Survivor of child rape says she feels bad that rapist’s name cannot be published

A survivor of child rape who has been prevented by court order from waiving her anonymity to allow her abuser to be named, says she feels bad that his name is not going to be published.

The Wicklow woman, now in her early 40s, was repeatedly raped and abused by a neighbour in the late 1980s. The man, now aged 49, was jailed for seven years last May.

At his sentencing the DPP sought and received a court order preventing the publication of the names of either the victim or her rapist. The woman later sought to waive her anonymity but on Thursday, Mr Justice Michael White said he no longer had jurisdiction to alter an order made during a trial that is now finished.

Speaking on Thursday night, the woman said she feels bad about the decision of the court on Thursday.

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She said her motivation in coming forward in 2013 was to stop her abuser from molesting any other children.

“I feel robbed a little bit of my right irrespective of what I was going to do with that information. I feel pretty bad that his name is not going to be out there. It’s like a little win for him.”

She questioned why the judge could not revisit his order and said it made her feel that “the law is focused on removing my rights, not giving me my rights.”

Blame others

The married mother said she is not the kind of person who wants to blame others but said that nobody told her at the sentence hearing in May that she needed to do anything specific in order to be allowed name her abuser.

In her victim impact statement the woman said she had to think long and hard about coming forward when she was approached by gardaí in 2013.

She said she had “tucked away the horror” of what had happened but ultimately decided to come forward “to right this terrible wrong.”

“The abuse I suffered directly affected my self-esteem, lowered my self-confidence and tore apart my self-respect. All of which led to a completely skewed view of intimacy and an inability to form proper relationships with men,” she said.

She described how she was a witness in the long court process with no legal representation or guidance and had to remind herself not to get her hopes up as there was the potential for it all to go wrong.

She told the court, “All I had was the truth and the knowledge I was doing the right thing. The whole process has been overwhelming, extremely emotional and very surreal.”