Woman: Seven-year term for rapist father, 77, is good

A woman whose father raped and sexually abused her as a young girl has described his seven-year jail term as “a good outcome”.

Outside the Criminal Courts of Justice yesterday, Rita Broderick, 46, said the abuse had ruined her life. “I’m struggling with mental health problems,” she said. “I can’t work right now. He stole my childhood.”

Ms Broderick, who lives in Denver, Colorado, waived her right to anonymity so her father could be named.

James Broderick, aged 77, of Lyster St, Athlone, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to sample charges which included three rapes and three indecent assaults in the family home in Athlone, Co Westmeath, on dates between January 1983 and September 1984.

The abuse began when Ms Broderick was aged four and the family lived in Manchester. It continued when they moved to Athlone when she was 13 and ended when, as a 15-year-old, she lashed out and ran from the house.

Suspending eight years of a 15-year jail term, Mr Justice Hunt said the manner of Broderick’s confession was a mitigating factor but “not sufficiently extraordinary” to justify a non-custodial sentence.

An investigation began after Broderick voluntarily arrived at Athlone Garda Station in November 2011 to report his abuse of his daughter. He made a statement the following January outlining the abuse and rape of Ms Broderick in the family home from 1982 to 1984.

Ms Broderick did not accept her father’s confession should be a mitigating factor. “I give him no credit, to be honest with you,” she said. “He did not go in of his own accord. He asked my older brother ‘what can I do for Rita?’ and Gary said turn yourself in. If it wasn’t for [Garda sergeant] Andrew Haran, none of this would have continued.”

Ms Broderick described her childhood as “a war zone” and said the skills she used to help her survive the abuse by her father have cost her dearly in her adult life.

She said that the constant abuse meant that she had to disassociate to allow her to cope and now she suffers from dissociative identity disorder.

“I have many distinct personalities sharing my body and I am surviving that abuse for many personalities,” Ms Broderick said, before she added that her father’s actions “physically, emotionally, and socially raped her”.