Wheelchair user jailed for indecently assaulting girl

A wheelchair user has been sentenced to five years in prison for indecently assaulting a girl during the 1980s.

Martin Davoren, aged 61, from Corcullen, Moycullen, Co Galway, pleaded guilty before Galway Circuit Criminal Court in March to 12 sample charges of indecently assaulting Sarah Clancy at various locations near Barna on dates between September 1, 1986, and July 31, 1988.

Following sentence last Friday afternoon, Judge Rory McCabe agreed to put a stay on the commencement of the sentence until yesterday to give prison authorities time to make arrangements for Davoren’s care.

Ms Clancy waived her right to anonymity at the sentence hearing.

Sergeant Senan Wall said Davoren had sexually assaulted Ms Clancy when she was aged between 13 and 15. He was 32 at the time.

Davoren, the court heard, had been paralysed from the waist down in a road traffic accident when he was 22.

Davoren was interviewed while in hospital, where he was suffering from an MRSA infection, as a complication of other, more life-threatening illnesses. He admitted to some of the abuse allegations.

Sgt Wall said Ms Clancy had gone on to work in the horse industry all over the world and was now a horse riding instructor. She has worked with Amnesty International and with people with disabilities, and is a published poet, he added.

In her victim impact statement, Ms Clancy said Davoren, as a wheelchair user, had done all he could do to her when assaulting her.

“The abuse finally stopped when I became old and assertive enough to stop it,” she said. “It did not end because of any action on his part to stop it.

“He assaulted me as frequently as he could and to the full extent that he was able and over as long a period of time as he could.”

Looking back, she said, she realised Davoren had spent time and effort grooming her for the abuse.

Before the physical abuse began, Davoren began to manipulate her mind, Ms Clancy said.

“He would say I was ‘an awful woman’, that he was doing me a favour, that I’d never be able to get a boyfriend because something was wrong with me, and that I made him do everything.”

Davoren apologised in open court to Ms Clancy and said he hoped she would find closure now. John Hogan, defending, said his client had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and had expressed genuine and sincere remorse for his actions.

Judge McCabe

said the proper sentence in this case was five years in prison on each charge, to run concurrently. Davoren was placed on the sex offenders register.