Abuse victim awarded €450,000

A High Court judge has awarded €450,000 damages to a woman after finding her life was devastated as a result of being sexually abused by a man over a 10-year period, beginning when she was just four years old.

Mr Justice George Birmingham said the €450,000 sum was an appropriate amount of damages former accountant Bernard Delaney must pay Sinead McCarthy-Garofalo for the abuse he inflicted on her throughout her childhood.

He described as “harrowing” the woman’s account of what had happened to her as a result of the abuse and said it “devastated and blighted” every aspect of her life.

Ms McCarthy-Garofalo was too ill to come to court for the ruling yesterday, but in a statement afterwards, her solicitor Elizabeth Howard said the judgment reflected the serious nature of the assaults. The abuse had impacted on three generations of the family, Ms Howard added.

Mr Justice Birmingham said the woman’s belief that her cancer and other illnesses were linked to her abuse was not something the court should dismiss. Kevin Lambe, a clinical psychologist who counselled her, had given “telling” evidence of ranking the abuse suffered as in the top three of hundreds of abuse cases he had dealt with.

As a result of the abuse, Ms McCarthy-Garofalo found it difficult to form relationships with other people and had ended up abusing alcohol and taking drugs, he said.

The abuse affected not just her but also her parents and children, the judge said. Her siblings were all high achievers and he had “every reason” to believe she, too, would have done well in life had it not for been for “the intervention of Bernard Delaney”.

Ms McCarthy-Garofalo, aged 45, of Palmerstown Wood, Dublin, sued Delaney for sexually abusing her on numerous occasions at various locations in Dublin, beginning in 1972 when she was aged four and ending in 1982.

Due to the abuse, she told the court, she has suffered from depression, alcoholism, and found herself unable to form meaningful relationships. She also suffered from anorexia nervosa and cancer, which she believed was linked to her abuse.

Delaney, with an address at Oaktree Lawn, Castleknock, Dublin, was jailed for five years at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in 2008 after he pleaded guilty to sexually and indecently assaulting seven girls during the 1970s and 1980s. A former accountant, he was released from Arbour Hill Prison last year.

Now in his 70s, Delaney had not opposed the action and the case was before the High Court for assessment of damages only. Delaney was not present during the hearing but, following the judge’s ruling yesterday, a lawyer asked to address the court on behalf of him. The judge refused, ruling that the lawyer had no right of audience.

In evidence on Thursday, Ms McCarthy-Garofalo said Delaney had been well known and trusted in her locality and by her parents.

She said her life “went off the rails” as a result of the abuse and she said he “stole my childhood, and others as well” .

She said she blamed herself for what had happened to her and the abuse had made her feel worthless. Her family had been “brilliant” but the worst thing for her was that her parents blamed themselves, she said.