suited him”.
In one incident he raped her in the woods of Foxrock golf course. When she was aged 14, he raped her in the front seat of his car during a drive to Glendalough.
In an incident in 1981, her father met her at a bus stop and began shouting at her, calling her a prostitute and a whore. He took her home and beat her. She later took an overdose of tablets.
When she was 12 years old, she spent three days in hospital receiving treatment for anal warts.
In one incident, O’Brien drove his daughter to the home of family friends where they stayed as overnight guests.
He raped her in the guest bed that night and she awoke the next morning with people standing around and her mother shouting: “I told you he was having sex with her.”
Kristel compared this attitude of her grandmother to the over-protectiveness of her own mother towards her.
She said her grandmother provided “cover for my grandad” by telling everyone Fiona was a “troublemaker” and not telling the truth: “People believed a mother wouldn’t cover that up but she did. My granny did cover that up.”
Kristel said there was no legal action that could be taken against the grandmother for the cover up of what was happening to her daughter. “But I do have some solace in the fact that she has lost her husband, she has lost her family, she has lost the community in which she lives. She will be in some sort of prison.”
Fiona eventually escaped the abuse when, after leaving school early, she got a job and made friends. One of them was Kristel’s father, who noticed there was something wrong with Fiona’s home life and took her in.
Their marriage broke down as she struggled to deal with her abuse, which she had tried to put to the back of her mind instead of talking about it.
“That made her even lower. She tried to change herself, she had no confidence, she didn’t see the beautiful person she is,” said Kristel.
Fiona made two suicide attempts, and told the courts she attempted to change her appearance through plastic surgery: “I had many operations which I see now was a form of self-mutilation. I have the scars to prove it.”
On Tuesday, her father was handed down a 12-year sentence with nine years suspended. For the three years he was due to serve, he was released on bail, pending an appeal.
Justice Paul Carney cited O’Brien’s age and poor health when handing down the sentence. But Kristel said this illness was “laid on for the cameras” and asked if he wasn’t ill at the time of the abuse “why should it matter now?”.
The following night, after the family sat down together, Kristel told the Irish Examiner her mother was seeking a meeting with the Taoiseach.
The next morning, after her call for ameeting appeared in print, Mr Kenny told the Dáil: “I’m quite willing to meet Ms Doyle, to hear her views as a victim of unspeakable horror, as to her perspective on how a victim would see the court system working.”
Amid public outrage over the sentence and pressure on the Government to change sentencing laws, O’Brien appeared back before the courts on Thursday.
In a landmark case, Judge Carney revoked his bail, saying it was “inappropriate and insensitive” and expressed his “profound regret” for the distress caused to Fiona.
The rapist, who Fiona still referred to as “Dad”, was taken away to Arbour Hill Prison without showing remorse.
The decision sent out a strong message to rape victims fearful of not being believed, Fiona said: “Somebody will listen to you.”
And while, according to Kristel, Fiona had “the best sleep in her life” that night, her battle to raise issues around sentencing and how the system treats abuse victims is not over.
A meeting has been arranged between Fiona and the Taoiseach for next Wednesday: “The reason behind that is to show him exactly what victims go through so he can go to the Dáil and say this is what someone has gone through,” said Kristel.
“Three years is not long enough, 12 years is not long enough. They need to set a minimum sentence.”
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