‘I’m not that child anymore and I will no longer be shamed into silence’
Tara Kelly aged 17 in 2006, a year after the sexual assaults on her by Michael King ended. Picture: Tara Kelly
Even with her abuser finally put away, Tara Kelly still struggles to say out loud that she’s a victim of sexual abuse. Because smooth-talking, charming car salesman Micheal King wasn’t violent or aggressive with her as a 16-year-old.
He was her cousin’s husband, part of the family, a happily married father of two, a model employee at the car dealership. What he did to her didn’t fall under the stereotypical vision in her mind of sexual assault. But his grooming was sinister, it was criminal and it slowly tortured her for the next two decades of her life.
“Everything was quite slow and gradual. It wasn’t aggressive or forceful like you would see on TV. I thought it was my fault for a long time,” Tara tells the just a few hours after King, 52, was sentenced at Longford Circuit Criminal Court on Wednesday.
She had earlier sat surrounded by her family to hear Judge Kenneth Connolly sentence King, of Warren View, Boyle, Co Roscommon, to six and a half years in prison with the final year suspended, for 12 counts of grooming and sexual assault of her from December 2004 to September 2005.
The charges ranged from six counts of kissing, one count of putting her hand on his knee, two counts of inappropriately touching her, two counts of putting her hand on him to the 12th and most serious count of performing oral sex on her. King pleaded not guilty and the case went to trial.
The jury found him guilty after a nine-day trial at Roscommon Circuit Criminal Court in March. King wore his blue Martin Reilly Motors shirt every day of the trial.
This week, he cut quite a different figure in baggy jeans and a grey sweatshirt as he waited to hear his fate.
Seven letters of support and character references were handed up to the judge. His now-estranged wife, his father-in-law, sister and one of his six children took to the witness box to implore Judge Connolly not to jail King.
In sentencing, Judge Connolly said Tara was “incredibly brave” and “robust” in giving her evidence. She didn’t shirk from the “horrors” of what she had to say in evidence and under two days of cross-examination.
The jury had unanimously believed her on every count. The judge noted “the sheer radius of destruction” that King, and only King, had caused to both families who had once been close.
“You brought this to bear,” he pointedly told him before passing sentence. And just like that, King was led away and almost three years of legal process came to a quiet close.
While the abuse was going on and after it ended in September 2005, Tara had blocked it out from her mind due to the two families’ close bond. But it meant she had to face her abuser constantly and keep up a front, even after she left home.
“Every time I was home for Christmas, we were such a close family I would have seen him a lot,” she said.
Even seeing his own daughters turn 16, she’d see how young she was herself when King was grooming her. Seeing her parents talking to him sickened her. “I just couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t do it anymore,” Tara said.
Tara bore her secret burden alone for a decade and it took another half a decade to reveal to her inner circle the root cause of her chronic physical pain, unexplainable mental breakdowns, and constantly crying and deep sorrow. The first person she disclosed the abuse to was her first serious boyfriend. When that relationship ended after a couple of years, she was “back to square one again” of carrying the burden alone.
Several years later, she confided in one of her best friends. But still her health didn’t improve. She felt “things weren’t changing for me” like she thought it would after sharing her story. A year later she realised she would have to finally tell her family.
“I can’t imagine being on the other end of hearing that news, but they were fully there for me from day one. They took it very calmly actually but they were distraught,” she said.
They gave Tara the courage to begin to take the next steps. A UK rape crisis centre, where Tara now lives, helped her verbalise her trauma. The UK-based Immigrant Counselling and Psychotherapy (Icap) also helped her prepare for the legal process here in Ireland. In September 2020, exactly 15 years after the assaults ended (the abuse only ended for geographical reasons after the Kelly family moved out of Boyle, the judge noted, not because King decided to stop his assaults) she made a statement to the gardaí.
Icap warned her it would be a “long and tough” journey of possibly three years. It wasn’t far off the mark. Tara said:
Icap staff were as sensitive as she would have expected when it came down to the details of the assaults.
“You’re thinking that you’re going to be really embarrassed saying something and they’re like, ‘Look, we’ve heard it all before’ so you just say what you have to say,” she recalled.
The lead-up to the trial, the court adjournments, the trial itself were all mentally exhausting for her, but she credits her family for getting her through the wait.
“You’d have to pump yourself up in the morning to be ready. We started on the Wednesday and I had to give my evidence the following Tuesday and at that point you’re just drained from pure exhaustion from the concentration,” she said.
She spent two days giving evidence to prosecuting counsel John Hayden BL and being cross-examined by Dara Foynes SC, defence counsel for King.
“I had a lot of panic attacks leading up to that,” she said. Even the thought of walking up to the witness box triggered her.
How did she cope in the end? “I just kept breathing. I don’t know [how] but in the moment I was just like, ‘This is it, I have to do what I have to do’,” she added.
King’s brief apology read out by him in the witness box on Tuesday before he was sentenced made her “shudder at the sound of his voice”.
“It was pathetic. I wasn’t expecting an apology. Nor did I believe anything that was written.
“I actually couldn’t listen to it,” she said.
Is she glad she took on the legal system?
“Yes, 100%. I think it’s going to take a little bit of time for it to sink in, I guess. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.
“I just wanted people to know who he is and what he did. I am relieved it’s over,” she said.
The only time Tara gets too upset to speak in our interview is when we come to the rift King’s actions have caused both the Kelly and King families.
“We were so close, it’s horrible. I still feel like I’m the person taking a father away from his children. For years I thought it was my fault. Now I want him to carry it, the blame,” she said.
Tara has waived her anonymity in the hope that other women who have suffered or are still suffering grooming and sexual assaults can be encouraged to speak up, to find their voices.
“That’s the only reason, to get it known. And just try and encourage people to come forward with their story. The more people that come forward is the only way that we’re going to stop men like him,” she said.
Was there anyone who gave her the courage to speak up? “No. I wish there had been,” she said sadly. She is keen to raise awareness of the insidious nature of grooming, of how difficult it is to notice it and the “emotional effects that happen further down the line”.
More recently, a read of by Sarah Grace, a memoir of a sexual assault survivor, inspired her to keep going.
“I just wish I had all this education and learning about grooming from when I was younger. I probably would have come forward a lot sooner. If I just had the courage,” she added.
She has a message for anyone reading this who may have experienced or are currently going through similar abuse.
“First of all, it’s not your fault. And if you are in an uncomfortable situation, just try and get out.
“I really encourage you to come forward,” she said.
For Tara, King’s sentencing doesn’t change the past but it does have a message of hope.
“It sends out a message that truth will always come out. It is a hopeful story for someone else too, if they are waiting to see if (the legal system) works. It can work in your favour. Sometimes a good result can come out of it, so it’s a hopeful story,” she added.
As she said in her victim impact statement, she has finally found her voice and there’s no stopping her: “I’m not that child anymore and I will not be shamed into silence.”
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