Victim begs for rape crisis funding

As a nine-year-old child, Anne Kelly would lie in bed at night terrified that a baby was about to burst through her belly button.

Her mother had told her this was how babies were born.

Anne had become convinced that she was pregnant and, as this was 1970s Ireland, this meant she “was most certainly, going to hell”. She was terrified.

She couldn’t talk to her parents about her fears, though, as the man who lived down the road from her had warned her that if she disclosed anything to them, they would dispatch her to a children’s home.

For two years, she and her little friend had been sexually abused by pirate radio kingpin, Eamon Cooke. He would “give a certain nod” and they felt no choice but to follow him over to his house and do as he requested.

Cooke, who was later sentenced to jail for 10 years for the abuse of Anne and three others, has been linked to the unexplained disappearance of Phillip Cairns in 1996.

Gardaí attended the hospice where he died this year imploring him to tell them where the nine year-old’s body is. The DJ said he didn’t know what they were talking about.

By the time Anne was nine, Cooke was taking her “naked into the bed” and attempting to penetrate her.

Cooke’s abuse turned Anne, who grew up in Inchicore in Dublin, into a “withdrawn, angry and sulky” young girl who was “frightened of my position in the family” as she was terrified of being kicked out. For years, she would seek comfort in alcohol.

Her lifeline has been the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. It was her father who rang them seeking help for his daughter when she eventually rang him at work, aged 18, to tell him what she had endured.

On RTÉ Radio yesterday, Anne made an impassioned plea to the Government “to restore rape crisis centre funding” which was cut sharply during the economic downturn.

Cooke had started off a nice man, letting Anne and her friends play in his garage and giving them sweets and money when she was aged 7.

“But the nice man withdrew and the threats began.”

The first time he attempted to touch her inappropriately was when she watching a home video that he had made of her and three of her friends dancing the Can-Can,

“I was very confused as nobody had ever touched me that way,” she said. “You know as a child that it’s not right at a deep level.”

When he approached her, Anne would flinch.

“I would hold my breath when he was near me, especially when he was naked” as he stank. “He was physically unbelievably dirty”.

At 18, she reported him to the gardaí and urged others to make a complaint but “they were too afraid”.

He confronted her in a shop where she was working after she made the garda complaint. He demanded 20 Rothmans. She refused to serve him and picked up a knife. He came back twice more to intimidate her including one time with a little girl, aged about 7.

The little girl was in tears in the car before she came into the shop asked for 20 Rothmans. Horrified, she obliged.

“That crucified me for 20 years, I wanted to grab the child,” she said.