A woman who was raped and sexually assaulted as a teenager by former Irish international swimming coach Derry O’Rourke has said he used her for his “own personal gratification” when she was a vulnerable child and “changed my world, my entire existence, for the worst”.
O’Rourke will be sentenced by Ms Justice Melanie Greally on Wednesday for raping and sexually assaulting the girl 35 years ago.
The Director of Public Prosecutions has submitted O’Rourke’s actions merit a headline sentence ranging from 15 years to life imprisonment.
His victim, now in her forties, was aged 13 and 14 when the offences occurred.
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In the Central Criminal Court on Tuesday, she told O’Rourke he had made her “create a mask for myself, one that kept me silent” and had “moulded my life for years”.
Reading in court from her victim impact statement, the woman noted O’Rourke had told gardaí he did not know her and denied he coached her.
“Isn’t it interesting how I could remember your name and you could not afford me the same dignity?” she said.
“Here are some things I want you to know, you changed my world, my entire existence, it was for the worst,” she said.
It was “unacceptable” for him “to abuse and violate my child’s trust and my body too.”
With complete and utter disregard, he had deliberately used her “for your own personal gratification”, she said. The manipulation of any individual, especially a vulnerable child is abhorrent, she said.
O’Rourke, she told him, “will never realise the way you made me feel and the uncertainties, the inadequacies you installed in me”.
A “huge part” of her choosing not to have children was “because of what you did to me as a child”, she said.
She never wanted to bring a child into the world and have them abused and suffer the fear and shame that she had, and the trauma she still does.
“You made sure to take as much as you could from me and then as a reward leave me with feelings of such inadequacy.”
She told him his “deliberate grooming and abuse of me as a child” led in part to her wanting to escape her life and she had taken an overdose of sleeping tablets. She had chosen to live away from Ireland as a result of what happened, she said.
O’Rourke (78) of Virginia Road, Cavan, who has previous convictions for serious sexual offences against other girls, had denied a series of offences committed against a girl aged between 13 and 14 at the time.
A Central Criminal Court jury last week found him guilty of one count of rape and 11 counts of indecent assault in a school on dates between October 1989 and June 1990.
During the six day trial, the jury was directed by the trial judge to acquit him of four additional charges of indecent assault.
After the verdict, Ms Justice Greally remanded O’Rourke in custody for sentencing.
Just before Tuesday’s hearing began, O’Rourke, using a crutch and wearing a grey sweater and grey trousers, was escorted into court by prison officers.
The judge heard background information from Sgt Amy Kelly and details of O’Rourke’s previous convictions.
In submissions, Patricia McLoughlin SC, for the prosecution, said the DPP views the offending as in the highest category meriting a headline sentence of 15 years to life imprisonment.
Michael Bowman SC, for O’Rourke, said he could not disagree the offending fell into the higher bracket.
At the time of the offences, O’Rourke did not have previous convictions and the appropriate bracket was between 10-15 years, counsel submitted.
His client accepts the verdict of the jury verdict and apologises for what happened and acknowledges the truthfulness of the victim and the impact on her.
O’Rourke is a 78-year-old man with a multiplicity of health conditions, including having previously suffered a stroke and brain tumour, counsel said. He is a father of six children but has no meaningful engagement with any of his children.
Counsel said O’Rourke had instructed he himself was inappropriately interfered with by a school teacher when he was aged eight.
O’Rourke was previously jailed in January 1998 for 12 years after he pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 29 offences involving 11 girls on dates between 1976 and 1992. The charges involved defilement, sexual assault and indecent assault.
In August 2000, he was sentenced to four years in prison on 19 charges involving six girls aged between 10 and 19 years who were all being coached by him. The indecent and sexual assaults took place on dates unknown between July 1970 and December 1992. One offence involved oral sex.
In January 2005, O’Rourke was jailed for 10 years after admitting two charges of rape and two counts of indecent assault on dates from 1975 to 1978 in relation to the victim. That sentence was backdated to March 13th, 2000.
During the latest trial, the woman told Ms McLoughlin SC, prosecuting, O’Rourke had begun as her sports coach while she was a student in secondary school and she was “thrilled that someone had noticed her”.
She was about 13 years old and “looked like a child”, she said. She described herself as being about “four and a half to five stone in weight” “underdeveloped”, “very skinny, with short hair”.
She had trained almost daily, and O’Rourke suggested that he carry out “muscle checks” to help her improve, she said. Those involved him moving his hands up and down on her breasts for some five minutes and telling her she needed “to work harder”.
She had not told anyone about this because she thought it was “legitimate”.
O’Rourke later told her he needed to do additional tests which involved him digitally penetrating her after the breast “checks”. Asked if O’Rourke said anything to her while this was happening, she said he would say, “Good girl,” “just be quiet,” and “we just need to get this done.”
The woman said she had no contact with O’Rourke over that year’s summer holidays. After she resumed training in September, he took her on one occasion to the same room where the alleged indecent assault took place and raped her, she said.
She did not tell her parents about that but told them she would no longer participate in the sport. She was “in a state of shock”, felt “awful”, “violated” and that “the trust had been broken.”
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