‘I want to die most days, I feel so broke inside’

Declan Brennan

The victim of a child rapist has told a court how a Mayo man sexually and mentally tortured him for 12 years, while the suspect’s daughter, who he also raped, has described how her father destroyed her life.
The man, still a resident of Mayo, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 20 charges of oral and anal rape of the boy between August 1997 and April 2008. He also pleaded guilty to 11 charges of raping his daughter. These attacks started in mid-2007 and continued regularly for two years.
To protect the victims’ identities, the man cannot be named. The court heard that rumors in the local rural community led to his complete exclusion and he appeared in court without any support.
After hearing the facts in the case, Judge Tony Hunt adjourned sentencing until December to allow time for the defense to obtain a medical report.

To polish
The court heard the first victim had a broken home life. The suspect, a friend of the boy’s stepfather, took the then ten-year-old boy under his wing and told him how “special he was.”
In his victim impact report, the man, now 31 years old, said this meant so much to him as a boy because he had no other father figure in his life. He said he was unaware of the man’s real motives and that the suspect was very cunning and cunning in his grooming.
The first oral rape attack took place during a fishing trip in remote Mayo. The victim said he felt numb, sick, scared, alone and lonely at that moment.
The rapes, including anal rape, continued twice a week, well into the victim’s 20s. In his mid-teens, the victim moved in with his abuser because his home life had become so cruel and neglectful, with no food in the house or clothes on his back.
The court heard he felt he had no choice but to move in with the suspect and had convinced himself the abuse would stop.
At the age of 20, the man said he still felt like a scared 10-year-old boy and a “beaten dog.”
“He made me believe that I was worthless and that he was the only one who cared about me,” he said. He was 22 when the abuse stopped, 12 years after it started.

Terrified
The man’s daughter was 14 years old when he first raped her. He had accused her of lying to him and had taken her for a walk along a golf course.
When they reached some sand dunes, he told her, “I’m going to fuck you for lying.” He then told her to lie on the ground and raped her. The woman later told investigators she was terrified.
The rapes continued weekly and became ‘a routine’ for her. The court heard the man had complete physical and mental control over his daughter, dictating who she could meet or speak to.
The man only had to say that he “felt stressed” for the victim to know that he was going to rape her. In her victim report, the woman says she was very afraid of her father.
She said her father would threaten her and once told her he would kill her. She was too scared to go to sleep because she suffered from night terrors and dreamed about the abuse.
She said she self-harmed to cope with the effects of the abuse, later turning to alcohol and drugs. She said she was terrified of getting help, didn’t want to relive the abuse and didn’t think it would help.
“I don’t care about my life. I want to die most days, I feel so broken inside,” she said.
She said she “can’t stand” men and believed there was something in every man that made him capable of rape. She said she “freaks out” at the prospect of sex in a relationship.
The male victim said he felt nothing but hatred and disgust for his abuser and also for himself for not speaking out. He said the man was a ‘manipulative pedophile’ who had stolen his self-worth and his ‘entire being’.
“The damage this animal has done to my mental health will last until my dying breath. I don’t know who I am,” he said.
He said he fought suicide and left his own children with a father “incapable of compassion.”
After his arrest, the man initially claimed he was in a relationship with the male victim. The court found this to be untrue and the man accepted to gardaí that nothing he did could be justified or right. He said he was grateful the victims came forward because he couldn’t live with the guilt.
“I’m sorry. I feel complete hatred for myself,” he said. He also claimed that he himself was a victim of child sex abuse.
Mr Justice Hunt said that even with all the help in the world, the man’s actions had changed the course of his victims’ lives ‘for the worse’. But he said he had spared himself a life sentence by pleading guilty to the crimes. He then postponed sentencing until December.