Garda sergeant awarded €120k for being sexually abused by her cousin when a child

She told the court she brought the case as she does not want her cousin “hurting another child the way he hurt me”

The garda felt she had a duty in her line of work to seek justice and she said she “cannot in good conscience sit down with anybody else who has experienced this if I haven’t gone through the experience of bringing him to justice”.

A High Court judge has awarded €120,000 in damages to a garda sergeant after she claimed she was sexually abused as a child by her cousin.

Mr Justice Alexander Owens said he was “fully satisfied” the woman’s evidence was proof of the matters she complained of. He accepted that the various assaults, as she described them, appeared to be of “escalating severity” during the period.