Don’t be afraid to come forward, says abuse victim

Simone Flanagan, who was abused by her father over a four-year period when she was a child, yesterday encouraged other victims to report abuse.

“Don’t be afraid to come forward,” the 22-year-old said outside Clonmel courthouse after her father Thomas Ryan, 58, was given a five-year prison sentence for 10 counts of sexual assault.

“There’s always support there, no matter where they are, be it male or female it doesn’t matter, there’s always support there.”

Ms Flanagan said she waived her right to anonymity “so he can’t do it to anybody else — he did it to me for so long... I pray to God he didn’t do it to anybody else”.

She told the gardaí about the abuse in 2014, over five years after the last incident, and said it had been “torture”, in the meantime, carrying her secret. “I had to pretend that everything was okay and carry on as if nothing ever happened, and it was really difficult.”

When the abuse was going on, between 2003 and 2008, her father told her not to tell anyone. “I thought it was normal, he always told me it was normal.”

She decided to report the crimes two years ago. “ I became a lot older and maturer and I realised it wasn’t normal and shouldn’t have went on so my mum needed to know and he needed to be punished for what he did.”

Simone Flanagan with her mother Trish at Clonmel court.

She thanked her mother and brother for their support. “If I didn’t have them by my side I probably wouldn’t be here today.”

Asked how she felt now about her father, the victim said: “I suppose there will always be a part of me that will love him, but never to the extent that I should love him.”

She said “part” of her forgives him for what he did to her, but a part of her doesn’t.

“Maybe in time, I’m not sure.”

In relation to the five-year sentence imposed on Ryan, she said: “No amount of justice is going to give me my childhood back.”

It was “a relief” to have the investigation and court case over and she can now try and move on “and put it into the past and leave it there, if I can at all”.